Climate Change Activists Being Let Off On Necessity Defense

This is basically Chapter Two in my novel, Diary of the Last Age, though the characters in my novel were doing something quite different, destroying oil fields by inoculating them with an oil-eating bacteria (which interestingly does exist but mainly to clean up oil spills).  What I describe in that novel about "alarmists" taking it to the oil companies is apparently happening, and their activities are being legally justified.

Judge Allows 'Necessity' Defense by Climate Activists in Oil Pipeline Protest

"What we are seeing in some courts is there is such frustration at the failure of the executive and legislative branches to act on climate change that some courts are becoming willing to step in,"

A Minnesota judge ruled that three activists charged with felonies can argue they had no legal alternative to protect citizens from climate change impacts. 

A judge in Minnesota has cleared the way for an unusual and potentially groundbreaking defense, allowing climate activists to use the "necessity" of confronting the climate crisis as justification for temporarily shutting down two crude oil pipelines last year.

Robert Tiffany, a district court judge in Clearwater County, Minnesota, ruled on Oct. 11 that three activists who were arrested and charged with felonies last year can argue that they violated the law in order to protect citizens from the impacts of global warming and that they had no legal alternative.   

 The ruling is the third recent case in which a judge in the United States has allowed for such a defense in a climate case in a jury trial. A case in Massachusetts in 2014 did not go to trial after the prosecutor dropped the charges. A judge allowed the necessity defense in a Washington State case in 2016 but then instructed jurors they could not acquit on necessity. There was also a recent non-jury case in which a county judge in Slate Hill, New York, allowed a necessity defense for climate activists charged with misdemeanor trespassing, but he issued a guilty verdict in June, stating the defense failed to prove "imminence", or immediate harm posed by climate change. 

Some are being given lighter sentences,

The ruling is the third recent case in which a judge in the United States has allowed for such a defense in a climate case in a jury trial. A case in Massachusetts in 2014 did not go to trial after the prosecutor dropped the charges. A judge allowed the necessity defense in a Washington State case in 2016 but then instructed jurors they could not acquit on necessity. There was also a recent non-jury case in which a county judge in Slate Hill, New York, allowed a necessity defense for climate activists charged with misdemeanor trespassing, but he issued a guilty verdict in June, stating the defense failed to prove "imminence", or immediate harm posed by climate change. 

Gerrard said the decision to allow a necessity defense may be part of a growing awareness in the courts of the risks of climate change, including recent rulings on coal leases and natural gas pipelines, that went in favor of closer scrutiny of environmental considerations.

 The younger generation whose lives are great risk from climate change, are "taking it to the streets".