{"id":364223,"date":"2025-02-02T16:34:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T15:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=364223"},"modified":"2025-02-02T16:34:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T15:34:50","slug":"legal-appeal-climate-clowns-did-what-they-did-out-of-sacrifice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=364223","title":{"rendered":"Legal Appeal: Climate Clowns \u201cdid what they did out of sacrifice\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essay by<\/strong> Eric Worrall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026 they argued judges defied decades of precedent by ignoring their conscientious motives. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Climate activists \u2018did what they did out of sacrifice\u2019, appeal court told<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers invoke philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Henry David Thoreau in bid to have long sentences of 16 protesters quashed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Damien Gayle<\/a>
Thu 30 Jan 2025 05.02 AEDT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Henry David Thoreau were aired in the court of appeal on Wednesday as 16 climate activists sought to convince England\u2019s most-senior judge to quash their long sentences for disruptive acts of civil disobedience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The appellants, prosecuted in four separate trials last year, appeared at a mass appeal in London before a panel led by Lady Justice Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, where they argued judges defied decades of precedent by ignoring their conscientious motives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had received sentences ranging from 15 months to five years<\/a> after taking part in various protests in 2022 as part of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign, which called for a moratorium on oil exploration in the North Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the 16 was Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, whose five-year sentence for planning roadblock protests on the M25<\/a> is thought to be longest ever handed out in the UK for non-violent protest; Larch Maxey, sentenced to three years for tunnelling beneath the road leading to an Essex oil refinery; and Phoebe Plummer, imprisoned for two years for throwing tomato soup on the glass covering Van Gogh\u2019s Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery.

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are the only known examples of punishment of peaceful protesters in which no reduction at all was made for such motivation,\u201d said documents filed with the court by the applicants.

\u2026Read more:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2025\/jan\/29\/hannah-arendt-and-henry-david-thoreau-invoked-in-court-by-climate-protesters<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In my opinion the protestors actions went well beyond any reasonable definition of acceptable protest. By forcibly inflicting their deranged extremism on others, the protestors caused outrage and distress, incited violence from people desperate to get home to their kids or to their jobs, and likely cost lives by blocking roads used by emergency services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Angry English Commuters Attack Extinction Rebellion Climate Protestors<\/a><\/blockquote>