Rewards for polluters, prison for climate campaigners

Writing in the Guardian recently, Andrew Simms asks why climate campaigners are being given prison sentences instead of medals for their bravery and public service. What if, instead of giving Marie Curie and Alexander Fleming Nobel prizes for their life-saving work on radiation and penicillin, they'd been thrown in jail? It would be perverse to return the favour of great, public works by depriving people of their freedom. Yet that is just what we're doing in Britain right now according to Simms. The contributions of the people above were remarkable, but how much greater is the challenge of preserving a readily habitable climate, and how thankful should we be to those prepared to throw their life's energy and creativity at the task? Climate campaigners have long been parodied as sandal-wearing tree huggers, veggies, lefties, greens and portrayed by the media as trouble-causing protestors. At the same time, the all-powerful corporations have sought to pervert proper science and put pressure on researchers to produce results that support the notion of climate change being part of natural cycle. Scientists who have refused to tow the line have been ridiculed and their credibility questioned. Remember The Climatic Research Unit email controversy when an unknown group hacked into the University of East Anglia’s server, and copied thousands of emails and computer files to various locations on the Internet? [Read more]