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Washington State Judge Michael E Rickert has caused green heads to explode, by ruling that climate change is a matter of debate.
Judge in environmental activist’s trial says climate change is matter of debate
Controversial statements angered environmentalists who insist courts have an obligation to recognize the science about manmade climate change
A Washington state judge has sparked outrage for remarks questioning the existence of climate change and the role of humans in global warming.
During the high-profile trial of Ken Ward, a climate activist facing 30 years in prison for shutting down an oil pipeline, Judge Michael E Rickert said: “I don’t know what everybody’s beliefs are on [climate change], but I know that there’s tremendous controversy over the fact whether it even exists. And even if people believe that it does or it doesn’t, the extent of what we’re doing to ourselves and our climate and our planet, there’s great controversy over that.”
The Skagit County judge made the comments on 24 January while addressing Ward’s request to present a “necessity defense” in court, meaning he would argue that the grave threat of climate change justified civil disobedience.
…
Ken Ward allegedly admits he committed the acts for which he is being charged – according to a statement published on the climate disobedience website;
Statement of Ken Ward at his Arraignment
POSTED BY MARLA MARCUM 496.80SC ON OCTOBER 20, 2016
Statement of Ken Ward at his Arraignment on Charges of Burglary, Criminal Trespass, Sabotage and Assemblages of Saboteurs
October 20, 2016 in Mt. Vernon, WA
I have been charged by the Prosecuting Attorney for Skagit County, Washington with four crimes – burglary, criminal trespass, sabotage and assemblages of saboteurs – for my action last Tuesday, closing a safety valve on the TransMountain pipeline and blocking the flow of Canadian tar sands oil from Alberta to the Anacortes refineries.
There is no question about what I did – I livestreamed it, and you can see the video at shutitdown.today and on my FaceBook page, facebook.com/kenward.brightlines. The only question is whether what I did was an appropriate and practical response to what President Obama recently described as “terrifying” climate change conditions.
…
Read more: http://www.climatedisobedience.org/ken_ward_arraignment
I’m not a legal expert, but my understanding is a “necessity” defence is normally accepted only when an otherwise illegal action is the only way to prevent imminent severe injury or loss of life.
Even if climate change is as serious a threat as Ken Ward believes, his actions likely endangered lives, rather than preventing imminent loss of life. A close family relative used to work in an oil refinery, my understanding is abruptly closing the emergency shutdown valve on an oil pipeline can cause the pipe to rupture, which can lead to life threatening fires and other serious consequences.
The following is an activist video of Ken Ward’s actions;
Lock them up and throw the key away.
that worked with OJ, too, right?
tell me what did work, then.
If your doing civil disobedience you don’t go to court and argue, “you can let me off because this is just civil disobedience.” If it’s real civil disobedience you gotta take the lumps for what your doing or it’s just theatre – out of place anywhere but the stage.
Excellent observation! I am old enough to remember the civil rights strife in the 1950s and 1960s. I even took part in a campus event (i.e., listened to an impassioned speech by Wyatt “Tee” Walker, who I think is still alive and who was a Board member at the university where I taught from 1991 to 2001). The primary figure in the 1960s was Martin Luther King, who willingly spent a decent amount of jail time for his civil disobedience (see his Letter from Birmingham Jail). King surely had his faults, but he knew that civil disobedience had logical and necessary consequences, which he was willing to undergo. Many others in that time did the same; in spite of the urgency of the cause, there was no “necessity” defense.
+1
Absolutely. These social justice warriors want to show how virtuous they are but are totally unwilling to accept the consequences.
If you believe you are doing what is right, then be prepared to go to jail, lose your job whatever.
Civil disobedience without consequences is just virtue signaling.
“Judge in environmental activist’s trial says climate change is matter of debate
Controversial statements angered environmentalists who insist courts have an obligation to recognize the science about manmade climate change.”
Nope:
Courts have an obligation to recognize if “science about manmade climate change” is to tackle by courts – or to treat and decide by –
science.
If it weren’t a matter of debate then it could be demonstrated to be clearly so in the Court.
(And we would learn which IPCC scenario is considered indisputable).
The fact that the activists find the request for evidence to be so unreasonable demonstrates that they don’t have the evidence to present.
It is clearly a matter of debate.
The reaction show it.
I’m not sure, but I think you just showed it is clearly not a matter of debate. If you can’t present evidence proving your point it is disproved in court. I think the judge should press them to prove man-made warming in court or declare it a legal fraud. Watch heads explode with that.
Can county judges sentence people to lengthy terms of imprisonment?
It’s a weird justice system .
They are only following the state legislature’s sentencing guidelines (as interpreted/supplemented by case law). If I understood you correctly, you were under the mis-mpression that they mete out sentencing ad hoc.
To give you an idea of what sentencing guidelines look like, here is an example from the state of Washington, USA:
(Excerpt)
Source: http://www.cfc.wa.gov/PublicationSentencing/SentencingManual/Adult_Sentencing_Manual_2015.pdf
I’m too tired to go read it, now, but, the defendant appears to be accused of a Class A Felony, thus, the 30 year max. sentence possibility.
The criminal terrorist admitted his crimes. He had his crimes video taped and publically aired.
He sentenced himself to a lengthy term of imprisonment, by his own admitted and documented terrorist acts.
“Judge in environmental activist’s trial says climate change is matter of debate
Controversial statements angered environmentalists who insist courts have an obligation to recognize the science about manmade climate change.”
Nope:
Courts have an obligation to recognize if “science about manmade climate change” is to tackle by courts – or to treat and decide by –
science.
https://sites.google.com/site/germanliterature/19th-century/kleist/michael-kohlhaas
https://www.google.at/search?q=the+case+of+Michael+Kohlhaas&oq=the+case+of+Michael+Kohlhaas&aqs=chrome..69i57.37518j0j4&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Slowly, but slowly, the worm is turning. This is precedent! WUWT is playing a yuuuge role. It’s not unlikely the judge had perused this forum along the path to “there’s tremendous controversy” over the role humans might be playing in a never-static climate.
Deluded (insert appropriate adjective) *SMH*
Not the judge – the criminals (thought I’d better clarify, lol)
Tucker Carlson, on Fox News, was interviewing a Sierra Club rep a few weeks ago, and the asked him (as I recall) “If the science is settled, tell me what the average temperature will be, within a tenth of a degree, say, thirty years from now. Oh, you can’t say for sure? Why not, if the science is truly settled? That should be easy.”
Tucker Carlson, on Fox News is an idiot. He does sceptics a disservice by blundering like that.
Weather is not Climate. The answer would be that the Mean difference in temperature relative to a known baseline would be x.
That’s not the same as saying the weather on any given Sunday will be y.
Of course, the stated accuracy of the Mean difference in temperature relative to a known baseline is ridiculous. And the “experts” have no proven predictive power.
But those arguments are missed due to Fox News not understanding what they are talking about.
Tucker Carlson is not an idiot. He has only put his finger on the wound of the priests from the last days in a transposed sense. These do not speak of predictions, but of scenarios. Just like the ideologues of the Church in the Middle Ages, who also open doors, the extent of purgatory, and how long the individual can expect this purgatory. The religion of anthropogenic warming is the replacement religion of the new age for fundamental atheists, who are nevertheless afraid to step before their God. Like Stalin, who cruelly killed people, persecuted the church and Christians, but, on his last days, summoned a priest to the last ransom, they sought substitute treatment. But wrongly, as wrongly as the Church of the Middle Ages. Einstein said the sentence: I do not know what is greater, the stupidity of people or the universe. And Einstein knew what he was talking about. He also fought against the “mainstream” often enough.
Carlson’s point is valid.
Why run all those models if not to predict what earth’s temperature is likely to be in 30, 60 or 90 years? Or is their purpose simply to justify a political agendum now?
Clearly, the models lack predictive ability. Their error bars are so enormous as to render them worse than worthless.
Thirty years from now, it could be cooler than now or warmer by just a few tenths of a degree. The odds are hugely against anything like a degree C. Thus, no settled science and now worries, except in the case of cold.
Assume that earth is one degree C warmer now than in AD 1850, when CO2 was allegedly at 280 ppm. It isn’t, but please play along.
Thus, to achieve the supposedly dangerous two degrees C warming by 2100, when CO2 is expected to have doubled to 560 or higher, we’d need to reach around .36 degrees higher within 30 years. Since the curve is logarithmic, even more warming than that should occur in the next 30 years rather than the 53 years after that until 2100.
So, if the science be settled, and ECS be only two rather than three degrees C, a consensus advocate should be able confidently to predict at least 0.4 degrees warmer in 30 years than now. If TCS rather than ECS be considered to rule over three rather than eight decades, then the warming should still be at least in this ball park, since the canonical ECS is three degrees, not two.
You missed Carlson’s point entirely. He must move very quickly on his show, too many guests and not enough time, thus his rapid-fire delivery. The Sierra Club guest was there to decry EPA nominee Scott Pruitt, and along the way he mentioned the “97%” and “settled science”. Carlson’s mission at that moment was not to show he knew more about climate science than the Sierra Club talking head, it was to ridicule the “settled science” mantra, quickly, and move on. The segment was not about the science of AGW, and Carlson could not allow it to get sidetracked by that. It was about the knee-jerk resistance to Pruitt’s nomination, and mindless green talking points, one of which Carlson skewered rather deftly. But thanks for being there!
It will be weird if in a year or two President Trump gives clemency to Ward on condition he recants his criminal behaviour on the grounds he was unduly encouraged by President Obama and climate madness surrounding this issue. more green heads spinning and a meme busted.
Or Trump could ask Ward to admit he voted illegally 3 million times. 😉
He’s just another useful idiot. Best give him a strait-jacket and a padded cell.
For 30 years.
I’d like to see this moron get a very long sentence.
“climate activist facing 30 years in prison”
How will he feel when the sun drops to its minimum output around 2030 and/if the temperature plummets?
A good way to learn to appreciate fact-based rather than faith-based science. Too bad.
What about the people who deluded him? Are they accomplices inciting an illegal act?
This brilliant kook ranks only slightly higher in intelligence than the chap who laid down in front of a slow-moving munitions train in Oakland, CA, assuming it would stop, and lost both legs for his trouble.
Let’s take ourselves, in the UK, to almost any Wetherspoon pub at 8 or 9 in the morning.
And we will see in almost every one, single men sitting around on their own, staring into the middle distance and a pint of beer in front of them. (Mostly cider these days as its cheap)
And what are they doing – what is going on in their heads?
Having been there done that bought the T-shirt nearly killed myself – I know exactly.
They are engaged in Magical Thinking. They are thinking about their jobs, wives, girlfriends, money and they are thinking *so* hard about those things that their thoughts become real. They believe their marriages are fine when they’re not, plenty money when it all goes on beer/horses/slots. They think and really believe their jobs and work are fine when patently they are not (how come they’re in the pub at 9AM?)
If they have a really intractable problem, they again think so hard that they really do convince themselves that it is someone else’s fault. In their minds there is simply no other way.
In other words, they convince themselves totally that idling away in the pub all day is actually good, that they are productive and useful members of society. And they see others around them doing the same, so it *must* be true.
In actual fact as most of us can see, they are doing irreparable harm not only to themselves, but to the rest of society. They will become a costly burden, fortunately not for too long while they turn yellow, their interior organs liquefy and fall out of their own backsides.
What causes this crazy behaviour?
Addiction to a depressant substance – in their case alcohol.
Now see these pipeline people. They are *utterly* convinced of their cause, they totally ignore their hypocrisy in driving a gasoline car, wearing (hi-viz) plastic clothes, enjoying all the energy/resources that went into making their cell-phones then broadcasting it on utube.
What causes these people to behave similarly to the drunks and what is so often quoted as a remedy for Climate Change?
Carbohydrate.
Just as your social drinking alcoholic friend will *insist* “Oh go on, have another drink and you’ll be fine” they will say, “Eat more carbs and we’ll all be fine”
This is one case. In this case a judge doubted that the science is settled.
In a case in a higher court, judges sided with the consensus:
Juries are an even bigger problem.
As President Trump appoints judges to the SCOTUS, we can hope that some of these cases make it there and set precedents that are binding on lower courts.
The other thing that President Trump will fix is friendly lawsuits by environmentalists.
These lawsuits take the heat off the EPA by making it look like it is being forced by the court and has no choice. In reality, the EPA doesn’t put forward a competent defence, it’s the legal equivalent of taking a dive.
I wish they had done this 10,000 years ago, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The action of this idiot has echoes of the green activists who released hundreds of captive mink, from fur farms, into the wild. Done in the name of animal rights, it led to the death of millions of native species, as the mink ran amok.
It’s true. Here’s an American example where the felons face ten years.
‘who insist courts have an obligation’
LOL. It is the plebes before the court who have obligations.
In the ’60s those engaging in acts of civil disobedience knew that you had to accept the risk of arrest and imprisonment, following the example of Thoreau.
IANAL either, but I’ve had classes on lawful use of deadly force.
The general standard is “imminent and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily injury”. At least that’s when using deadly force against another human being. There would be a lower standard if deadly force is used against an animal and a lower standard still for property damage.
The other thing about a self-defense plea is it is what the law terms an “affirmative defense”, which means first that if the jury believes the defendant’s actions were reasonably necessary to prevent death or grave bodily injury in the totallity of circumstances and knowing what the defendant knew at the time, then they must acquit and the judge will so instruct them. But second, it means the burden of proof shifts to the defendant to show by preponderance of evidence that use of deadly force was reasonably necessary. This will mostly likely entail the defendant taking the stand as witness, which opens up severe jeopardy in cross-examination. You’d better have a credible story that you can maintain in spite of everything the prosecution can bring up.
How this would apply to property crimes I could not say except that if allowed, the defendant would assume the burden of proof and would have to show the criminal actions were reasonably necessary to prevent some imminent and greater harm. Smashing into a pharmacy for bandages to stop someone bleeding out on the street is clearly justified on these ground. The danger is clear, immediate and not subject to debate.
The judge ruled against allowing a necessity defense in part because the alleged threat was not imminent:
I did not read the entire ruling, so the judge may have had other grounds.
Since the necessity defense has been ruled out, it appears these guys are screwed. Most criminal defense is either “SODDI” (Some Other Dude Did It) or “TODDI” (That Other Dude Did It). Both are absolutely voided by the evidence: they live streamed themselves committing the acts. They have two hopes left: jury nullification and prosecutorial wimpiness (plea-bargain to do community service by making climate awareness videos for children). This is Washington state, so I wouldn’t rule out either.
“abruptly closing the emergency shutdown valve on an oil pipeline can cause the pipe to rupture”
Waterhammer is very dangerous, and that’s EXACTLY how you get the worst form of waterhammer.
As well as over pressurization due to pumps continuing to operate. Was a good test, yet risky, of the relief valve/shutdown arrangement built into the system.
“over pressurization due to pumps continuing to operate” Irrelevant in comparison to the pressure of suddenly blocking the momentum of tons of moving liquid from having anywhere to go. Besides, pumps are designed with over pressure relief valves and shutdown sensors.
A local milk processing plant used to shut off their water valve on occasion and more than once the result was a broken water main, leading to flooding and destruction.
That’s what expansion chambers are for.
Whether the act woud have resulted in dangerous situations, the notion that Ward, in shutting down the pipeline , could have logically believed that his act would have prevented carbon emissions is totally absurd. Not one single automobile would have driven one less mile because of a shutdown.
The issue is not only that there was no neccessity to reduce carbon emissions, but that his act could not have possibly accomplished any reduction in any case. So one can label Ward as THE most complete and ineffectual idiot we have seen. The greenies are low-IQ folks, that’s for sure.
I think there is some merit to his defense. Obama himself supports his cause. Put the blame where it should go, not on some well meaning guy.
You are espousing a watered-down version of The Nuremberg Defense. Didn’t work then or since: individuals cannot escape legal responsibility for known criminal acts by hiding behind higher authority.
“You are espousing a watered-down version of The Nuremberg Defense.”
Not really, these people are not associated with government in any way so there can be no claim that anyone ordered them to do it.
As RS stated “Obama himself supports his cause. Put the blame where it should go, not on some well meaning guy.” Indeed, community organizer Obama made several points in his 2013 climate address that supports that claim, these in regard to urging a “courageous fight”:
* ” So the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.”
* “..a plan to lead the world in a coordinated assault on a changing climate. ”
This to intentionally frighten people in nebulous terms:
* “And we have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we’re going to suffer the consequences — together.”
This one underscoring immediate urgency:
* ” … but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real. We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.”
When you look back at that speech it becomes easy to see just how dangerous a lying US president can be to domestic tranquility if only a tiny number of people believed him.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-25/-we-need-to-act-transcript-of-obama-s-climate-change-speech
Original Mike:
Let’s distinguish between “blame” and “guilt”. I was speaking of “guilt” as a finding of due process under US law, which is what I thought RS was addressing by saying “I think his defense has some merit”, in response to my comment opining that the judge was correct to rule it out.
In that light, if RS is saying the necessity defense “has some merit” because “Obama himself supports the cause”, he is effectively saying the president’s endorsement removes guilt from the defendants and puts in on Obama, which is a watered-down Nuremberg Defense.
As you note, the very limited circumstances when the Nuremberg Defense can be used include being under legal obligation to obey orders from a superior, which is lacking here. Also required is not knowing at the time the ordered act was illegal — also lacking here.
So if RS’s comment was about guilt, it is wrong, with the qualification that I am not a lawyer.
If you want to shift the discussion to blame, then you can blame anyone you want: Obama, James Hansen, Bill McKibben, David Suzuki, the parents, etc., You could even blame The Devil. That has nothing to do with legal guilt. But I still disagree; people are responsible for their own actions. Unless they claim to be mentally incompetent to make their own decisions and just do what some authority figure directs.
Alan – Let’s distinguish between “blame” and “guilt”.
I am no lawyer either but feel that all of those you mentioned, Obama et. al., (not including the parents though, and their likely dead anyway by the look of it….) are actually guilty on the basis that they caused these people to panic no differently than those who trample others to death in the course of exiting a crowded theater after someone falsely yelled “fire”. The person who falsely yelled “fire” is the guilty party. CAGW indoctrination has been going for years falsely claiming the equivalent alarm as a fire. This kind of egregious/criminal behavior to “fight climate change” would not have occurred at all if AGW had instead been presented truthfully dressed only in scientific clothing as simply what it is, an interesting theory. Instead, the progressives dressed it in political clothes, kept ramping up reasons for everyone to be afraid and these perhaps “well intentioned” people were faithfully listening to them – brainwashed true believers of the CAGW cult. The followers of the People’s Temple would have never killed themselves if there had never been a Jim Jones to indoctrinate them in the first place.
Original Mike:
I am trying from an informed layperson’s understanding to explain how the law actually works, not how I feel it ought to work.
The two cases you cite are qualitatively different. First case (shouting “fire” in a crowded theater) is generally accepted to be highly likely to induce panic. I’m not aware of any controlled studies which back that up, but I suppose with all the funded research these days I should not be surprised if there are some. But for the purposes of discussing permissible restrictions on freedom of speech, we simply accept the premise that panic will ensue.
Shouting “we’re all going to die because of climate change” has demonstrably not resulted in general panic. Quite to the contrary, polls indicate most people don’t worry about climate change threats. We just had an election where a whole lot of people were shouting we would all die if Trump got elected, if not from climate change or nuclear war, then because we would all lose our healthcare. Far from inducing general panic it seemed to have induced more apathy and depression; total voter participation was lower than any election since 1996.
Just because people shout untrue and even outrageously untrue things does not mean they have any greater power than you or I to induce belief. There is also a clear legal barrier between urging people to “take action to fight climate change” and inciting them to commit illegal acts. And that’s a good thing because otherwise anyone who advocates change can be charged for crimes by others which “might have been influenced” by their statements. You can’t have personal freedom without accepting personal responsibility and sane people ultimately chose what they believe.
Your second example (Jim Jones & People’s Temple) is also very different. Those people were effectively held prisoner (Jones confiscated their passports) and were cut off from other sources of information. He really did control their entire environment. Plus, he passed out the poison — absolutely unambiguous guilt. Ward and the others were not kept prisoner or cut off from other information; they chose either to not seek it out or to dismiss it. WUWT is proof that alternative views are available.
So Ward et. al. cannot escape legal guilt by blaming Obama, unless they claim they are not competent to make their own decisions or manage their own affairs. Saying they have no power to resist their interpretation of Obama’s call to action is just slightly down the scale from “I must obey the voices in my head” claim, otherwise known as the insanity plea.
Reminds of the PeTA-type (Animal Rights) people that defended ALF back on the old AOL “Pet Care Forums”. I’ve even heard some of them claim that ALF is non-violent because no one had been harmed when they burned or vandalized research labs and such.
Some even defended ELF.
(I wonder if this guy was ever a member?)
A much more appropriate sentence would be for this person to spend thirty years doing actual research on climate change, fulfilling written assignments, research reports, homework papers, … honing his knowledge of actual facts (how tortuous !), starting a speaking tour, TV-appearance schedule, spreading the word about how cost/benefit analysis of one’s actions is a necessary ingredient in any righteous cause.
Why is the news reference to this a British newspaper? Why aren’t we seeing this story in the New York or LA Times? Where is the Huffington Post?
This is not the first time Ken Ward has tried to get a judge to rule that the “Necessity Defence” can be used to excuse “anti-CAGW crime” — https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/us/charges-dropped-against-climate-activists.html
Under Homeland Security guidelines, he may qualify as a terrorist.
Oh… THAT Sam Sutter DA! http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20150520/NEWS/150529208 (didn’t stop him from going back to private practice though … http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20160427/NEWS/160426238 )
So it is his second trip to court for this type of action. And his defense is that it is a moral imperative that he did what he did.
He will have a difficult time at sentencing now saying “I made a mistake and I learned from it … please give me probation … I’m sorry it was a mistake and I now realize that there are better ways to call attention to the problem and for me to save the world. My moral base has changed completely in the last 4 months and I am now a nicer guy.”
He is likely very screwed.
In my opinion Ken Ward’s actions are comparable to someone who plants a bomb, and phones a warning before the bomb explodes. Ken’s team phoned a warning to the pipeline operators, who acted promptly – but one slip up and people could have died.
Sometimes is envy the efficiency at which the American inmate storage system keeps retards in. In Europe they merely recycle the inmates. I mean, you can in EU kill someone on purpose and nastily, and you’ll still get completely freed up in 15 years (your mileage may vary). And if you kill two, you’ll get a discount (two bodies for the price of one) as long as you can’t be proved to be mad enough to be packaged. It’s very difficult to end up like that.
It is interesting how the European system may however become very serious if the crime is considered taboo, like Breivik’s, who apparently got a life sentence even if that should not have been possible. Well, even greenies have their limit.