Just Stop Oil’s (JSO) actions, I have argued, like those of Extinction Rebellion (XR) before it, do not, on the whole, materially affect our lives (unless of course we are waiting for an ambulance to take us to hospital). Its protests and stunts epitomise both the zombie-like adherence to green ideology of many in our society and the anti-human character of that ideology. But whereas JSO protests can spoil your day, it is policy and law that will ruin countless more lives.
Last week, as Just Stop Oil activists were causing criminal damage to ancient monuments and airports, an arguably far greater act of vandalism took place in the U.K.’s highest court. After a two-day hearing, five Supreme Court judges found three to two in favour of an appeal against the High Court’s ruling that a local authority’s decision to allow a small oil well in Surrey was lawful. At issue, the three judges found, was the fact that the local authority failed to consider the emissions that would be produced by using the fuels that the oil would be turned into.
Politicians have never had any idea about how the emissions-reduction targets they have accepted can be achieved. Yet such targets are legally enforceable, in practice leaving courts to decide on policy. Yet courts are incapable of representing the public interest as such, not least because only the clients – or puppets – of extremely well-funded green organisations can afford the prohibitive costs of
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Five MPs objected to Miiband’s Climate Change Act at the time, including Peter Lilley, one of few MPs with science degrees ( and any sense of proportion). It was obvious to us plebs where it would lead. The only recourse now is to change the law again, in the teeth of all the “philanthropy” and propaganda.
The immediate solution is for Surrey CC to grant approval again, having considered that more greenhouse gases would be produced importing the oil to replace that lost by refusing permission. In other words, they would be saving the planet by approving.
I’m strongly convinced that it’s wrong to give any ground here. The verdict is absurd (double-counting of emissions) and based on judical conjecture alone. Judges are not supposed to find anyone anything based on their personal conjectures about the future. And that’s making the merciful assumption that Legtatt et al were just acting foolishly out of incompetence, ie, ignoring the very real possibilty that they got paid for this.
I wish commentators would stop calling this anti-civilisation cult ‘Green’. If they were interested in the environment they would be campaigning against pollution and the destruction of wildlife by wind turbines (onshore and offshore) and fields full of solar panels both of which last 20-30 years, can’t be recycled and end up as yet more landfill. What’s ‘Green’ about that?
Abolish the Supreme Court. All of them, everywhere, poking their bloated noses into every tiny corner of every individual’s life, grandiosely pronouncing their “judgments” upon everything, everywhere on the planet.
Somehow mankind managed to survive for thousands of years without any lawyers or judges at all.
The argument against this legalistic flatulence is still that it reverses cause and effect. Oil is being extracted because that fact that it has a lot of applications makes it a valuable commodity and not the other way round. As I wrote in another comment already: It’s not oil extraction which causes people to drive ICE cars. To make this even more absurd, all these applications need to meet relevant emission standards and conform to applicable regulations already. Lord Mouthfarter thus wants these emissions to be double-counted which is clearly inappropriate because they happen only once.
Attempt at wording this somewhat clearer: Oil is being extracted because people want to use it for something. This use may or may not cause emissions the people putting the oil to this particular use are responsible for.
The ruling inverts this: It’s based on the claim that oil extraction causes people to put it to some use which may or may not lead to emissions and because of this, the people extracting the oil are to be held responsible for the consequences of what other people might do with it.
The might is an important second point. Legatt’s statement is basically “I speculate this oil is going to be burned. Therefore, you are responsible for the consequences of burning his oil!” That’s basically fabricating evidence, or rather, it’s passing a judgement on the presumption that evidence exists which really doesn’t. Nobody can yet tell for certain what someone who might in future buy oil extracted in Surrey will do with it.
This guy really needs to be prosecuted.
As the dissenting minority two judges pointed out, the effect of the majority’s decision is that a local council considering a planning application is now required to carry out an assessment of the potential global alleged environmental effects of the proposed activity and all its consequences, including what customers do with any products produced on the site. This is the truly absurd result of the majority’s interpretation of the regulations – but the majority were completely unbothered by the ridiculous consequences of their decision, and airily brushed it aside.
The other notable feature of the majority judgment is that they stated that the undisputed facts were that the oil if extracted would be burned (rather than used in some other way); that once burned, it would increase climate change; and that if the development was refused, the oil would not be completely replaced and less would be burned overall. It is not clear whether this was because the parties agreed these facts, or the majority decided that they were to be taken as gospel. But this unquestioning and absolute approach to complex and disputed issues is disturbing. It indicates that many judges, depending on their views on these matters, are… Read more »
No one needs a Supreme Court, or a Kritocracy = “Rule by Judges”. Abolish it.
The Supreme Court was one of the many (not the few) Blair creations that were designed to destroy Britain.
Exactly.
I was about to post similar.
When anything goes wrong in this country or appears to be working against the best interests of the population the first enquiry should be to establish Bliar’s involvement. He’s never far away. Even if he is not immediately seen to be the culprit there is always a 99% certainty that he will be hovering like the spectre of death in the background.
And Mandelson. The dark Lord. From Herefordshire too!
Also joining the ECHR. i was thinking to myself, we didn’t have this problem of mass immigration in the 1990s, yet the same old UN drafts made in the 1940s.
That man – Bliar did more to destroy this country than the Lufftewaffe did.
He has no shame. A despicable apology of a human being.
“the three judges found, was the fact that the local authority failed to consider the emissions that would be produced by using the fuels that the oil would be turned into.”
Supreme Court judges?
No doubt after the ruling they got into their cars/trains/planes and turned more oil into the emissions they just ruled against whilst going home, and never gave their hypocrisy a thought!
A thorough take down of the Supreme Court adjudication, by Christopher Monkton of Brenchley https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/25/corporations-that-concede-the-science-are-doomed/
Interesting read. But this is not about facts, it’s about people in positions of power abusing this power for political ends. The author suggests taking this to the ECHR. But the ECHR will then likely ‘find’ that hypothetical emissions really need to be treble-counted because climate activists are also running the show there.
Government and indeed the entire Political Class were not daft when they waved through Net Zero into law in 2019 meaning we are now legally obliged to reduce emissions of CO2. Since all human activity involves the release of some CO2 it means that any and all human activities can be deemed to be harmful to the climate.
Bureaucrats have long craved this kind of power over their citizens, and NET ZERO and the demonisation of CO2 has given them that power. When Labour become the government with the presumed massive majority, we are going to see that power exercised over us. The Sustainable Devlopment Agenda that the Labour Party with Miliband etc will be followed to the letter, and the result will be crippling energy bills, and the destruction of our Industrial Base as has happened in Germany who went hell for leather for wind. This will be done in utter contempt for the UK population who have been relentlessly brainwashed about a climate crisis and repeatedly told lies about Cheap Renewable Energy from wind and sun……I suggest we all watch the bills pile up and then we can wonder “Whatever happened to all the Free Wind”? ——–If only… Read more »
“Bureaucrats have long craved this kind of power over their citizens, and NET ZERO and the demonisation of CO2 has given them that power.”
Which is exactly what was set out by The Club of Rome in their ‘Limits to Growth’ statement back in 1972.
And the warning from that Socialist Think Tank advising the UN was quite clear, yet the public were not listening, mainly because what the Club of Rome were saying would not be on the 6 O’Clock News. The UN moved on with the agenda and set up the IPCC in 1988, we had the corruption in 1992 where the bureaucrats were changing the wording of things the scientists were saying. The science was saying there was no evidence of human influence on climate, but the Summary for Policy Makers decided to say the opposite that there was a “discernible human influence” etc etc. Then we had the Climategate Email scandal where this climate establishment at East Anglia and Manns bunch in America were hiding the true state of climate from the public. The Hockey Stick where Mann refused to provide data, code and methodology so others could check the graph that alleged to show a sharp increase in warming in the 20th century and all the time the public are not paying attention because they don’t see it on the telly and it gets swept under the carpet. We in 2008 get the “Climate Cange Act” and start the skyrocketing… Read more »
You’ll be waiting for an ambulance for 14 hours in some parts (Cornwall) of the UK without the action of JSO! Broken Britain
Maybe he should call the people who oppose him fruitcakes and loonies – that usually works out well 😂
Sorry should have been a reply to Ron Smith
Macron sends bizarre warning:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHxYLBOx4_o
A good article, the supreme court decision is bad for industry and reflects the limitation of the knowledge of industry that the legislators had when they passed this Law with a simplistic view of infinitely complex industrial processes that deriving a vast amount of individual commodities.
The removal of primary manufacturing industry and the secondary industries that support them only leaves today, the hospitality and public sector to support the economy. Hospitality is disappearing, public sector needs a lot money to survive, because without it run as a functional business model they all would fail. That’s why borrowing and taxes are so high and are set to rise regardless of the result of 4th July.
All this doesn’t matter to the virtue signallers, They are content in the knowledge that they are saving the planet and don’t need any industry here, because they can buy everything they need from the supermarket or the internet.
Good luck with that.
It all emanates from the UN and WEF who consider our lifestyles to be “unsustainable”. Which means we have a standard of living that needs to be reduced, and our own squirming parasite politicians are all fully onboard with this eco socialism masquerading as concern for the planet.
The politicians, business owners and Unions have sat back and allowed the unelected Judges and tiny minorities to take over the Country.
It is easier now for the silent majority to fight back given that so many payment systems are now online.
I would like to know whether these people holiday abroad.
Or use all the items that we use in a modern society. It’s back to a nice warm cave and a fire then. What’s for tea?
Sorry, no fire tonight or tea. The fire will cause too many emissions, and there is no fauna to eat because we killed them off because they flatulate, and al the flora is dead because we have not enough CO2 in the atmosphere to allow plants to growth.
Of course they do, because when they are doing it, it’s always something completely different.
Yer, but; comes to mind.
Its pretty pointless trying to find the logic in their argument as there isn’t any…
and it usually appears to be late middle-aged, thick as mince (sorry, Quinoa), white women with too much time on their hands.
In other words, aging boomer chicks still busy with bringing about the revolution the world urgently needs and which only they can deliver. Talk about megalomania …
I think there’s a reaction to the “I’m past 50 and I’m invisible” neurosis.
The “assigned female at birth” (God only knows why!) people pictured above are way past past 50.
You’ve just summed up my sister, without ever meeting her. Well done.
Come on guys! I thought we are a bit beyond grouping people together based on sex, race or age. No need for this at all.