UKH

No wonder the prisons are full….

Id have been well pis**d of in that queue but 4 or 5 years!!?

In reply to Abr:

Que?

In reply to aln:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c880xjx54mpo

In reply to Abr:

Add up the collective economic damage caused by the delays and the collective misery to those caught up in it and it doesn't seem unreasonable.

Furthermore, there's no reason to suppose that this sort of action has the intended effect anyway. Indeed it strikes me as no coincidence that since XR, Insulate Britain and JSO started doing these stunts that climate scepticism has noticeably increased.

Pissing people off generally isn't a good way to win them over to your cause.

In reply to aln:

Stop oil protestors (or similar, didn't quite catch the actual group).

Climb on a motorway gantry so police stopped traffic. 5 year jail sentences.

Harsher sentences than if you got pissed, drove the wrong way up the same motorway, caused a multiple pile up with multiple injuries, causing the police to close the motorway to clean up the carnage and investigate.

Nice to see where the law's priorities are.

Edit - didn't realise it was 4 days, but still excessive IMHO.

In reply to Abr:

Totally excessive. You can get less time for killing someone with careless or dangerous driving. It's time to bring in the Scandinavian system of working for the community for 5 days a week for a couple of years, home at weekends. Litter picking, activities for young people, decorating, fence repairs, gardening etc.

In reply to pec:

Delays in large part caused by law enforcement closing the road (against well prepared protestors with no intent of failing off the gantries) and taking 4 days to resolve the situation.

Most of the impact XR achieves is a result of them exploiting procedural and capability gaps in law enforcement.

They’re very unusual criminals in that they know exactly what they’re doing.  Look at their grins when sentenced.  Most crimes are people doing what they want, for XR it’s almost entirely about exploiting the system to maximise disruption.

The only way to win is not to play.

Some years back I went out onto the street at 2 am to stop my neighbour from beating up his girlfriend.  In doing this I risked both injury (or worse) or criminal allegations against me.  I called 999 first but I wasn't going to wait for them because I could hear her screams and I knew what the response time was likely to be from previous incidents.  I endured two months of harassment before going to court to testify against him.  It was his third such offence, and he got 2 weeks suspended for 6 months.  We had to move in the end with a £20k loss.  Yet we’re going to sentence people to 5 years for climbing a gantry?  This is not how you win public support for the justice system.

In reply to pec:

I was was in court 4 weeks ago giving an opinion on the consequences of coercive but non penetrative sexual abuse on a minor and the impact on their mental health and development. It was significant in my view….it was sentencing today….18 months.

which do you think is the greater crime?

In reply to Abr:

We can all find multiple examples of sentencing inconsistency if we look, like the couple who got a year for doing a runner from restaurants. Judges seem to live in cloud cookoo land.

But the collective cost to the taxpayer and the wider economy was huge and the misery (missed medical appointments, wedding, funerals etc) is incalculable.

I see everyone is ignoring the bit about such protests being counterproductive in their self righteous indignation.

In reply to pec:

I didn’t have you pegged as a fan of Captain Bucky O’Hare.

There’s a very genuine debate to be had about the difference between accumulated harm over many people and concentrated harm to a few people, and how that speaks to sentencing.  You’re without for emotional digs instead it seems.

A single murder can’t be reversed, a few dozen missed hospital appointments and weddings can be mitigated by doing them later.  If there’s harm from a no-fault missed hospital appointment that’s as much on the state for not being able to accommodate it in a timely fashion.  After all, weddings and hospital appointments are missed for non criminal reasons such as car crashes causing congestion all the time.

There’s some real culture war shit at work here.

In reply to wintertree:

The article says 51,000 hours were lost (by all the people disrupted). 51,000/24/365=5.8 years. I wonder if that's the logic the judge followed when sentencing. I can't imagine there's a precedence for this kind of thing.

In reply to elliot.baker:

I get this.  But when it comes to adding consequences, it’s not mathematically associative.

Even if we assume things add as you give, a single death by dangerous driving, on average, is going to take away about 40 years (half an average lifespan).

So even if we take the additive route, this looks sketchy.  Even before we consider a dangerous driver takes a life directly but most of the lost time here is because of a state response that took multiple days to deal with a small situation.

In reply to pec:

Wow…

In reply to elliot.baker:

Yep agreed….

slippery slope though isn’t it….sentances based on economic/social consequence….topical as the Covid virus inquiry starts reporting…

In reply to wintertree:

You're right, never heard of him

Neither can missed funeral, you can't cremate the ashes again.

Seriously? You're going to ask the happy couple to get married again because some clowns blocked the motorway stopping you from getting there?

Not much consolation if your cancer diagnosis is delayed until it's too late.

I take it from that that you're also ignoring the real possibility that these protests do more harm than good to the cause?

I'm not an anti net zero climate change denier if that's what you think. But nobody is won over to the cause because they had to spend 8 hours sitting in a traffic jam because some sanctimonious tossers think they can subvert the democratic process.

In reply to pec:

You are correct.  But a murder victim can’t be brought back from the dead.  However, I have missed a funeral due to reasons beyond my control  and I was still able to visit the grave afterwards to pay my respects.  I’m staggered that you’d try to draw an equivalence here.

Sometimes weddings get postponed due to circumstances beyond the couple’s control.  They manage.  Yes it sucks but we’re talking about sentence lengths for murder vs delayed wedding.  One can be mitigated, one can’t.

As I clearly said, the state should be able to accommodate a 1-day delay in making a diagnosis.  The tories have destroyed healthcare  to the point it can’t.  If my brakes failed and I caused a crash delaying a cancer screening, leading to death, would you sentence me to 15 years?  The fault lies elsewhere.

No.  I have a few posts on here making clear my contempt for their approach - once recently (much disliked BTW).  I  think they harm their cause far more than they help it by enabling culture war bullshit, but I think the state over the last decade has played right in to it amplifying the consequences for the people caught up in it.

I never thought or said that.

I fully agree; my point - spelt out - was that they’re -wilfully - exploiting our current systems.  We need to adapt our enforcement. Sentencing them as we are is massively leaning in to their strategy and opens massive culture war issues as distributed minor harm is not equivalent to punctate major harm.  I’d far rather their disruptions were tackled more abruptly than to let them play out and then sentence based on the large accumulation of small impacts.

In reply to pec:

I agree but it's irrelevant to what is clearly judicial double standards. Also if a fraction of the judge's reported behaviour here is true, bias. That transcripts are effectively secret doesn't help.

Are judges assessed in any way ? E.g proportion of cases overturned on appeal?

In reply to wintertree:

Well said.

If we are going to take economic damage and other risks that seriously the police need to be more efficient and effective in dealing with incidents. It used to horrify me when the police followed their 'closing the motorway for a fatality' process in really bad winter weather leaving thousands stranded and hundreds at significant risk from hypothermia.

I'd have advised leaving the protesters up there and just reducing the speed of the motorway below and then, in the middle of the night, putting up a diversion and getting them down.

In reply to pec:

Protest isn't a subversion of the democratic process, it's a fundamental part of it.

In reply to Abr:

I'm dubious about Just Stop Oil but years in prison for peaceful protest is deeply disturbing. 

In reply to pec:

Following this logic we should have sentenced Boris's cabinet to 5 years for their COVID policy

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Truss & Kwarteng would be up for life.  Overnight they did more economic harm than Just Stop Oil ever will.

In reply to pec:

I don't like to downvote. But if I did....

In reply to pec:

Nicely put. I very much doubt we'd be seeing the same self-righteous indignation you accurately describe if it were Nigel Farage up on those gantries protesting about high levels of immigration. So in some sense wintertee is right to identify a culture war dimension to this, just not in the way he imagines.

If you want the kind of radical change being advocated by JSO then get yourself a mandate, ideally by being elected to government through the existing democratic process. Just stop oil? How about just stop pretending that such lawbreaking is somehow comparable to the fight for universal suffrage or against Apartheid in South Africa where no democratic option was available.

In reply to Abr:

I think it's excessive, but I do think we need to use shorter prison sentences more often as they're far more of a deterrent than fines and community service, certainly for things like assaults and thefts (e.g. the present epidemic of theft from retail).  Yes, there's a prison place shortage, but that can and should be resolved.

I'd have given them a year with the option for release at 6 months for good behaviour.

In reply to Ridge:

I know of someone (son of friend of friend) who recently got sentenced to slightly less for rape.

In reply to Luke90:

So is abiding by the law. The two are not mutually exclusive.

In reply to Dexter:

 They shouldn't be. But most meaningful protest was criminalised under the Tories, depending on how the police and courts choose to interpret the law.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Are they? I thought there was ample evidence they aren't, and in fact are counter productive because them totally screw peoples wider lives (jobs, family, housing) leading to more crime subsequently.

In reply to Abr:

I wonder what Timpson thinks to it.

In reply to nastyned:

It's all down to their attitude.

If it was a one off, spur of the moment thing they would have just got a ticking off. 

Because it's a repeated offence with threats to repeat it over and over then punishment becomes an effective deterrent for them and for others.

Those above comparing the lesser punishment for violent crimes are missing that the criminals in those cases may claim they are sorry and won't do it again. If they turned around and said I'm going to violently attack someone every week and they had a load of mates being spurred on to do the same thing they'd be locked up indefinitely one way or another.

In reply to pec:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/07/disruptive-protest-helps-not-...

Seven out of ten "experts" would also disagree with you on this point.

In reply to Abr:

4-5 years seems an incredibly long time for a non-violent crime. I've often wondered if these protesters are purposefully trying to get sent to prison, although I can't really work out why you would do that. 

In reply to smbnji:

Sounds like the experts are at variance with public opinion.

In reply to Tom Valentine:t

Indeed, that's the point of the article 

In reply to pec:

4 years for blocking a motorway, but that bloke who was going to murder Holly Willoughby got a two months suspended sentence for trying to kidnap a woman on a train

It's almost like sentences are handed out based on the media exposure of the case and to "send a message" rather than through a sensible criminal justice system. Honestly this is pretty outrageous, the Judge who gave them 4 years should face actual consequences for this.

In reply to Abr:

Absurd. The state here is well and truly on the wrong side of history. Time will tell if this government has the morals and spine to properly unwind the populist abuses of the last.

jk

In reply to elliot.baker:

They'll have just been following the draconian guidelines laid down by the last government as part of their culture war against the woke crusty leftists or whatever. The judge may well find the whole thing as revolting as I do but they have a job to do.

jk

In reply to wintertree:

True.

In reply to montyjohn:

With prisons bursting at the seams and public opinion increasingly for climate action and against draconian punishment of protestors the harsh punishment becomes the protest. We're baking in now the kind of problems we did in Northern Ireland.

jk

In reply to Andrew Wells:

The error there is primarily the latter in my view.

In reply to MG:

Well, from a personal perspective I'd rather hand over £5000 than my liberty for even a month.  But then I suppose I'm not a habitual criminal.

But let's put it this way - if the penalty for speeding was even a week's imprisonment I'd be far more careful not to accidentally go over (I don't tend to deliberately speed) than with it just being financial at present.

In reply to jkarran:

Could be. It's a fine balance between nipping something in the bud and baking in long term problems. Couldn't say which way this one falls. But to me it's clear what and why this punishment is as harsh as it is.

In reply to Abr:

The prison system is busting at the seams. Putting these five away for two years or so will cost around £600k. What a bargain. Clearly the judge intends this as a deterrent but this is way over the top. I wonder what Truss and Kwarteng should get for extraordinary incompetence in public office? Probably a place in the Lords one day. 

In reply to smbnji:

and in nature

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02082-5

and Psychology today

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-...

In reply to Abr:

I'm certainly no climate change denier, but some of those road blocks were delaying ambulances on their way to emergencies. If you block roads there will be unintended consequences which they should be considered responsible for. 

In reply to Andrew Wells:

What would be fair for stopping an ambulance reaching a patient? 

In reply to ExiledScot:

Was it not the police that blocked the road..?

In reply to smbnji:

Was that before or after people glued their hands to the tarmac? 

In reply to Dexter:

Farage has a massive platform regularly provided to him by the BBC on Question Time among many other media opportunities which give way more visibility than dangling from a gantry, Just Stop Oil protesters don't and were using stunts like this to get people's attention, partly because many people felt that the previous government didn't care about its citizens, or their views, unless there was a way to get more money into the pockets of MPs and their mates.

Look at what happened with PR/ electoral reform at the 2022 Labour conference, there was a huge groundswell of support for it, and the leadership rejected it. The only other party with a hope of implementing it is the Tory Party, we are more likely to see their former leader putting his genitals in a dead pig's mouth on National TV than getting an announcement they support reform. Even if you are one of the 45%+ who believe that the system needs to change, you have no democratic lever to pull beyond peaceful protest:

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/long-running-survey-finds-majority-supp...

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/should-we-change-our-current-...

If there is something with a groundswell of support from citizens there needs to be a way of forcing it onto the political agenda which can be enacted without JSO style protests, or threats of violence (Israel/ Gaza particularly coming to mind). This could include making it easier to start a recall petition for an MP so that people like Jared O'Mara, or Liz Truss can be removed from positions of influence once their constituents conclude they no longer wish to be represented by them.

In reply to phizz4:

Which countries do this? I lived in Finland for a long time (not technically Scandinavia) and they did do things like weekend release or day release for work but not that extensively and seemed to have lots of problems with their prisons much like we have in the UK. Sweden is seeing a real wave of pretty horrible gun violence (and other forms) in the last half a decade or so, so I've wondered if they will move towards a more oppressive penal system than they have currently. Norwegian prisons have a good reputation, don't know much about Denmark.

In reply to ExiledScot:

That is not the protest under discussion...

In reply to smbnji:

Although Q12, specifically about these type of climate protests, the majority of "experts" do not think they have a positive effect on government policy/corporate behaviour/public opinion? 

In reply to ExiledScot:

Certainly not 4 years in prison, but this is highly reductionist. 

I don't agree with the effectiveness of their tactics, I think they harm themselves more than help, but a prison sentence? For a non violent protest? Ludicrous. 

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

All I get from these is nobody knows if non-violent disruptive protests are better or worse for a movement than either non-violent non-disruptive protests or violent protests.

The Guardian article is meaningless- it just says "Nearly seven in 10 of academics surveyed rated disruptive protest tactics as “at least quite important” to success of a movement". No evidence, just opinion with a 1:2 ratio of experts (suggesting no clear evidence and/or that academics are significantly biased by their prior opinions) and a fairly cherry-picked survey output ("at least quite important" is suprisingly weak - if you want clear evidence they should be looking for signifcantly important at least... ).

The Nature article is very clear "Less is known about the relative impacts of non-violent but disruptive tactics. “Is it better to throw soup on a painting, or block traffic, or glue yourself to something?” says Dana Fisher, a sociologist at American University in Washington DC. “We don’t know which is the most effective.”" (Italics mine).  This article mainly focusses on violent vs non-violent where the evidence seems clearer (neither is better - depends on context and level of background support, non-violent with repressive response suprisingly good for improving support...)

The Psychology article is more nuanced - but specifically does not consider disruptive action (their example of "nonviolent nonnormative protest" is a refusal to pay municipal fines). And I'd not reference this as a peer-reviewed piecve of evidence, it reads like an opinion piece, with one named reviewer.

In reply to Andrew Wells:

I can only think that the sentences are intended primarily as a deterrent to others rather than proportionate punishment. 

In reply to Robert Durran:

Which is absolutely disgraceful. These people are getting sentences that are insane solely because of some Tory culture war nonsense legislation that then a Judge has interpreted to put them behind bars for longer than you get for raping someone, or killing them in a car crash while asleep at the wheel. It won't work as a deterrent (sentencing never does) it doesn't remotely help anyone in society, it's costing the taxpayer money and it's reflective of the shabby state of criminal "justice" in this country 

As a point of note the same Judge gave deliberately driving a car into 10 Downing Street's gates and possessing indecent images of children a suspended sentence.

In reply to Abr:

Life without parole for oil executives and politicians for their failure to act to limit global warming would make more sense to me.

In reply to pec:

What prison sentences will be justified by the "economic damage and collective misery" caused by climate change, ten or twenty or fifty years down the line? And who will receive those sentences?

(Nobody, thats who. These people were harshly punished to serve as a deterrent to those who might interfere with the economic system that is menacing our future and that of our children.)

In reply to Andrew Wells:

I'm not sure the traditional arguments apply here. Most offenders don't consider the consequences because they don't think they'll be caught or the crime is an act of impulse. However, your typical Crispin and Cressida* are going to think long and hard before climbing up on that gantry if a prison stretch awaits, rather than a slap on the wrist.

* I could be wrong about this. I think we established in another thread that they were mostly electricians

In reply to the thread

Grossly unfair and cruel. The actions of the judge were a disgrace.

In reply to Abr:

It think it said there was an estimated 51,000 hours wasted by people stuck in traffic, naturally, I did the maths and this works out at about 5.8 years of wasted time. So it seems fitting those who caused it now get to experience what 5 years of wasted time feels like.

Protest is one thing, we have a right to express our views but what they were doing was boarding on domestic terrorism. 

In reply to Abr:

It's unusual for me to take this position, but I think those sentences are fair.

XR are the equivalent of this year's blonde for protesters.  If this is what it takes to drive home the message that protesting in this way is a really dumb idea, then go for it.  There are other ways to protest; use them.

T.

Perhaps a decent custodial sentence suspended for 10 years would be appropriate. Reoffend and take the consequences. 

I deplore their tactics causing massive disruption to the general public, and don't get me started on that bloke who sat on the tube train roof.

In reply to 65:

I knew someone who serially raped four of his sisters over the course of many years, the youngest being eight. He got five years too. 

As they say, the law is an ass. 

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

Nonsense. It was absolutely not an act of terrorism.

I see everyone is ignoring the bit about such protests being counterproductive in their self righteous indignation.

Because it is not relevant - the problem is not being found guilty, it is the obscene sentences and definite stench of political factors. 

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

I don't think it does. To take an extreme example, if I hypothetically wasted one second of everyone on earth's tine (which no individual would even notice), should I be sentenced to 250 years? Simple addition makes no sense.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Exactly. If it's about cumulative disruption then I wonder how many years jail time the CEO's of Crowdstrike and Microsoft are going to get?

We've got a new Labour government now anyway so surely we can expect them to review these authoritarian sentencing guidelines.

https://greenparty.org.uk/2024/07/19/green-mp-responds-to-record-sentences/

In reply to Tony Buckley:

The sentence was for Just Stop Oil protesters, not extinction rebellion.

In reply to Andrew Wells:

But it was pointless smug childish petulant virtue signalling which will have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to stop or reduce oil. Some people would have missed hospital appointments, loved ones’ funerals etc. The actual act would have increased emissions from standing traffic let alone boosting publicity for the “sod climate change” Reform voters. At least the apparently defunct “Insulate Britain” had a defined aim which could have influenced Government to make effective changes. 
Climate change is a real and present danger and all possible and effective steps should be taken to combat it. The M25 protest did not meet this criteria.
Yes 5 years jail was bonkers, I would have been in favour of a lengthy and onerous community service order rather than just a fine which would have been paid by donations

In reply to kevin stephens:

And yet we have a brand new government with an energy minister who's first act (allegedly) has been to try and stop new drilling in the North Sea.

In reply to Paul Baxter:

I think it is very hard to produce anything of any certainty for both sides of the argument. Life is nuanced. I did hear an article on r4 about a study (either Life Scientific or Inside science but couldn't find it again)

In reply to Lord_ash2000:

No body wasted 5 years, it will have been a few hours for maybe a couple of thousand people, then slightly extended journey times for thousands more. Bit of a pisser, just like any accident on the motorway network.

What's the wasted time, cost to society and the NHS, deaths, assaults, rapes and serious injuries resulting from alcohol abuse? I reckon that should cost the CEOs of brewing and distilling companies several thousand years without parole, if you think that,s a suitable metric for jail terms.

I what way? They were sat on a gantry, not shooting at traffic. Stick some scaffolding and netting below the gantry in case one falls of and leave them sat there while the motorway is reopened.

In reply to smbnji:

Was it?  My mistake, and thank you for correcting it.

My attitude remains the same though.

T.

In reply to Ridge:

Or just people who tailgate and help create phantom jams day in, day out on the motorways and those who slow to gawp at an accident on the other side. Seems like we should be cracking down hard on them.

I assume the "fair fuel uk" and similar protests are also going to be cracked down on equally rigourously.

In reply to smbnji:

Are you seriously claiming that Miliband’s energy policy was changed due to the protest?

In reply to ExiledScot:

The people jailed were not on the gantry’s or even the M25. They’ve been jailed on the basis of a Zoom call.

In reply to Brass Nipples:

Inciting others?

In reply to kevin stephens:

Are you seriously claiming that a well publicised protest group didn't sway a _single_ person to vote Labour, which resulted in Ed Miliband being in a position to implement these changes?

In reply to smbnji:

You seem deluded. Don’t you think that those people voted green instead of Labour, particularly after Labour had to cut back on green spending after the Tories wrecked the economy? Despite this Labour won a large majority

In reply to kevin stephens:

Resulting to ad hominem, nice.

No, I don't think this, given that Just Stop Oil advised everyone to vote for Labour to get the Tories out.

And just to make my argument crystal clear, you stated:

And my position is, that even a single voter being swayed by JSO's message, resulting in a vote against the Tories means you're incorrect.

I don't think that they personally influenced Ed Miliband's policy, that would be absurd.

In reply to kevin stephens:

Hang on.

That's the way I saw it, but most people on here were telling people like me that we had to vote for Labour in order to get the Conservatives out and it seems that most people who were looking for positive change towards a greener world accepted that advice.

7% of voters voted Green but polling suggests that a further 6% of all voters wanted to vote Green but held their nose to vote tactically for Labour.

Now you're using these tactical votes as a mandate for Starmer's decision to cut back on green spending.

Shows why people should have voted Green.

https://greenparty.org.uk/2024/07/18/adrian-ramsay-reacts-to-kings-speech/

Edit- so as not to accidentally understate Green Party support.

In reply to David Alcock:

I suspect sexual offence punishments are 'low' due to the societal effect of such a conviction - as a sex offender you can pretty much say goodbye to all your friends and family, probably your job, probably your home and probably any future prospects of a decent life.

In reply to TobyA:

I have a vague memory of a Norwegian friend saying that people/drivers getting convicted of road offences were put to work on highway maintenance. This was in 2003 so I could be completely wrong. Another idea occurred to me while walking on Holyhead Mountain today and appreciating the steps, get them to do maintenance work for the National Parks on footpaths.

In reply to Brass Nipples:

How dare you come on here with your inconvenient facts!

In all my years on UKC, I can’t recall a thread more stuffed with made-up anecdotes, dodgy maths, irrelevant examples and general frothy-mouthed rubbish. 

This case, and the Tory law it’s based on, isn’t about oil, it’s about the right to protest peacefully. I’m old enough to remember when the climbing world was sceptical of authority and its misuse.

In reply to chris_r:

It’s hard to press dislike when you’ve broken your mind and you’re having a fit.

In reply to rsc:

Exactly….wonder how the Kinder trespass would go down with some of the posters on here!!

In reply to Abr: The massive difference was that the Kinder Protests did not impact the day to day life of ordinary working people. Now if the Just Stop Oil protesters had blockaded the consulates, business headquarters and luxury London homes of the Saudi and Russian oligarchs you might be getting somewhere

In reply to Brass Nipples:

My understanding is that they were found guilty of conspiracy, not actually causing disruption themselves. A bit like Catesby and his chums.

In reply to rsc:

I would rather see those organising these events take the heat as apposed to the not so bright activists that they've convinced to climb the gantries.

Let's take this to the extreme, do you think Osama bin Laden was innocent because he wasn't on one of the planes? Of course not. 

Why do you think the likes of Hallam get a free pass organising people to climb gantries whilst he lounges at home with his feet up. 

In reply to montyjohn:

In the coming decades, as accelerating climate change limits or prematurely ends the lives of so many people, how do you think the people who tried to protest will be seen? Or those who nodded wisely and approved of their imprisonment?

This thing is only going one way.

In reply to montyjohn:

I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous answer.

In reply to smbnji:

My understanding is that there will be no new exploration licenses issued. The previous government issued many such licenses recently and there has been no indication that these will be revoked. This means that new drilling may very well go ahead, should significant discoveries be made.

Of course, exploration itself is an expensive practice and no company would drill exploratory wells without assurances from government that they could then extract the oil reserves they might discover. It will be interesting to see how the new energy minister deals with that.

In reply to Brass Nipples:

Hadn't realised that.

United Nations have though and are alarmed that the UK is in breach of international human rights law.

UK - now one of the worlds authoritarian pariah states treating it's citizens harshly with contempt!

Let's hope Starmer acts quickly to restore our human rights and reputation in the world (he is a human rights lawyer after all).

https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/ACSR_C_2024_26_UK_SR_EnvDefen...

"Today’s ruling by Judge Hehir at Southwark Crown Court means that, in the United Kingdom, participation in a Zoom call that discusses peaceful protest exposes the participants of the call to the risk of a lengthy prison sentence. How a sentence of this magnitude can be either
reasonable, proportional or serve a legitimate public purpose is beyond comprehension.

Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.

Given the gravity of the situation, I urge the new United Kingdom government, with absolute urgency and without undue delay, to take all necessary steps to ensure that Mr. Shaw’s sentence is reduced in line with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention."

In reply to cumbria mammoth:

Given the judge's refusal to allow them to present a proper defence, and the non-violent nature of what they did, I'd say they have excellent grounds for appeal.

In reply to rsc:

So you're not willing to answer the question about whether those that organise the crime are more or less guilty than those they convince to do the crime?

And if your not willing to compare against more and less extreme examples how can you check if your view is consistent or not?

In reply to montyjohn:

Once again, this is about the disgusting sentences. 

In reply to montyjohn:

As far as I remember, one of the protestors who was jailed for scaling the QE Bridge was in fact a civil engineer and a bridge designer himself! Is there evidence I've missed that he's an exception and the actual climbers are mostly a bit dim?

In reply to David Alcock:

And how old was he?

In reply to kevin stephens:

Maybe, and maybe not, but we both agree that the sentence is truly objectionable

In reply to montyjohn:

Some assumptions we don’t share:

1) that peaceful protest is/should be a “crime”. So no, I’m not engaging with questions of relative “guilt”.

2) that peaceful protest has anything in common *at all* with terrorism, and I think it’s dangerous to make that comparison.

3) that people who put themselves in legal jeopardy to try to halt our senseless rush towards climate hell are “no so bright”. Disagree with their methods, but at least credit them with knowing what they’re doing.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Indeed, but the time to act was 3 or 4 decades ago, figuratively speaking, we're realising our homework 'is due in tomorrow' and trying to make good. There's Alaskan ice which is thought to be close to reaching a tipping point, re it's rate of melting, there's a 'feedback loop' process involved in Greenland's ice melting, where the more it melts, the more darker earth emerges, which absorbs more thermal energy, which increases the rate of melt, and Antartica's rate of melting is increasing, too. Which is just one aspect of climate change. 

In the abstract, there's circa 100 (it may be 107) companies, many with links to the fossil fuel industries, which are responsible for around 75% of our global carbon emissions, and are behind the concept of the personal carbon footprint, which helped to push attention away from themselves, arguably, more information on their role should have been presented during the protests. When small children are older they'll be asking 'Why didn't people do more at the time?'

The more we 'do' do, the milder the consequences, but we need to act urgently...

In reply to Abr:

Folks need to rally behind my JSJSO group. Let's keep our Micra's chugging along.

In reply to Timmd:

'Companies' are always a convenient target, faceless unaccountable bad things but every time we buy a new bit of kit, drink from a plastic bottle, watch a film, travel, search the web - most things - we use them. All the time.

In reply to Abr:

Police who took pictures of the dead bodies of two murdered woman and shared in WhatsApp group only got 33 months. Sentence is out of all proportion.

In reply to Siward:

There's no suggestion is a case of 'either or' or a binary concept, that if they did more, oneself wouldn't have to, but don't you think more should be in the media about circa 100 companies, a small minority of companies in the world numerically, being responsible for most of our CO2 emissions?

Why would a fossil fuel company be involved in creation of the concept of a personal carbon footprint? I've a businessman Dad, and while he's been generally ethical (and votes Greens incidentally), it fits exactly in with the chicanery involed in the business world, along the lines of 'Aha if I present it like this, then that will happen...', I think it'd be from page 2 of How To Get Ahead & Make Progress, if such a book existed. It's a classic 'Aha' move, one might almost admire it if it wasn't for what it relates to. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon...

NB: I've managed to never fly on an airline BTW, it doesn't feel ethical for me, when fishermen who rely on creatures with seashells are struggling due to the shells being thinner thanks to climate change but online sites for calcuating whether it's greener to fly than ferry and drive are interesting to find, I buy secondhand where I can, too. Here is some information on the concept of the personal carbon footprint and the links it has to the fossil fuel industry.

In reply to pec:

Add up the collective damage done by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss et al and it pales in comparison - their behaviour and policies resulted in economic catastrophe and huge excess deaths, yet none of them are in jail. Protester sentences proportional? Don't be ****ing ridiculous.

In reply to kevin stephens:

It's all well and good to lament the disruption to people unable to get to funerals, but by the same token think of the ne'er-do-wells who were unable to scam old ladies into sub-standard driveway re-paving and the boy-racers who didn't pile into the barriers at 85mph - this kind of thing works both ways...

In reply to Timmd:

Hey, at least in the "business as usual" 3m sea rise scenario, by 2100 there might be a beach right next to the Buckingham Palace and some pretty interesting urban DWS opportunities in most of South London!

In reply to Rich W Parker:

I'm not sure it makes sense here to compare the illegal with the legal whatever the actual morality or competence.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

What happened? What did the judge disallow?

I would certainly expect an appeal to be lodged against the severity of the sentence.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Agree - too many people seem to be missing the point that whether you agree with the course of action, it was undertaken with either intent to disrupt or in the knowledge of potential to do so.  These slightly juvenile ‘but the tories do x’ add nothing (and are better placed in the politics section).

Overall the question here is about how much disruption can reasonably be tolerated within a democratic society to allow protest.  The issue with many responses on this issue is that people who agree with the cause are outraged because they view the people convicted as ‘right.’ 

Whether they’re right or wrong the sentencing rules and legislation need to cover all views.  Would people be so supportive if this disruption was undertaken to support, for instance, a hard brexit or a ‘small boats’ issue?  I suspect not.

theres a wider point here, regardless of the merit of the cause, that individual crimes listed above as comparators (often abhorrent) have a different effect on the functioning of society and the state and don’t risk contagion or increasing or encouraging many others to do the same.  Justice will reflect the effect, and potential effect, of the crime and I suspect this relatively tough sentencing related to a view that the state must ensure functioning and protect people’s day to day movement/travel/work etc.  

I’ve no strong view on the issue but important to remember this is a debate about what collectively we accept the rules and boundaries are for protest (for all causes), how far we accept our own lives to be disrupted by it and how far the justice system should go to discourage acts viewed as particularly disruptive.

*edit - only the first paragraph of agreement is actually a reply to you Robert! 

In reply to J72:

I think you miss the intent of these comments.

Various posters suggest mild “distributed inspect” can be added up and equated to the concentrated impact of a heinous crime.

It’s undeniable (not “juvenile”) what the distributed impact of Truss’s policy was.  

How can it be mortally right for posters here to justify the sentence of some protestors based on “distributed impact” when the political party that passed the law used to enable the sentencing has had far more catastrophic distributed impact.

The point is that laws passed by the Tory government are being used to impose harsh sentences on people who have caused massively less harm than that government had.  As Robert points out, the protestors broke the law and the government didn’t.

Some will say “breaking the law means criminal means punishment” but to me the clear and very grown up point this disparity makes is that the gap between the law and the actions of and governments is absurdly unfair.  I can’t morally justify locking people up under such hypocrisy.

I added emphasis above.  This isn’t “collective”, there was no referendum for the laws used here, and they weren’t a manifesto pledge of the government that enacted them 

We could collectively protest against the new laws, except we might go to jail for it.

In reply to wintertree:

Ultimately though we’re not dealing with morals.  An action being wrong, and it being unlawful or illegal, are not the same necessarily.  Morality is more subjective and pluralistic than the law could deliver.

We live in a system of representative democracy so I’m not sure I accept that ‘we’ didn’t accept a law enacted.  The system operates on the basis that the government of the day, with the agreement of the majority of Parliament, can bring forward legislation.  We (voters and citizens) can advocate a position of opposition to our MPs, or vote against the government at a future election or, indeed, lawfully protest those decisions.  But for the functioning of society there must be limits on how far peaceful protest is allowed to disrupt society. (I have no strong view here on whether this was proportionate or not and know not enough of the background and specifics to form an informed view).

 

In reply to abcdefg:

To avoid getting it wrong, I'll not try to summarise.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/article/2024/jul/11/climate-protest-trials-...

In reply to J72:

Indeed, but surely our aspiration should be to be a moral society?

 > An action being wrong, and it being unlawful or illegal, are not the same necessarily.    

Yes, that was very clearly my point.

My further point is that when the legality and morality of acts are inversely correlated, our society has a problem.

I’m surprised that either of these points are in any way controversial.

It’s pretty well recognised that FPTP isn’t particularly representative and, as I said, this particular law wasn’t a manifesto pledge or backed by a referendum.   The government that enacted the law was eviscerated at an unprecedented scale bag the recent election.

The case that this law had a democratic mandate is incredibly weak.  It’s also irrelevant to the question of if it’s morally acceptable or not.

I’m not an idiot, I get that what the protestors did broke a law.  I’m questioning if (a) that this determination is morally justifiable and (b) if the sentence is morally justifiable, both points considered in the context of what has happened elsewhere within the bounds of the law, particularly with respect to “distributed consequences”.  I’m making this point as a counter to other opinions on this thread.

In reply to Siward:

An adult. 

In reply to elsewhere:

But also this:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/12/contempt-gaggin...
 

The courts tend to treat contempt of court as quite a serious thing - I expect the behaviour of the defendants had some impact on the severity of the sentencing.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

The sentencing remarks explicitly say otherwise.

In reply to J72:

if this disruption was undertaken to support, for instance, a hard brexit or a ‘small boats’ issue?  I suspect not.

Suspect what you like, but excessive, politically motivated sentencing is excessive politically motivated sentencing.  Does not matter who is on the receiving end.  Remember what leftist governments in Central Europe used to get up to prior to 1989.

A reminder - this is not a question of guilt, it is the obscenity of the sentence that is the issue. Then there is the small matter of political restrictions on defence.

In reply to MG:

The sentencing remarks deny that their behavior in court added a single day to their sentence but state that their acts of contempt ruled out any degree of mitigation .

In reply to Tom Valentine:

They do, I see.  Which seems rather contradictory, really.

In reply to J72:

The United Nations do know the background and specifics in detail and the outside world's informed view is that this sentence is disproportionate.

"What happened to Mr. Shaw today is unacceptable, both from a legal and a societal standpoint. ... This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom." (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2024)

We now live inside an authoritarian state and, like in all authoritarian states, most people don't recognise it as such because everyday life is generally tolerable for most people.

In reply to cumbria mammoth:

This sort of statement is ridiculous hyperbole. A questionable law and an unduly harsh sentence (which is open to appeal) does note make an authoritarian state. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

In reply to MG:

Not hyperbole. It's shocking and it should be shocking that the United Nations have published a statement saying that everyone should be on "high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom".

This is how far we have sunk under the Tory regime. I hope we will all be keeping a close eye on the new government to make sure we see our international reputation restored.

In reply to cumbria mammoth:

That can be true without making us an authoritarian state, or anything like it; an authoritarian state is the distant end point that this sort of thing could potentially eventually lead to if unchecked.

In reply to Abr:

Again from the Guardian. I don't agree with all the article but it made me reconsider my opinions at least.

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/21/yes-five-year...

I think the comparisons are critically important as people must have trust in the justice system and we should expect those who administer justice to exercise good judgement. 

Apparently the judge involved previously thought that a police officer engaging in sexual offences while on duty didn't even warrant a prison sentence (which was subsequently overturned). But organising a peaceful protest gets you 5 years? 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-68800...

In reply to cumbria mammoth:

The UN? Pardon me while I laugh up my sleeve…

let me know when the president of the UN council on human rights doesn’t hail from a country where capital punishment is still on the books and where homosexuality and criticising the government or monarchy can all result in 5 year jail terms in prisons far less salubrious than than UK chokey.

In reply to abcdefg:

The judge allowed the defendants to say that they were motivated by concern over climate breakdown, but not to describe why or make any statements about it. So they were essentially unable to explain why they did what they did.

I dont know, but I assume they intended to claim that their actions were necessary (which is a defence in law) given the seriousness of the climate situation.

In the end some (all?) of them defied the judge and addressed the jury directly. I'm fairly sure that will have annoyed the judge. Presumably they felt they had no choice.

In reply to Stichtplate:

Would be somewhat discriminatory for them to judge people’s suitability for the position because of their place of birth. Not really in the spirit of a human rights council. 

Doesn’t strike me as particularly surprising that there might be quite a few people from such countries highly interested in and motivated to work on human rights, compared to countries where most of us can broadly take them for granted.

I’m not familiar with who’s held the position in recent years. Have they been supporters or facilitators of capital punishment or imprisoning people for being gay, or just been born somewhere where it happens?

In reply to Abr:

The photos below are from an action for Greenpeace in, I think, 1987, protesting against the Minky whale cull and general whaling in the Faroe Islands. We abbed off Tower Bridge and stopped it opening, keeping a Faroese liner in port, and disrupting central London.

I missed the Greenpeace inflatable and got nabbed by Captain Bligh in the Port of London Police vessel, who called us ‘pirates’.

We appeared in court in London and were fined, which Greenpeace paid, but there was an unequivocal message from the bench that there were lots of infringements we could have been charged with, and not to expect the same leniency if we appeared again under similar circumstances. 

I don’t feel that this was a curtailing of our right to protest (members of this group went on to other high impact actions without ending up in chokey), just a reminder that there are some lines to cross that will not take repeat infringements.

In reply to Stuart Williams:

The position is held by a government representative, currently Ambassador Omar Zniber of Morocco. A country which is considered repressive.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/presidency18thcycle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Morocco

The UN Human Rights Council has a real credibility problem e.g. Iran chairing the 2023 UN Human Rights Council Social Forum.

In reply to Stichtplate:

The statement criticising the prison sentences was made by the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, who works for the parties to the Aarhus Convention, not the UN Human Rights Council. He's a French citizen, Michel Forst.

The Aarhus Convention is an international agreement between states on "Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters" and is ratified by 46 European and Asian states - including the UK.

Its really easy, but imo pretty lazy, to be cynical about the UN. Yes it can be a talking shop, and yes some of its members are nasty, repressive regimes.  But if you want a world with some rules and some very basic semblance of fairness and accountability, rather than just might-is-right and endless wars, then it might be all we've got right now.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Legal rules are based on moral values. 

In reply to Rich W Parker:

My point was that to argue that the sentences were too harsh because, say, Liz Truss did not go to jail at all for screwing the economy is daft because there was no possibility of Liz Truss going to jail. It's not comparing like with like.

In reply to Rich W Parker:

Really? Then why is it legal in the UK to trap and kill a grey squirrel but an offence to kill a red squirrel? Where does morality come into that?

( just an absolutely random example and I'm sure that every single member of UKC can cite a law that has nothing at all to do with morality)

In reply to Tom Valentine:

One does widespread damage to the habitat and is not native. The other doesn't and is. Morality of protecting the environment 

In reply to cumbria mammoth:

My point was more general, and particularly that people find this abhorrent because if the topic/cause.  But there have to be limits on how much disruption for protest is tolerable.  
 

i mean its your opinion (that this is an authoritarian state) but im not sure its possible to debate such a term really.  The economist Democracy Index placed the UK as 18th (and scored as a ‘full democracy’).  I think your statement is more polemical than it is a description of fact or opinion.  Not saying the UK is perfect by any stretch however! 

In reply to MG:

What has not being native got to do with morality? 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

It was the looking after the environment bit I was saying was a moral duty.

In reply to wintertree:

The case that this law had a democratic mandate is incredibly weak.  It’s also irrelevant to the question of if it’s morally acceptable or not.
 

It had a democratic mandate because we elect MPs who represent us, and on the basis of who we think will best do that and make decisions in our interests (not tell us exactly what they’ll do and ask our opinion on every decision).  That is how the system works.  Whether it’s the right system or not is clearly a different question.  I say that as someone not altogether enamoured by things over the last 13/14 years and live in a part of the country with a more representative electoral system and who thinks the Sentencing guidelines here are probably a bit stern! 

I’m questioning if (a) that this determination is morally justifiable and (b) if the sentence is morally justifiable, both points considered in the context of what has happened elsewhere within the bounds of the law, particularly with respect to “distributed consequences”

Personally I think their actions are not really sensible in the sense that many people are likely to take an opposite position to people causing widespread disruption.  I think it harms their cause.  Whether or not they’re immoral I’ve no idea, it’s too subjective a consideration really, though clearly their cause itself is far from immoral! 

In reply to J72:

Which is worse: the recent disruption caused by the protest (which I agree is significant) and the future disruption caused by the thing that the protest is about (digging up hydrocarbons and burning them)?

The scientific consensus is that we need to stop hydrocarbon extraction right now, or the consequences for current and future generations will be catastrophic. Lots of people will die. Lots of other people will have their lives seriously compromised.

You say there "have to be limits". But why aren't we balancing those limits against the inevitable future disruption?

I think we're still collectively in denial. We don't consider the future that we're heading towards.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

The scientific consensus is that we need to stop hydrocarbon extraction right now

Any evidence for that assertion?

In reply to Andy Johnson:

I wonder how blocking the M25 will prevent extraction of oil and gas from the huge new discoveries off the west coast of Africa?  

In reply to Jim Hamilton:

My understanding is that they were trying to influence the UK government's decision making regarding new extraction licences. So the answer to your question is presumably "not at all".

Whats your point? That all protest is futile so don't bother?

In reply to Andy Johnson:

That's not the scientific consensus at all, which recognises that the transition to net-zero must be carefully managed to avoid huge damage.

How many die if we have major power outages or vital products like medicines and fertilizer can't be manufactured? Or if health and social care budgets must be cut because we've impoverished ourselves?

The thing that I'm grappling with is this - suppose we, the UK, do get to net zero, at considerable cost, but the likes of China and India don't play ball. India have shown no willingness to reduce their reliance on coal, quite the opposite in fact. Will we have put ourselves into a position where we're less able to mitigate the effects of climate change and "lots of people die" anyway?

It's essential that our path to net-zero makes both economic and strategic sense as well as environmental. There will obviously be pain. Personally, I'm willing to lose the beautiful beach at the western end of Lochan na h-Earba to make way for the proposed PSH that is being discussed on another thread. 1800MW of generating capacity and, more importantly, 40GWh of storage is the sort of scheme needed to complement our increasing reliance on offshore wind.

I had a look on the JSO website and there is nothing positive there. No solutions. Just loads of "activism" that only alienates the very people we need to be convincing.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

Or we need to capture CO2 before it's released. Coupled with direct CO2 extraction from the air and you absolutely can burn fossil fuels and still achieve Net Zero.

If Just Stop Oil and their friends want to be useful, study a STEM subject and get a job that actually solves the problem, instead of creating new problems for us to deal with.

In reply to Danbow73:

I'd say it's a grey area. It's obviously not violent, but it's highly disruptive to ordinary life by design. Not sure this counts as peaceful.  If a hacker brings down the countries airport baggage handling system such that air travel grinds to a halt, is that still peaceful?

Would anybody care if that hacker got 5 years, especially if they were on bail for similar crimes already? I expect not.

In reply to Dexter:

If you want solutions you need look no further than Roger Hallam's manifesto, where he proposes 

 " halving of the total national energy requirement within weeks through banning of flying, fossil fuel car use , non-essential consumption".

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Yeah, so banning fossil fuel car use *within weeks* would trash the economy and kill a huge number of people because healthcare professionals wouldn't be able to get to work.

Just not serious.

In reply to Dexter:

https://twitter.com/JustStop_Oil/status/1815303865106883045

"She has just been sentenced today to four years in prison. This means she will not be present at her brother's wedding next summer"

🙃

In reply to Dexter:

If another protest is arranged for the right location, then maybe no-one will be be present at her brother's wedding next summer.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

This is a real problem, as there are plenty of companies, organisations and individuals working hard defining the form of necessary policy and technology to achieve the transition to zero carbon, while at the same time trying to maintain societal and economic standards.

JSO are offering nothing, while at the same time alienating public opinion and legitimising the right wing press’ use of ‘eco clown’ to label anyone with justifiable concerns about zero carbon strategy. In terms of campaign group strategy, they’re a car crash.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Hilarious. The tories were going to start locking up vast numbers of motorists.

In reply to Abr
 

in the most part environmental protestors are reconciled to prison believing that society needs to feel pain or they will sleep walk into environmental catastrophy. In addition to the 4 days of inconvenience society now has to pay for the incarceration of several people for 4 years. It seems to me that politicians and judges are falling into a trap of their own invention. They exacerbate the pain bourne by society. 
the sentence will dissuade some but others will see it as an opportunity to amplify their message.

more worrying however is that for those who want to protest and are not too concerned about how, they can choose to do violence against a person (perhaps the ceo of an oil company) and get half the sentence imposed on those who merely stand still in inconvenient places. 

In reply to mutt:

There are claims that Hallam has on several occasions joked about shooting oil polluters in the head and it is one of the main reasons XR washed their hands of him.. Hopefully there were no young and impressionable people listening to his wit and repartee.

"Standing still in inconvenient places" is a fairly disingenuous description of what the "ideas man" actually did, if that is who and what  you are referring to. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Standing still is the change in law through the police and crime bill. It specifically allows the police to impose start and finish times, set noise limits and apply arbitrary rules to a demonstration of one or more people if the protest is static . Therefore from now on anyone can be arrested if they stand still and hold a placard. They can be arrested even if they are unaware of the specific restrictions. Marches are already covered by those conditions so now the police can arrest anyone who wishes to protest against anything no matter how they do so. Added to that, judges instruct that defendants cannot reference the issues against which they were protesting in their court case thereby undermining the independence of juries to adjudicate ‘just cause’ as they see fit. Which in and of itself is a seismic shift in power from the people to the state.

whilst some might welcome this when applied to extinction rebellion or just stop oil but let’s hope those citizens never have cause to protest anything close to their hearts.

In reply to Dexter:

That’s just a statement about the status quo. Of course with a bit of reorganisation doctors could get to work. Hospitals and gps are distributed across the country fairly well in proportion to where people and doctors live. Perhaps it would be difficult at first but with a bit of reallocation of staff and some equalisation of the hierarchy of transport choices all doctors could get to work on bicycles electric or otherwise. 

In reply to mutt:

How about ambulances and other emergency vehicles which are currently petrol/diesel?
Going to take more than a few weeks to get them converted to electric.
That's just a small segment of the NHS infrastructure, as you also have to factor in all of the vehicles used in the supply chain, etc.
As for expecting people to relocate within a few weeks so that they can cycle to work - really?
Repeat the above for virtually every single business sector in the UK and the idea is soon seen as being totally idiotic.

In reply to mutt:

How wonderful. We could house the workers in tower blocks right next to the factories too. Sounds like a plan.

In reply to Dexter:

What a ridiculous statement. I cycle 8 miles each way every day. When I was younger I cycled 20miles each way. That’s easily enough to get workers to their workplace but for the fact that this country has handed over the air, the roads and our family life to the motor car. It could easily be otherwise.

In reply to mutt:

…and if you’re part of the sizable portion of society who’s physically impaired or old? Tough shit I suppose.

In reply to Stichtplate:

Absolutism is not the answer. Buses serve the needs of the infirm quite acceptably. Why do lazy but otherwise healthy always reach for the infirmity of others and the needs of the few unfortunates who need an ambulance to justify clogging up the roads with single occupancy cars driving short distances emitting poison into the atmosphere?

In reply to mutt:

No bus comes within 3 miles of the elderly or infirm where I live.  The school our kids got in to is some miles in the wrong direction from my work and there’s no bus.  We have an elderly relative and to get to theirs by public transport (one way) would be 2 hours of walking and an hour by bus.  I could cycle to the bus station but the last time I left a bike secured in the area it wasn’t there when I came back. Etc etc etc.

Live away from many major conurbations is basically impossible for adults who work and who have caring responsibilities (children or elderly parents etc) without the car.

There are cases to be made for ways to address this, but arguing that there are always viable alternatives to the car is asinine.

In reply to mutt:

Why are you being such an absolutist then?

In reply to mutt:

Only in your head I’m afraid

In reply to Robert Durran:

The absolute domination of the roads and by extension of the very air we breath by the motor car is what I am objecting to. Amsterdam and Copenhagen have found a bicycle centric solution that does not disenfranchise anyone. If anything is absolute it’s domination by people who sit on their lazy arses whist getting from a to b. That is absolutism.

In reply to mutt:

We definitely need to transition away from the car dominated society we live in.

When one person makes a poor choice then it may be reasonable to characterise that person as lazy but when most of society makes the same choices, then the blame lies elsewhere. Our society has been built to promote and to serve the use of the private car, it's to your credit if you are happy to go against the norms of society but everyone else shouldn't be blamed for making normal choices.

It's the people who have had the power to be able to shape society that should be criticised.

And from now onwards we need to hold our leaders to account to make sure they start to reshape our society so that public transport and active travel becomes the norm.

https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/fairer-greener-transport/

In reply to mutt:

Cycling is one of those things that once you reach critical mass, policy isn't that important and things start to take care of themselves.

I cycle to work (a new trend, wasn't possible before) and on the back of that I've started thinking about what else I could do by bike.

Most things I discount because if theft. I'm not leaving my bike somewhere where it absolute will be stolen.

A focus on preventing theft needs to happen before we can have a bike revolution in the UK.

Any ideas?

I'd like to see a compulsory registration with stamped frames on bicycles when sold (either private or from a shop). This would give the police the power to follow up on suspected bike thieves. Couple this with a higher punishment for bike theft and I think we've see numbers drop pretty sharply. This was trialed on a voluntary basis somewhere in Canada and they got some very good results on it.

Yes I can agree with that but actually in practice there are very few politicians who have the courage to take on the car lobby. Here in southampton everyone was consulted on a ULEZ scheme and it was overwhelmingly supported but it never came to pass. A failure to stand up to the vested interests.

for me its finding secure storage for all my journeys on my good bike (mostly thats to work where the company has invested in secure bike parking as part of its social responsability endeavours) and also keep a bike I don't mind loosing when secure storage isn't available. I also walk and take the bus. We also have 'boris' bikes and electric scooters throughout the city but I find them to be too expensive compared with travelling for free on my bike, or for very little on the bus.

I don't imagine that everyone is so well served with ethical transport options.

In reply to mutt:

In this statement you are absolutely correct.

Step 1 inch away from the major conurbations and public transport is a (sick) joke. Buses once a week - if at all - are not unusual in villages. This means that anyone going from such into a major conurbation - normal if going to a hospital, GP etc. - has to cope with a conurbation geared up for public transport & maybe ULEZ. Not much fun when transporting someone to such involves either a massive expense or else hours finding somewhere to park and then enter the "eco-friendly" system. All this does is shift the problem somewhere else.

In reply to fred99:

It's very uneven: where my folks are, in rural Oxfordshire, they have buses every 30 minutes to the major towns of the area but that's because they're in one of the larger villages - other places near them get nothing.
Similarly, there are lots of buses to the city centre from the side of town I live on; my friend on the opposite side of town has very infrequent service and a bus stop about a mile from her house.  She, not unreasonably, scoffs at public transport

In reply to Niall_H:

That’s a pity. In the Americas( not known for good public transport) all the buses have bike racks. I can imagine the howls of rage from drivers if they put them on buses here but it would make bus transport useful to those who are not close to routes. 
 

also I wonder what proportion of adults are living in towns and cities…., presumably it’s a sizeable majority and there is no good excuse for not running a usable bus service (other than the roads are already clogged up with single occupancy cars) 

In reply to Abr:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2502nj7ynqo

well apparently the sentences have had no effect on jso's willingness to protest 

In reply to mutt:

Meanwhile..

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exploration/eni-has-another-barnstorming-oil...

In reply to Dexter:

China is installing 5GW of wind and solar every week:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewable-energy-boom...

For comparison, Hinkley Point C is 3.2GW and wont be generating until early in the next decade. And the UK is adding only about 6.5GW of renewable generating capacity per year.

So China clearly isn't letting our reluctance stop them from reducing their carbon emissions.

I do concede that India is a different matter.

In reply to Andy Johnson:

It's looking likely, but not guaranteed, that 2024 will be the first year that their emissions fall and by only a modest amount. Get back to me when this doesn't have Highly Insufficient and Poor written all over it.

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/

In reply to Dexter:

How much of China's emissions is really emissions due to UK consumption outsourced to China?

In reply to cumbria mammoth:

Apparently China accounted for 7.3% of UK's carbon footprint in 2020, so about 0.2% ?