photo by Jody Boehnert (ecolabs on Flickr CC)
The activists at the recent Climate Camp in Scotland have stirred up controversy and debate, at least in the little corner of the media that pays attention to climate change activism.
After a day of ‘climate action’ on Monday, during which several windows were broken at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) headquarters in Edinburgh, 12 Climate Camp protesters were arrested.
A group of Climate Camp protesters intentionally broke the law. One of them, Dan Glass, explains their motivation in a comment piece for the Guardian entitled ‘Yes, we broke the law as climate change activists. And this is why’.
Glass sees the current protests and (sometimes) illegal actions as part of the tradition of important grass roots political protest:
We do so because we believe this is justified, proportionate and necessary in the face of catastrophic climate change, and that the negative consequences of our actions are more purposeful than the consequences of continued inaction. Sometimes, we believe, we have to break the law to disrupt lawful activities that are harming the prospects of future generations.
Indeed if one compares, for example, a handful of fines ranging from £300 to £700 each with, say, the disastrous floods in Pakistan – which have been linked by some scientists to man made climate change – the fines are a small price to pay. One of the UK’s best-known barristers used just this argument in support of the ‘Climate 9’.
Basically, the fact that no significant action is being taken to prevent further catastrophic climate events spurs some climate activists to break the law. Those who disagree with them might call them terrorists, criminals, hippies, thugs and anti-democratic. This could be due to political convictions or a strong, at times even naïve, faith in the law – in whatever form it may take.
Another objection to Climate Camp’s ‘undemocratic’ behavior comes from the press, who experienced some frustration at being restricted by both the protesters and the police. Mark Vallée expresses this in another opinion piece in the Guardian entitled ‘Climate Camp is restricting free speech’.
Vallée sees restrictions on the media as counterproductive to the cause of climate change activism, which benefits from positive exposure:
That is why the camp should open up and stop its attempts to control the media. These only serve to restrict free speech and risk backfiring by alienating journalists – the very people in the best position to help spread that message.
Strict interpretations of the law aside, some common sense has to be applied here. Climate Camp is not Al Qaeda. Playing mini golf with plastic clubs at Scotland’s Aberdeen airport is meant to garner attention via annoyance, not by causing terror. It did result in court convictions, however.
As an article in The Ecologist points out, a 2008 English court found in favor of the defendants – 6 Greenpeace activists – who temporarily shut down Kingsnorth coal plant in Kent and caused some £35,000 (€43,000/$54,000) in damage to property.
The difference, as pointed out by The Ecologist article, is that the Kingsnorth protest directly affected a big evil corporation and drew public sympathy. Shutting down airports and being a nuisance usually doesn’t.
So basically, law or no law, righteous or no, it’s all about PR these days – even direct action.
Read more about this point in the Ecologist article: Climate activism: is the trial more important than the protest?
Additional resources:
BBC News: Police arrest 12 activists in climate change protest
