Britannia Radio

Time to panic indeed!  There are idiots* in Greenpeace who think that 
a few deaths of the elderly from hyperthermia and industries shut 
down are a small price to pay for saving the planet from the non-
existent man-made Global warming.    Unfortunately one of those who 
gave irrelevant evidence at the Kingsnorth trial was the dreadful 
obsessive Zac Goldsmith who describes himself as an adviser to Cameron!

Ditch him fast before he wrecks our country and let the voters of 
Richmond-on-Thames keep their LibDem MP if needs be.

Christina
* If you don’t believe me read a comment or two on the CH:website in 
response to the first article below
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CONSERVATIVE HOME Blog  11.9.08
Our chances of keeping the lights on fade
    Matthew Sinclair

I think we can safely say it is time to panic:
"United Kingdom — In an unprecedented trial a UK Crown Court jury has 
acquitted six Greenpeace UK volunteers of criminal damage to a coal-
fired power plant.
[...]
They were accused of causing £30,000 (US$53,000) of criminal damage 
to the Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they 
had a 'lawful excuse' - because they were acting to protect property 
around the world "in immediate need of protection" from the impacts 
of climate change, caused in part by burning coal."

We need to replace a huge share  of our generating capacity, at a 
cost of billions upon billions, in around a decade. The companies we 
are relying upon to do so already face a very tangible prospect of 
having the returns on their investment confiscated directly by 
windfall taxes or indirectly by threats of windfall taxes if they 
don't cough up. Their costs are constantly being pushed up by 
regulations and, when they pass that cost on to customers, they are 
demonised, in part by a Government funded pressure group.

Now when their property is damaged to the value of £30,000 the 
perpetrators will be let off on the basis of testimony from Al Gore's 
favourite scientist and the author of the insane  Quality of Life 
Policy Group report. I need to talk to some lawyer friends tomorrow 
to get my head around exactly how the law works in this area but, 
regardless, the message to energy companies is clear: invest in coal 
power and you are going to become a target with little defence for 
your basic property rights.

We're not going to get nuclear power built in time and wind provides 
pretty much no peak load capacity so we are going to become 
drastically more dependent on gas. Supply is increasingly 
constrained, major UK gas terminals are going months without 
deliveries, and is vulnerable to foreign political meddling. Campbell 
Dunford's warning seems likely to go unheeded; the lights are going 
to go out.
=========================
EUREFERENDUM Blog  10.9.08
Lawful excuse?

Advocates of jury trials may have cause to ponder at the verdict 
delivered at Maidstone Crown Court today on the "Kingsnorth six" – 
the Greenpeace vandals activists who today escaped conviction for 
causing £30,000-worth of damage to the power station chimney last year.

This, of course, was the trial where James Hansen gave evidence and, 
as Reuters reports, the six had claimed by way of defence "lawful 
excuse".

They argued that they were acting to protect property around the 
world "in immediate need of protection" from the impacts of global 
warming climate change, caused in part – or so the Greenpeace website 
says - by burning coal.

The verdict was delivered by the jury after the judge said he would 
accept a majority verdict, with Ben Stewart, one of the six, happily 
chirping, "This verdict marks a tipping point for the climate change 
movement," then adding: "If jurors from the heart of Middle England 
say it's legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-
fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then 
where does that leave government energy policy?"

Where indeed, he might ask. But where also does this leave the 
Conservative Party. Aside from James Hansen, another prominent 
witness was Zac Goldsmith (pictured with David Cameron). He still 
styles himself as David Cameron's "environmental policy adviser", and 
is cited on the Greenpeace website saying there was "a staggering 
mismatch between what we've heard from government and what we've seen 
from government in terms of policy".

Thus, on the face of it, we have Greenpeace and the Conservative 
Party singing from the same hymnsheet, their common "advisor" 
justifying criminal damage to the property of an energy company.

Unless Cameron acts swiftly, formally to distance himself from Zac 
Goldsmith, it must be assumed that the leader of the opposition, if 
not actually endorsing the Greenpeace action, has not disowned it. 
That, in itself, would speak volumes for Mr Cameron's championship of 
"hard working families" and their need to obtain cheap, reliable 
electricity supplies.

For that matter, let's see what the Tory-supporting blogs think of 
it. It will be interesting to see whether they ignore the issue 
completely and thus also tacitly endorse the action of their leader's 
"advisor".  [See above! -cs]
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Posted by Richard North