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Is climate change urgent enough to justify a crime? A jury in Portland was asked to decide
(Inside Climate News, 3 Mar 2020) The five defendants on trial—members of the activist group Extinction Rebellion—mounted a “necessity” defense for their civil disobedience.
On April 28, 2019, four retirees and a 20-year-old student were arrested for planting a vegetable garden on the railroad tracks at Zenith Energy, an oil distribution facility.
The activists were charged with criminal trespass, a misdemeanor in this state. On Monday last week, jury selection began in their trial in the Multnomah County Courthouse downtown.
There were spectators. Sometimes so many that the courtroom looked like a sit-in: people cross-legged on the carpet against marble wainscoting, backpacks scattered.
The defendants did not deny their actions, which they carried out as members of Extinction Rebellion, the direct-action climate resistance movement founded in the U.K. They even took video of themselves troweling on the tracks in garden gloves—video they would later play for the jury.
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Inside Climate News, 3 Mar 2020: Is climate change urgent enough to justify a crime? A jury in Portland was asked to decideMore Related News
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