If the courts let 16 climate activists’ draconian sentences stand this week, we are no better than an authoritarian state
Caroline Lucas is an environmental activist and former Green MP
Sixteen jailed Just Stop Oil activists will appear in court this week in an appeal against their sentences, which were believed to be the harshest ever for peaceful protest in Britain. For damaging picture frames, obstructing the road, or just talking about obstructing the road, they have received punishments that we would normally reserve for serious crimes. People trying to draw attention to the government failure to confront the cause of the climate crisis were imprisoned for up to five years.
These sentences have been condemned as draconian by Amnesty International, as “a grave erosion of … freedoms” by Liberty, as “a profound injustice” by Global Witness, and as “not acceptable in a democracy” by a special rapporteur for the UN. They represent the terrifying decline of our nation, from a beacon of tolerance with a clear division between politics and policing, towards an oppressive state where that dividing line is becoming harder and harder to discern. Regardless of your politics and what you are standing for, the right of peaceful protest is a vital sign of a healthy democracy and an essential guardrail against authoritarian politicians and reckless companies.
Caroline Lucas is an environmental activist and former Green MP
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/29/2025 - 05:00
01/29/2025 - 04:00
University of Sussex scientist calls promotion of preventative practice when pets are flea free ‘profiteering’
Vets need to stop “profiteering” by giving dogs and cats preventive flea treatments that are wiping out insects and songbirds, according to a well-known scientist.
The standard practice in the UK at present is to advise that customers take a preventative approach, treating their pets every couple of months even if they don’t have fleas.
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01/29/2025 - 01:00
Labour is constantly torn between its self-image as a party of radical change and its fear of alienating voters with the wrong kind of radicalism
When Keir Starmer became Labour leader he was unpractised in politics. For advice, he naturally turned to someone who had done his job before and with whom he had a good personal rapport: Ed Miliband.
As Starmer grew in confidence he stayed friendly with Miliband, deferential to his status as a veteran of government and appreciative of his sincere enthusiasm for the energy and climate brief. But the new leader was also ruthlessly focused on winning power, and increasingly alert to toxicities in the Labour brand. He was persuaded that the journey to Downing Street could be completed only by jettisoning policy baggage and paying less heed to people associated with past failure.
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01/29/2025 - 01:00
More than 2,500 native trees have been planted to form a temperate rainforest in decades to come
The first step towards creating a Celtic rainforest – a now extremely rare habitat that once covered large swathes of the west coast of Britain – has been completed in Devon.
More than 2,500 native trees have been planted so far this winter at Devon Wildlife Trust’s Bowden Pillars site, above the Dart valley and close to the green-minded market town of Totnes.
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01/29/2025 - 01:00
Protesters will gather outside court of appeal in support of activists, who say judges defied decades of precedent
Sixteen environmental activists jailed in the past year will appear at the high court on Wednesday to ask England’s most senior judge to quash their “unduly harsh” sentences.
The appellants, from four separate cases, will appear before a bench of judges led by Lady Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, in a full session of the court of appeal in which they will argue that judges defied decades of precedent to hand them long jail terms for nonviolent protests.
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01/28/2025 - 17:46
Whale watchers capture rare footage of miles-long cluster of dolphins ‘just having a great time’
A miles-long cluster of dolphins has been filmed leaping and gliding across Carmel Bay off the central coast of California, forming an unusual “super pod” of more than 1,500 of the marine creatures.
“They were on the horizon I feel like as far as I could see,” said Capt Evan Brodsky, with Monterey Bay Whale Watch, who captured drone footage of Friday’s huge gathering of Risso’s dolphins.
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01/28/2025 - 12:43
Research with smallholder farmers in Kenya shows that tree-planting schemes must account for complex local issues and preferences.
01/28/2025 - 12:38
Researchers unveil a new map and classification system that will help protect the unique plants and animals of Earth's most remote and fragile continent.
01/28/2025 - 12:12
Cold weather causes leak at Johnstown Flood Museum, which commemorates 1889 catastrophe that killed 2,209
A museum dedicated to commemorating the victims of a 19th-century flood in Pennsylvania has temporarily closed due to flooding – caused on the inside of the facility by a water leak stemming from recent, extremely cold weather, officials said on Monday.
Fortunately for its patrons, the Johnstown Flood Museum said on its social media accounts that “nothing of historic significance was affected” by the interior inundation.
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01/28/2025 - 10:24
Baby shark Yoko hatched in early January, flummoxing staff and experts at a US aquarium
Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it, according to Cole Porter’s classic song on the universal nature of sex.
But a baby swell shark born in a Louisiana aquarium that houses only females has flummoxed marine experts and raised the possibility that the species may not require such earthly pleasures to produce offspring.
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