Activists Spared Prison Time for Planning Direct Action

Yeah, sure, coal-fired power might be one of the leading contributors to climate change, but don't expect politicians to do anything about it. Even in Europe, where efforts to combat global warming are further along than in the U.S., rather than phase out carbon-intensive coal, lawmakers have chosen to continue subsidizing it with billions of dollars of their constituents' money.

Concerned inaction could ultimately destroy the planet, and with a load of scientific data to back them up, a group of British activists decided to do something about it. And no, I don't mean politely asking their elected officials to stop spending taxpayer dollars helping multinational corporations mine and burn evermore coal – they already tried that. I mean direct action: taking power into their own hands.

As Zachary Shahan reports on the Environment blog, climate activists in the U.K. decided to try to shut down the country's third largest coal plant, owned by German firm E.ON. But in Minority Report-esque move, British police in April 2009 pre-emptively arrested 114 activists on suspicion that they were planning to trespass on private property – property that, again, E.ON was able to secure with the help of lucrative state subsidies, to go along with its immunity from financial responsibility for the environmental cost of its product.

At trial, 20 of the activists were convicted of “conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass,” a charge that could have seen them subjected to significant prison time. But in a Wednesday ruling, Judge Jonathan Teare – describing the activists as “honest” and “conscientious” – spared them, instead sentencing the climate campaigners to probation and community service.

"You are all decent men and women with a genuine concern for others, and in particular for the survival of planet Earth in something resembling its present form,” Teare said, according to The Guardian. “I have no doubt that each of you acted with the highest possible motives. And that is an extremely important consideration."

Indeed, as Pat Nolan of Prison Fellowship Ministries said at last month's launch of the conservative “Right on Crime” campaign, all too often people are sentenced to prison time when they lack evil intent – previously the key determination for whether someone should be forcibly separated from society. While one may disagree with the activists' tactics, it's clear that they acted – or rather, intended to act – based on the best of intentions. Tax dollars shouldn't be wasted putting people like that behind bars. Since they intended to perform a community service, sentencing them to perform some more sounds about right to me.

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Photo Credit: Ian Usher