Most of the laws which protect our environment come from Europe. In order to plug some of the gaps which Brexit will create – if it happens – the government has promised to bring in a new Environment Bill.

Although that is not yet ready, the Conservatives feel under pressure to be seen to be doing something, and so the government recently published a Draft Environment Bill. The draft and responses to it will provide the basis for the bill itself, although the timing for that is unclear.

Draft bills don’t have to go through the whole parliamentary process that real bills have, which normally entails scope for amendments in both the Commons and the Lords.

Principles

In this case, instead, the ‘pre-legislative scrutiny’ consists of a joint inquiry by two committees of MPs: the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment Select Committee.

There are many aspects of the Draft Bill which worry environmentalists and others. For instance, and very importantly: the Draft proposes setting up a new Office for Environmental Protection, but there are concerns about its independence from government and the adequacy of its resources and powers to enforce the laws.

However in this short article we will come from a different angle: the unsatisfactory way in which the government is proposing to deal with the “environmental principles” it lists, principles inherited from EU law.

The principles themselves are generally agreed to be sound: for example polluters should pay for the pollution they create, action should be taken to prevent environmental damage, and we should be cautious when we don’t have all the evidence relevant to making a decision (“the precautionary principle”).

What is worrying about the Draft Bill is principally the limits it imposes on the application of these principles, which are its own principles, set out in Clause 2 on the first page of the Bill.

Green taxation

The principles are to be “proportionately applied”. What this would probably mean in practice is that they won’t be applied at all if they cost the Treasury or business money.

 The principles are also to be something for government to “have regard to”: another get-out clause which implies actually applying the principles only when there is nothing else government wants to do which conflicts with them, such as building new motorways and runways.

The principles — especially the preventative principle and the precautionary principle, which keep us safe — need instead to be duties, unavoidable, sacrosanct.

Similarly concerning is the exclusion of “taxation, spending or the allocation of resources within government” from the scope of the principles.

This is effectively the Treasury opting out of having the principles applying to anything it does, and appears to ignore the ongoing debate about “green taxation”, and even apparently rules out any idea of how environmental considerations might impact on the allocation of public expenditure for example, for flood defences.

Policy

Even stranger than what is in the bill itself is one comment in the official “explanatory notes”.

Paragraph 52 states  that “it may be inappropriate to consider the environmental principles in an area of policy that changes or is novel”.

It is obviously precisely in such cases that a consideration of environmental principles, and especially the precautionary principle, is required.

However, perhaps the worst limitation of all comes later in the Draft Bill. We find that the new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) is going to be responsible for applying the environmental principles only to “environmental law”, which is a far more limited category.

This, it would seem, exclude the full range of government policy – the planning system for example, or transport, or economic policy, energy, infrastructure, agriculture.

It is also worth noting that, crucially, emissions of greenhouse gases are explicitly excluded from the remit of the OEP, a strange limitation in view of the enormous impact of anthropogenic dangerous climate change across the environment.

This is only a Draft Bill. There is plenty of time and opportunity to improve on it, and several of the environment NGOs are hard at work trying to do that. But if they don’t succeed, the environment really will join the list of the casualties of Brexit.

These authors

Victor Anderson is a research fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), and used to be a Green member of the London Assembly. Rupert Read is a reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia.. The terms of reference for the inquiry are online.

Brexit puts new pressure on Ireland to find and develop its own oil and gas supplies and reduce its reliance on British imports, the country’s offshore hydrocarbons industry argues.

Ireland imports all of its oil and around a third of its natural gas – mostly from the UK – and the gas imports are set to rise as the country’s offshore Corrib reserve runs out over the next 12 years, according to the Irish Offshore Operators’ Association (IOOA).

Now, uncertainty around Britain’s future relationship with the EU is adding urgency to the industry’s calls for drilling and infrastructure projects that can bolster Ireland’s energy independence.

Geopolitical uncertainty

“Ireland’s geographical location at the edge of Europe makes us extremely vulnerable to any potential disruption to energy supplies,” Pat Shannon, the IOOA’s chairman, told Climate Home News.

“Brexit increases energy security concerns, and post-Brexit, Ireland will not have a direct connection to the main EU energy infrastructure.”

The association published a report in January highlighting Ireland’s reliance on foreign oil and gas. It noted that even its biggest supplier, Britain, depends increasingly on imports from the European Union, Norway and Russia.

A disruption in these energy supplies would be costly for Ireland, the report warned. A year-long interruption of Russian gas to Europe would push up the country’s gas prices by 23 percent and electricity prices by 15%, while a total blackout would cost around €850m per day.

“Developing indigenous oil and gas would provide greater security of supply for Ireland in the context of global geopolitical uncertainty, including Brexit,” Shannon said.

Oil and gas

The industry association has been discussing these risks with Ireland’s local and national governments and other stakeholders since Britain’s June 2016 referendum.

Oil and gas explorers will “likely” drill at least one new well in the deep Irish waters this year, with more being prepared for 2020 and 2021, Shannon said.

“Irrespective of the manner in which the UK departs from the European Union, IOOA believes it is vitally important for Ireland to secure its own indigenous energy supply as we transition to a low-carbon economy,” he said.

Along with supply security, Shannon points to one more upside to developing homegrown oil and gas: lower carbon dioxide emissions. Gas-fired power emits 67% less CO2 than peat and 61% less than coal, while oil emits 33% less than peat and 20% less than coal, according to the IOOA report.

That said, peat and coal only accounted for a combined 13 percent of Ireland’s total energy use in 2017, while oil and gas dominated with 78 percent.

Chasing the dragon

New investment in domestic oil and gas would also put Dublin in an awkward position, after lawmakers voted last summer to make the country the first to fully divest its sovereign wealth fund from fossil fuels.

A cross-party parliamentary committee is now debating recommendations for broad new policies to tackle climate change, as the country struggles to limit its emissions.

The Irish Green Party’s leader, Eamon Ryan, dismissed the claims that the country needs domestic oil and gas.

“This industry is like an addict, it just wants one last fix, and it will tell you anything and do anything and try anything to get that fix,” Ryan, a former energy and natural resources minister, told CHN.

“They’re chasing the dragon, they’re chasing the wrong way. We should be using Irish waters to develop offshore wind farms… that’s what has to change to take the climate seriously, and Brexit is not going to change that one way or the other.”

Cheaper technology

Brexit is not expected to immediately disrupt Ireland’s oil, gas or electricity trade with its neighbour, even if it’s a hard, no-deal departure on 29 March.

The World Trade Organization does not apply trade tariffs to primary energy, and Britain and Ireland also have bilateral agreements on their gas trade outside any EU arrangements, noted Paul Deane, an energy research fellow at University College Cork.

Nonetheless, Brexit has “refocused attention” on Ireland’s import reliance, Deane said. Wind and other renewables are growing, but gas still covers about half the power demand.

Brexit uncertainty is one factor that helped revive plans for the stalled Shannon liquefied natural gas import terminal on Ireland’s west coast, when a US equity firm stepped in to buy it for €1bn last year.

The project’s prospects are also boosted by the availability of new, cheaper technology to receive cargoes offshore rather than onshore, but its future now depends on the outcome of a legal challenge from environmental groups.

The High Court is expected to decide on Friday whether the new owner can start building, or has to apply for new planning permits, or must drop the project entirely.

Projects like this require swift decisions aimed at bolstering the country’s energy security, the offshore operators’ association argues.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

We all saw the headlines on Friday 15th February 2019: in more than 60 locations around the UK an estimated 20,000 young people went on strike from school to protest the UK government’s inaction over the climate breakdown.

The national news coverage was impressive and important, but tended to lack the personal and has not challenged the ‘youth mob’ narratives that I have seen circulating.

There are several questions that need to be explored. What were the individual motivations to ditch the classroom? Was it just a free pass to party? How long had this growing hum of youth disquiet remained unobserved? How deep does it run?

Protest

I wish to give some tentative answers to these questions. I am a youth environmental activist with the UK Youth Climate Coalition, and for this protest I went down with a film team to document the Bristol protest with the University of Bristol TV.

With microphone in hand, I was justified in prodding and poking people’s environmental positions, an exercise which so often gets me in trouble at family parties. Here are my key takeaways.

1. Do not underestimate young people.

I had spoken to the event organiser earlier in the week – a 14 year old girl – and she told me that she was expecting about 30-40 people to attend.

As the clock hit 11am, there was an influx of young people literally running across the College Green, until there were between 1,000 and 2,000 bodies crowded around Bristol city council’s entrance singing ‘climate change has got to go’.

I was aware that from 11am onwards the strike was going to have various speakers, a staged ‘die-in’, and then at 1pm the official demands of the UK Student Climate Network would be read out.

Almost none of this happened. This was not through a lack of organisation, but instead because the chanting was sustained and overwhelming.

Young people adorned in school uniform started mounting the ramp to the council building, wet head to toe from marching around in the pond in front.

Several hours after the planned end to the strike, I could still hear the distant thud of chanting and marching as the protestors were taking their strike mobile. And how did the field look after the thousand strong protest left? Chalk art on the pavement and not a piece of litter in sight.

The demand for change was visceral. This was not exclusive to Bristol. Other UKYCC activists were dispersed around the country.

One at the London strikes told us how, completely unplanned, the protestors took over Westminster bridge.  They had claimed buses, were mounting traffic lights and police were brought in on horseback to counter it. In Oxford, George Monbiot spoke and a march began.

2. Apathy is dead.

In jest, I opened many questions provocatively with ‘so you’re here to skip school?’. I was met with reproach. 15-year old Aaron said:”‘I’m not here to skip.

“I saw the strike and researched it further. I didn’t quite realise the impact climate change is having and will have on this world… I’m here because young people need to group together and be heard.”

10-year old Matilda protested that she was here for the polar bears – yep, it’s still a talking point – and the melting ice-caps jeopardising animal well-being.

There was not one respondent who didn’t speak with conviction, a clear sign to me that perhaps apathy is no longer a currency that young people can afford.

Most youth were defiant that the government was gambling their future away without their consent. This lack of agency seemed to be central to the energy behind the protests; attendance seemed to be an exercise of ‘reclaiming’.

I am a young person who shares these frustrations of agency, and sharing a communal space to feel this together reduced me to tears. Never in my life as a campaigner have I felt such a shared sense of urgency and never have I felt more optimistic that change is coming, and it has a fresh wrinkle-free face.

3. We won’t stop.

If the length and passion of the protest itself is anything to go by then I predict this protest to happen every month for the next year, minimum.

‘Empowered’ was a common response when I asked people how they were feeling. Empowerment is notably contagious, so it is likely that these strikes will only grow in numbers.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old activist who sparked the protests by launching the #FridaysForFuture campaign has been on strike for the past 26 weeks – that’s half a year. As one homemade sign at the strikes read – “we’re with you Greta” – so don’t expect this to be a one-time strike.

This week’s strikes are being reported as a ‘rehearsal’ for the global school strikes for climate that will happen on the 15th March 2019, so watch this space.

4. The voting age needs to be lowered to 16

This is one of the protestors key demands, and I have to admit I was a little skeptical when I first heard it. When I was 16 – not too long ago – I was more concerned with Justin Bieber’s haircut that an impending climate breakdown.

But as I said, the sense of urgency now is too grand for young people to remain apolitical.

One 16-year-old I met was adamant for his stake in politics. Ben said: “They think we don’t understand voter responsibility, but the majority of the demographic here today are 15 to 18. That proves that young people know what they’re going on about. We need to break this stereotype.”

I found this profoundly powerful: how is it possible that the age demographic that will be most affected by climate breakdown is currently denied entry into the conversation? Where is the democracy?

I leave feeling both deeply concerned, but also deeply inspired. I have been to many, many, protests, but none have had the texture and dignity of this.

This Author

Katie Hodgetts is an activist and campaigner for the UK Youth Climate Coalition and is on twitter at @katiehodgettssx 

When you make sixty thousand tons of toxic waste per day and you need to store it safely till the end of times, you do what the sun does to desert dwellers: you make a mirage. You fool people into believing that a solution is in sight.

That’s exactly what China’s government does in Ecuador, by investing in the massive Mirador mining project.

The mega-mine has estimated reserves of 5 million tons of copper, 700 tons of silver and 90 tons of gold. Digging it up leads to toxic waste than needs storage behind a dam.

Toxic cascade

Since 2007, experts say that present and proposed construction of dams to hold all the waste will inevitable collapse, as it recently did in Brazil with 100s of deaths as a first consequence.

In 2014, alternative plans were put forward and accepted by the Ecuadorian Government, but the risk remains extremely high. That is the opinion of Dr Steven Emerman, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the World Mine Tailings Failure Database, who visited the site in November 2018.

A dam failure would amount to more than 100 deaths, major loss of fish or wildlife habitat and extreme losses affecting critical infrastructure or services.

Imagine a tsunami of toxic waste, hundreds of millions of metric tons, containing mercury, arsenic, cyanide, acid and heavy metals cascading through the steeply inclined river system to reach the Amazon River.

This will be a veritable nightmare of pollution and destruction. The speed of the toxic cascade is impressive. If the collapse occurred at a moment of high rainfall it would travel 88 kilometers in five hours.

Dam disaster

Ecuador’s first open pit mega-mine happens to be located in a hotbed of biodiversity: the Cordillera del Condor. If the Chinese state companies succeed, it will become one of the largest mine’s humanity has ever created.

The companies involved are the Tongling Non-Ferrous Metals Group joined and the China Railway Construction Corporation.

Dr Emerman noted that the first dam under construction was being built in a manner which did not comply with the Environmental Impact Study of 2014 and was being built at a “critical” angle, in engineering terms at the “edge of collapse”. This dam will be 63 meters tall.

The second dam in planning is to be 260 meters tall. The agreed plan is to build this dam with slopes which are steeper than generally used, thus creating a greater danger of collapse.

There are many ways how a dam disaster can be triggered. The dams could collapse from overtopping in flood conditions. Neither of the dams take a Probable Maximum Flood into account. Nor do they consider the Probable Maximum Earthquake.

The contents stored behind the 260-meter-tall dam will be “wet” by nature and therefore more susceptible to liquefaction. Building the foundations from what is known as “weak material” doesn’t help either.

Court case

Three of us are bringing a case before the Ecuadorian courts. Our lawyer Julio Prieto will give the legal standing and details, Dr Emerman will provide scientific evidence and this author will represent Nature itself.

The Ecuadorian Constitution is unique in giving rights for nature, meaning that anyone can go to court in the name of nature. We will use the precautionary principle in relation to grave threats to those constitutionally agreed Rights of Nature. 

We will ask for an injunction to halt the construction and to require a full review of the design and construction by an independent international panel of experts.

These Author

David Dene and Julio Prieto are United Nations’ experts in harmony with nature. Julio Prieto is also an Ecuadorean lawyer who became famous for representing 30,000 Indigenous people in Ecuador impacted by Chevron’s toxic oil waste and is also the author of a book about Rights of Nature for the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court. Dr Steven Emerman is the owner of Malach Consulting, the environmental compiler and vice-chair of the board of directors of the World Mine Tailings Failure Database and an expert on the Mirador Mine tailings facilities.

More background on the Mirador Mine conflict in the Atlas of Environmental Justice (Spanish).

More than 300 people took over the British Museum at the weekend to create a giant 200-metre “living artwork” that circled the entire Great Court, in protest at BP sponsorship.

Organisers believe this to be the biggest ever protest in the museum’s 260-year history. The action took place to challenge the oil giant’s sponsorship of an Assyrian exhibition that includes objects from what is now Iraq.

BP’s role in the Iraq war, its contribution to climate change and the oil industry’s negative impacts in Iraq are of particular concern to campaigners, who held the protest to mark yesterday’s sixteen-year anniversary of the record-breaking demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq.

Tapestry

The organisers of the performance protest, BP or not BP?, are also pointing to the British Museum’s exhibition itself, which includes ancient Iraqi artefacts originally looted by British explorers.

The performers did not request permission for this event, but museum security did not intervene as hundreds of black-clad performers sang, processed, and formed a huge circle around the central rotunda of the Great Court.

The group then revealed 200 metres of black fabric – which they had smuggled into the museum – featuring words and symbols representing the connections between BP sponsorship, climate change, looted artefacts and the Iraq War.

This design incorporated artwork by the Kurdish Iraqi artist Mariwan Jalal. Together, the performers and the fabric surrounded the central reading room of the museum with a giant “living tapestry” which remained in place for half an hour.

The protest performance then moved to the entrance of the Assyria exhibition itself, where participants sat down, filling the floor with people and tapestry pieces that read “OIL x ARMS = IRAQ WAR” and “DROP BP”.

Bravery, strength

A banner was revealed containing a notorious 2002 quote from the UK Foreign Office, uncovered many years later through Freedom of Information: “Iraq is THE big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there”.

This comment was made by government officials to describe the oil company’s intentions when it was lobbying the government for access to Iraq’s oil just before the 2003 invasion.

Words and messages from Iraq were read out and chanted by the crowd, and participants of Iraqi descent spoke of their own personal experiences of the Iraq War and of the current situation in Iraq today.

Zeena Yasin, shared a personal story to illustrate the real human impacts of the invasion of Iraq: “During the bombing of Mosul against ISIS, which is a direct consequence of the western invasion of Iraq – the husband of my auntie wanted to aid his neighbours.

“His wife begged him not to, worrying for his safety. Because of his bravery, strength and chivalry, he went in an attempt to save his relatives. Alas, the house he went to was bombed and he was one of the casualties.

Personal messages

“Because of the destruction of infrastructure and transport, she could not get him to the hospital in time. It was not safe enough to get a taxi or get on a bus. She pushed him on a pushchair for hours and he succumbed to his injuries on the way.”

Yasmin Younis, who spoke at the event, said: “When I saw there would be a special exhibition on my culture and my history, I was ecstatic because for once, my culture’s beauty would be celebrated, but finding out the sponsor was BP was a massive slap in the face.

“These are the very same sponsors who advocated for the war which destroyed my homeland and slaughtered my people all in the name of oil.

“To BP and the British Museum, I say how dare you use my culture and my history as an attempt to hide your colonialist skeletons. Not my culture, not my country. No war, no warming!”

Participants then wrote two hundred personal messages on slips of paper which were displayed and then handed in to the museum, demanding that it ends its relationship with BP, returns stolen objects and addresses its colonial past.

Looted objects

Finally, the performers processed outside and used the giant fabric pieces to fill the museum’s front steps for another 30 minutes while Ilaf, an Iraqi spoken word artist (@revolutionbywords) performed a specially-written poem about BP and Iraq.

This was not the first time the museum’s Assyria exhibition has been targeted by the performance activists. Last November, BP or not BP? set up a fake BP welcoming committee outside the exhibition, with Iraqi activists enacting a protest against the bogus BP spokespeople.

Today was the group’s 35th performance inside the museum.

As well as the performance action inside the British Museum, a rival exhibition at the nearby P21 Gallery opened yesterday, featuring work by artists from Iraq and of Iraqi descent living in the diaspora.

Maryam Hussain, an Iraqi member of BP or not BP?, said: “An exhibition featuring looted objects from ancient Iraq, sponsored by an oil company? The British Museum and BP should be ashamed. We have not forgotten, nor forgiven, the role that BP played in lobbying the UK government for access to Iraq’s oil before the 2003 invasion.

“This outrageous exhibition only makes us more adamant in our demands for accountability of those who played a role in the invasion of Iraq. We will continue our fight for the decolonisation of our public institutions and resist the exploitation of people, land and environment by big oil companies.”

This Article

This article is based on a press release from BP or not BP? Image: Diana More. 

A farming conference will address the implications of the rise in plant-based food for the environment, land use and Britain’s farmers.

The Grow Green conference, held at the British Library in London on 11 April, will explore how a plant-strong future can help meet climate change targets and what policies might support a transition towards it.

It will see the launch of research findings from the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, modelling alternative agriculture production in the UK.

Organic farmer

The research will show the impact of a shift to plant-strong farming on national food sovereignty, protected forest and heathland areas, and carbon sequestration.

Louise Davies from The Vegan Society, which organised the event, said: “The interest in plant-based foods has increased exponentially in recent years. Alongside this, scientists and academics are confirming that we need to be reducing our consumption of animal products.

“This important conference will discuss the implications of changing diets for food production, our land and the environment, and will explore what challenges and opportunities this presents for British producers.

“The Vegan Society is keen to collaborate with the agriculture sector and to ensure that Britain’s farmers can benefit from the rise in plant-based eating.”

Attendees will hear from former animal farmers who have moved on to plant-based agriculture, including Colm O’Dowde, organic farmer Iain Tolhurst, and Jay Wilde, whose story features in a Bafta-nominated film, 73 Cows.

The trio will address the many questions surrounding why and how farmers can move away from animal agriculture and look for opportunities in the plant sector.

Agricultural sector

Several other topics will be covered in panel discussions, such as political barriers to plant-strong production; making the best use of land in the UK; and ensuring the demand for plant-based products is met by production.

Keynote speakers include Dr Helen Harwatt, Farmed Animal Law and Policy Fellow at Harvard University; Natalie Bennett, former leader of the Green Party; and Marcela Villarreal, director of South-South cooperation at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Dr Helen Harwatt, who will launch the Harvard study at the conference, said: “The science is clear and consistent about the need to reconfigure food systems to fit within environmental limits, while also addressing a myriad of public health issues.

“The change needed to our current use of agricultural land in order to limit global temperature rise to 1.5ºC and tackle the wildlife crisis is vast and unprecedented.

“The good news is that solutions exist to help address these issues simultaneously. Our forthcoming research demonstrates an opportunity for the UK agricultural sector to lead the way.”

Partners for the conference include energy company Ecotricity, publication The Ecologist, Pulses UK, and the Processors and Growers Organisation.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from the Vegan Society. 

To read more about the conference, access the programme and speaker information or make a booking, visit www.growgreenconference.com. Early bird tickets are available at £40 + VAT until Friday 15 February. Day delegate passes are £55 + VAT. Refreshments and lunch are included with both passes.

We have the technology to achieve the change we need to meet the IPCC’s 2030 deadline to stop catastrophic climate change.  What we lack is the politics. 

Our children marching on the streets across the world highlights the real reason we aren’t making faster progress. Techies can debate the relative merits of different smart solutions -and long may they continue to drive progress in the efficiency and cost of generating energy from sources that don’t run out and don’t cost the earth. But the real debate is political.

Politics is how we decide who wins, who loses, who pays and who benefits when it comes to delivering the biggest change to our economic infrastructure since the industrial revolution. 

Photogenic

There is at last surprising consensus on the need for action. We see this in the rhetoric on both sides in the UK and the way the Green New Deal has blindsided the Washington political elite.

But once you get beyond fine words, then politics gets real. Rather as Barack Obama’s ‘Change we can believe in’ became an impossible blank canvas for a nation’s disparate hopes and dreams, ‘Green’ is a canvas upon which many draw their ideals for the future. 

Children are striking because climate is not just changing, it is approaching crisis and emergency. As Greta Thunberg put it: “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic … and act as if the house was on fire.”

It took just a few migrant boats in the channel to mobilise the Home Secretary and Royal Navy to combat an ’emergency’, while a toy helicopter flying near an airport closed down the skies and got the SAS out of bed. 

Potential prize

The response to the climate crisis is rather less photogenic (although the renewables industry is always ready with a high viz jacket and hard hat for any politicians that want to get their shiny official shovels out). 

Defying their stereotypes of naive ideals and obsession with social media the young are taking the only practical action they can, mobilising to show their political will as they don’t have recourse to the ballot. They are the realists, while the embedded ideologies on both sides of politics are getting in the way.

Those (mainly white males) currently trolling striking schoolchildren on social media and asking for their tax refunds are the ones living in denial of the impact of their politics on the planet, guilty of magical thinking and believing in unicorns. 

Climate change is real. The crisis is real. If you don’t believe me, ask the Bank of England. The cost is real. The potential prize is real too. Now we need our politics to get real.

This Author

Bruce Davis is managing director of Abundance Investment, which advertises with The Ecologist.

Parents worried about being penalised with fines for their children striking from school over climate change inaction today have vowed to defend their decision in court if they have to.

Thousands of children in more than 50 UK towns and cities were expected to down pens and join the first national Youth Strike For Climate today, defying warnings from some head teachers.

Schools are taking mixed views of the protest, with teachers saying on the one hand they understand the importance of the message on climate change and activism, but some are feeling restricted by safeguarding and absence rules imposed by the Department for Education. Children can only take ‘authorised absences’ for ‘exceptional circumstances’ which are not defined.

Their future

Parents often face fines from local education authorities for unauthorised absences. Some parents told The Ecologist they had received letters from their school head teachers warning the strike would not be authorised, and that children should be in school.

Sam Wiltshire said he had written to his daughter’s school in advance, notifying them of her desire to strike, but was not met with support from their school.

“It’s clear from letters that parents have received this week from head teachers that not all schools here in Bristol are showing support for the strike,” he said.

“Regardless of that I will support my two children striking and having the courage to stand up for something that they can see is incredibly important.

“We are in exceptional circumstances. Not enough is being done to prevent the climate change that will affect their future. The threat of a fine won’t stop us, we’ll fight it.”

Fined

One 15-year-old Oxfordshire student, blogger and author, Alex White, tweeted: “I’ve been upfront with school and told them I will be walking out tomorrow lunch. I’ve been told the doors will be locked especially to stop students leaving. Therefore I have no choice but to have the whole day off.”

He said he knew there were school safeguarding concerns: “I’m sure some teachers are fully supportive, and I completely understand the position the school has to take, but I’m striking for my future.”

Other primary and secondary schools, including some in Oxford and Bristol, have promised to support the strike by giving authorised absence marks in the register to pupils going on the strike. Cathedral Choir School in Bristol is even taking whole classes along to the protest on College Green, with teachers.

Legal experts say that under the Human Rights Act 1998, children have a right to gather peacefully to protest, and that there cannot be a culture of ‘pay to protest’ – you should not have to pay for your human rights.

One human rights barrister told The Ecologist that parents had been in touch with concerns about being fined for the strike, and that the right to protest should not be restricted to those who can afford it.

Positive light

“Our children as much as any of us have a human right to peaceful protest and assembly, and it is important that State institutions such as schools do not interfere with those rights,” she argued.

Parents had told her they were considering not paying any fine, and crowd funding to support a legal defence if necessary.

Layla Moran is the Oxford West and Abingdon MP,  the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman and also a former science teacher.

She urged school leaders to be supportive of any striking pupils: “I hope schools, colleges and universities see this in the positive light it is meant and equally hope those students act sensibly with making sure adults know where they are and making up the missed work.”

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for south west England and Gibraltar, one of 200 scientists who signed a public letter of support for strikers.

Climate justice

She said: “Far from being disengaged, many young people do care passionately about our planet and the welfare of our neighbours across the world.

“They deserve our unreserved support and I hope that, rather than punishing students who take part, head teachers encourage them to share their experiences of active citizenship with their peers.”

The National Association of Head Teachers said school leaders should ensure children attend school, are kept safe and receive a good quality of education, but added: “Individual school leaders can decide how best to respond to any proposed protest by students in their school on Friday.”

School strikes have been inspired by 16-year-old Swedish school girl Greta Thunberg’s protests outside her Parliament buildings last year, with copycat actions taking place in Australia, Holland and Belgium. More protests are planned, including a global strike day on March 15.

The striking children have a list of demands on the government, including: a UK-wide declaration of a climate emergency; more active steps to achieve climate justice; a reform of the national curriculum to make the ecological crisis an educational priority; mass public communication about the climate and ecological crisis; the inclusions of youth views into policy making; a lowering of the voting age to 16.

Climate crisis

Jake Woodier, a UK Youth Climate Coalition strike co-organiser,  said interest in today’s strike has grown rapidly over the past fortnight: “It’s fantastic to see so many passionate young people standing up for their futures.

“The evidence is clear that urgent action is needed now, to decarbonise all parts of the economy, and young people around the world are aware of this. Today’s young people have been let down by those in power for the previous few decades.

“I think that fears surrounding potential fines are natural for a lot of students in what may be their first taste of climate action. Schools and the education system should be about learning and empowering students to make positive change in the world, so it would be a massive shame if schools were to threaten punishment for those wanting to fight for their future.

“Schools have a policy of only allowing absences for medical reasons or under exceptional circumstances. Young people the world over see the climate crisis as an exceptional circumstance.”

Jake said many teachers had personally pledged support for the strike: “Teachers may be in a bit of a tricky situation to promote it too actively, but we’re living in a world where the climate crisis is an urgent reality.”

This Author

Alex Morss is an independent ecologist, freelance journalist, educator and author. 

Parents worried about being penalised with fines for their children striking from school over climate change inaction today have vowed to defend their decision in court if they have to.

Thousands of children in more than 50 UK towns and cities were expected to down pens and join the first national Youth Strike For Climate today, defying warnings from some head teachers.

Schools are taking mixed views of the protest, with teachers saying on the one hand they understand the importance of the message on climate change and activism, but some are feeling restricted by safeguarding and absence rules imposed by the Department for Education. Children can only take ‘authorised absences’ for ‘exceptional circumstances’ which are not defined.

Their future

Parents often face fines from local education authorities for unauthorised absences. Some parents told The Ecologist they had received letters from their school head teachers warning the strike would not be authorised, and that children should be in school.

Sam Wiltshire said he had written to his daughter’s school in advance, notifying them of her desire to strike, but was not met with support from their school.

“It’s clear from letters that parents have received this week from head teachers that not all schools here in Bristol are showing support for the strike,” he said.

“Regardless of that I will support my two children striking and having the courage to stand up for something that they can see is incredibly important.

“We are in exceptional circumstances. Not enough is being done to prevent the climate change that will affect their future. The threat of a fine won’t stop us, we’ll fight it.”

Fined

One 15-year-old Oxfordshire student, blogger and author, Alex White, tweeted: “I’ve been upfront with school and told them I will be walking out tomorrow lunch. I’ve been told the doors will be locked especially to stop students leaving. Therefore I have no choice but to have the whole day off.”

He said he knew there were school safeguarding concerns: “I’m sure some teachers are fully supportive, and I completely understand the position the school has to take, but I’m striking for my future.”

Other primary and secondary schools, including some in Oxford and Bristol, have promised to support the strike by giving authorised absence marks in the register to pupils going on the strike. Cathedral Choir School in Bristol is even taking whole classes along to the protest on College Green, with teachers.

Legal experts say that under the Human Rights Act 1998, children have a right to gather peacefully to protest, and that there cannot be a culture of ‘pay to protest’ – you should not have to pay for your human rights.

One human rights barrister told The Ecologist that parents had been in touch with concerns about being fined for the strike, and that the right to protest should not be restricted to those who can afford it.

Positive light

“Our children as much as any of us have a human right to peaceful protest and assembly, and it is important that State institutions such as schools do not interfere with those rights,” she argued.

Parents had told her they were considering not paying any fine, and crowd funding to support a legal defence if necessary.

Layla Moran is the Oxford West and Abingdon MP,  the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman and also a former science teacher.

She urged school leaders to be supportive of any striking pupils: “I hope schools, colleges and universities see this in the positive light it is meant and equally hope those students act sensibly with making sure adults know where they are and making up the missed work.”

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for south west England and Gibraltar, one of 200 scientists who signed a public letter of support for strikers.

Climate justice

She said: “Far from being disengaged, many young people do care passionately about our planet and the welfare of our neighbours across the world.

“They deserve our unreserved support and I hope that, rather than punishing students who take part, head teachers encourage them to share their experiences of active citizenship with their peers.”

The National Association of Head Teachers said school leaders should ensure children attend school, are kept safe and receive a good quality of education, but added: “Individual school leaders can decide how best to respond to any proposed protest by students in their school on Friday.”

School strikes have been inspired by 16-year-old Swedish school girl Greta Thunberg’s protests outside her Parliament buildings last year, with copycat actions taking place in Australia, Holland and Belgium. More protests are planned, including a global strike day on March 15.

The striking children have a list of demands on the government, including: a UK-wide declaration of a climate emergency; more active steps to achieve climate justice; a reform of the national curriculum to make the ecological crisis an educational priority; mass public communication about the climate and ecological crisis; the inclusions of youth views into policy making; a lowering of the voting age to 16.

Climate crisis

Jake Woodier, a UK Youth Climate Coalition strike co-organiser,  said interest in today’s strike has grown rapidly over the past fortnight: “It’s fantastic to see so many passionate young people standing up for their futures.

“The evidence is clear that urgent action is needed now, to decarbonise all parts of the economy, and young people around the world are aware of this. Today’s young people have been let down by those in power for the previous few decades.

“I think that fears surrounding potential fines are natural for a lot of students in what may be their first taste of climate action. Schools and the education system should be about learning and empowering students to make positive change in the world, so it would be a massive shame if schools were to threaten punishment for those wanting to fight for their future.

“Schools have a policy of only allowing absences for medical reasons or under exceptional circumstances. Young people the world over see the climate crisis as an exceptional circumstance.”

Jake said many teachers had personally pledged support for the strike: “Teachers may be in a bit of a tricky situation to promote it too actively, but we’re living in a world where the climate crisis is an urgent reality.”

This Author

Alex Morss is an independent ecologist, freelance journalist, educator and author. 

A while back, it struck me as remarkable that no-one had written a book about the UK’s tiny but well-connected cabal of climate contrarians. Especially given the extent to which they shaped political discourse on energy and climate change for a decade.

Such a book didn’t appear to exist. So I wrote one.

I first encountered the contrarian community about 15 years ago, as a science and environment correspondent at the BBC.

Scientific evidence

Many will remember some of the events highlighted by contrarians that took place during that period – the theft and release of emails from the University of East Anglia in 2009, the IPCC’s erroneous statement two years earlier that Himalayan glaciers could be melted by 2035, and the debacle of the Copenhagen climate summit.

However, years previously, contrarianism’s belly was already cram full of self-righteous fire – arguing that the scientific establishment was crooked, and politicians such as Al Gore leading the world down a path of expensive and unreliable clean energy for a cause that was just hot air.

The so-called ‘ClimateGate’ episode was just – if you’ll forgive the expression – the tip of the iceberg. But it allowed Nigel Lawson to launch his Global Warming Policy Foundation in a blaze of publicity – and amid the heat, something fundamentally flipped in parts of the UK media, with concomitant changes in political discourse too. It would take years – a series of very warm years –before the majority of coverage returned to the evidence-based.

Denied: The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism tells the story of how contrarian discourse came to the fore in media and politics. How some newspapers and magazines bought the arguments, and gave them a shop window well beyond the point where credibility vanished. And it tells the most important and fascinating part of the story: how and why the contrarians lost.

Why ‘contrarian’ rather than ‘denier’ or ‘sceptic’? As I outline in the book, I’m unhappy with both terms. ‘Denier’ is uncomfortable because of its Holocaust connection, and in any case many people who are often labelled ‘deniers’, including Lawson, don’t deny that man-made climate change is real, instead arguing about the quality of scientific evidence, economics and policy options.

New normal

The term ‘sceptic’, on the other hand, must be earned, as being genuinely sceptical is generally a virtue. It cannot sensibly be applied to a group of people who show absolutely no scepticism towards their canonical arguments, even when those arguments have clearly been overtaken.

And overtaken they have been, as I show in Denied. Arguments as familiar as that climate change is natural, that the lights will go out if we build more renewable energy, and that no other country is doing anything to decarbonise.

All have been lost, in the real world where evidence rules. Yet… the contrarian community has not followed the evidence. Instead it has taken up further fantastical arguments – the US is decarbonising faster than any other major economy because of shale gas (it isn’t), or small modular reactors (SMRs) will be cheaper than renewables (we have no idea).

Exactly how and why parts of politics and journalism veered down these cul-de-sacs will always, I suspect, remain unknown. Certainly I don’t claim to have found the precise answers.

But there is little doubt in my mind that the events of 2008-9 – the now-disproven ‘global warming pause’, the email hack, the failure of Copenhagen – created a ‘new normal’, in which figures such as Nigel Lawson, Christopher Monckton and Chris Booker could claim to have been proven right all along.

Onshore wind

The ‘new normal’ persisted for years – as recently as 2017, Lawson told the BBC Today Programme audience that the global temperature had fallen over the last decade, David Rose in the Mail on Sunday attempted to keep alive the trope that climate science is a conspiracy, and Matt Ridley assured us in The Times us that an industry that hardly exists in the UK and in which few investors are interested, shale gas, would definitively provide energy ‘at a cost well below that of renewables’.

If such examples seem extraordinary on their own, one thing that emerged to me while writing the book was how much more extraordinary the picture looks when the sheer volume of output along these lines is laid together.

We have here some of the most prestigious titles in Britain – all prepared to give houseroom to lines of argument that cease to stack up once one applies the first fork of genuine scepticism.

To anyone who would argue ‘so what, it doesn’t matter’ I offer some cautionary statistics, derived from my current work running the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.

A recent survey of MPs found that only eight percent know onshore wind is the UK’s cheapest new form of electricity generation. The same percentage thought the answer was SMRs – which do not actually exist in commercial form.

Ministers

A few years back, we found – as have many other polls – that renewable energy enjoys the support of around four in five Britons. But only one in 20 of the population knows this – most think renewables are unpopular.

If media distortion of reality isn’t at least partially responsible for these misinformed states, it’s hard to know what is. And it’s hard to have evidence-based policymaking on energy when such a tiny proportion of our elected representatives knows the important basics.

Whatever the factors behind the contrarians’ rise, Denied’s most fundamental conclusion is that they have lost. In the media, writers as formerly influential as Matt Ridley and David Rose have evidently mislaid the ears of their editors.

The public, despite being told for 10 years that it hates renewable energy, stubbornly refuses to think what it is told it thinks; support for clean energy is overwhelming and concern about climate change rising. In politics – recalling that climate contrarianism is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of the Right – it has lost even more spectacularly.

Just five years ago, former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson MP’s attempt to get the Climate Change Act repealed received a certain amount of traction from his peers. Now, the live question is not whether to repeal the Act but how to strengthen it – and this is being led by ministers, not backbenchers.

As I remark in my introduction, Denied shouldn’t really have been needed. In a rational society, evidence would form the basis for both policymaking and media discourse. But… when powerful forces come to play, evidence does not always win. Denied was needed.

I end it with a suggestion to contrarians: admit where you’re wrong, regain some credibility, and apply real scepticism to real arguments. We will see.

This Author

Richard Black is director of the Environment and Climate Intelligence Unit and former BBC science and environment correspondent.