An Inconvenient Youth

Al Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative in New York yesterday, "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration."

This comes on the back of Greenpeace activists being found not guilty of causing criminal damage at Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent earlier this month. Their defence was 'lawful excuse'; they argued that the emissions produced from burning coal at Kingsnorth put property around "in immediate need of protection". As one of the Greenpeace activists Ben Stewart asked, "If jurors from the heart of Middle England say it's legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave government energy policy?"