A British jury has cleared six Greenpeace activists of causing criminal damage when they vandalized a power plant last year in a protest over global warming, based on the defense attorneys’ argument that the protesters were trying to prevent even worse damage from climate change. Yesterday’s verdict is expected to embarrass the government and lead to more direct action protests against energy companies [The Guardian].

Last October, the Greenpeace protesters scaled the smokestacks of a coal-fired power plant as a publicity stunt to protest the United Kingdom’s continued reliance on coal-fired power plants, which emit large amounts of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. The protesters were halfway through painting a slogan on the side of one smokestack (“Gordon, bin it,” a British way of asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to chuck coal), when the police served the activists an injunction by helicopter and forced them to stop. They were charged with causing more than $50,000 in damages based on the cost of removing the paint. E.ON, which owns the power plant, said that the company was in a state of shock over the verdict [The Times].

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Two years ago, the quiet and bookish climate scientist James Hansen kicked up a tempest. He alleged that his work on global warming at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies had been censored, and that he had been prevented from speaking to reporters by politically appointees in NASA‘s public affairs office.

Hansen has been outspoken on his belief that the consequences of global warming could be drastic, and that the United States should act as soon as possible to regulate greenhouse gases. After his accusations of censorship were aired in the press, 14 senators requested a full investigation by NASA’s inspector general. Now, the results are in.

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