There's a line from the theme song of an old '70s TV cop show that goes, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." That's good advice. But it's lost on some United Kingdom eco-protestors; you may remember these people pulling such shenanigans as gluing themselves to roadways and throwing paint on sculptures and other priceless works of art. These people have blocked roads, interfering with their fellow citizens' rights to travel unimpeded. They have forced people to sit in their cars, spewing emissions, while they indulge their fantasies of climate justice.
Now some of them are - at last - facing jail time for interfering with their neighbors. They aren't happy about it.
As right-wing rioters attacked communities with racist violence across parts of the UK last month, 22-year-old climate activist Cressie Gethin sat in a prison cell.
Her crime? Organizing a disruptive protest against new government-granted licenses to drill for oil — a planet-heating fossil fuel — in the North Sea.
In late July, a London court found Gethin and four other members of the Just Stop Oil activist group guilty of “conspiring intentionally to cause a public nuisance,” after recruiting protesters to climb structures along the M25 — a major ring road around London — bringing traffic to a standstill in parts over four days in November 2022.
This CNN report - we've all had some recent lessons on how "impartial" CNN can be - starts with a bad premise. This piece shamefully compares eco-nuts gluing themselves to roads with people protesting unchecked immigration into the United Kindom. While, yes, there have been confrontations, they are pretty evenly divided between the protestors and the immigrants.
CNN surely knows that a tu quoque argument is not a valid legal defense. The crimes committed by these eco-protesters, who even CNN admits blocked traffic all over London for four days, all in the nebulously-defined cause of anthropogenic climate change, are not mitigated by other possible crimes committed elsewhere. That's a stupid argument even by CNN's standards.
The sentences they are facing are serious, but it's not disproportionate.
Prosecutors alleged that the protests, organized over a Zoom call, disrupted more than 700,000 drivers, caused economic damage of over £760,000 ($980,000) and racked up £1 million ($1.3m) in policing costs.
Now Gethin and three others — Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw and Lucia Whittaker-De-Abreu, who planned the disruption on the call — are serving four-year jail terms, while Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam was given five years. All are appealing.
"All are appealing?" That's got to be a minority opinion. There isn't anything appealing about nuts blocking their fellow citizens from going to work, medical appointments, or other legitimate business.
Of course, CNN means "appealing" in the legal sense, and it remains to be seen how that will come out. But four years doesn't seem out of line for an act that had an entire English city tied up in knots for four days.
The judge in this case appears to agree.
They place the act of planning a “public nuisance” event, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, on a similar footing as violent crimes like robbery, for which punishments range from community service to 12 years’ jail, or rape, which is four to 19 years.
The judge — who in court referred to the activists as “extremists” — justified the long jail terms because all five activists had previously been convicted of one or more offenses in relation to direct action protest. Each were on bail for another set of proceedings when the Zoom call took place. He also noted people missed important doctor’s visits and funerals because of the protest.
So, the protestors are repeat offenders, to boot.
See Related: This Isn't Science, It Is Propaganda: NASA Is Indoctrinating Kindergartners on Climate Change
The judge is right in every respect here. These protesters are in support of a cause that can't even be rigorously defined. They are interfering with ordinary people who demonstrate insufficient zeal for the cause of anthropogenic climate change, including, ironically, many people who may otherwise be sympathetic to their cause.
And that's the great flaw in these protesters' actions. In the name of climate change, they are interfering with their fellow citizens' right to unimpeded travel on the roads built with their tax dollars. In the name of climate change, elsewhere in Europe, eco-protesters are committing acts of vandalism, including defacing priceless works of art.
It's time some of these people faced some serious consequences.
We must never forget that these people, in the name of "climate change," will gladly force us to surrender our modern technological lifestyle in the name of furthering their goal. We have already seen what lengths they are willing to go to. And they aren't done yet.
