Later this month, a judge in the UK is set to jail 13 non-violent protestors who occupied one of the runways at London Heathrow in July last year.
The protest, the first ever on a Heathrow runway, lasted six hours and caused the delay or cancellation of some 25 flights.
It was carried out by activists from Plane Stupid, who are opposed to airport expansion.
In their trial last month the activists—known as the Heathrow 13—tried to argue the “necessity defense” in that their actions were necessary due to the “airport’s contribution to life-threatening climate change.”
It is the same defense that the so-called Delta 5 used recently in the U.S. after they blocked a crude by oil terminal in Washington State.
But whereas the judge in the Delta 5 trial praised the defendants for being “part of the solution to the problem of climate change” and “quite frankly, the kind of tireless advocates we need in this country,” the judge in the Heathrow 13 trial sees it very differently.
#ClimateTrial of the #Delta5 -brave activists argue that blocking crude oil train WAS necessary to defend climate https://t.co/KDnNJPOYOk— RAN (@RAN)1452621604.0
At the end of last month, the judge convicted the 13 of aggravated trespass and being airside without lawful authority. She asked them to return in three weeks on Feb. 24 for sentencing. The defendants have been told to prepare for immediate custodial sentences.
They could spend up to three months in prison.
In response to their convictions, the Heathrow 13 issued a statement:
“Today’s judgement demonstrates that the legal system does not yet recognize that climate defense is not an offense. We took action because we saw that it was sorely needed. When the democratic, legislative and processes have failed, it takes the actions of ordinary people to change them.”
There is now a growing campaign to urge the judge to reconsider: Today’s Independent newspaper reports how the judge is being “urged not to act on her threat to jail 13 peaceful environmental protesters—as campaigners warn that the British legal system’s long-standing tolerance towards non-violent direct action is under threat.”
The article points out that if the “Heathrow 13” are jailed, it would be the first time peaceful environmental protesters have gone to prison for the offense of aggravated trespass since the law was passed two decades ago.
The oldest of the Heathrow 13 is Dr. Rob Basto, a retired atmospheric physicist. He admits to being “apprehensive” about jail, “because of my family situation. My mother is ill and she’s 94.”
Another protestor, Danielle Pafford, 28, said she was shocked “by the judge’s comments. It was really galling to hear her say she understands the serious impact of climate change—but that we made some people late and that’s unacceptable.”
It is no surprise that many of them are being represented by Mike Schwarz, a lawyer from Bindmans, who tells the Independent: “A custodial sentence would be excessive and wrong because there is a long history of recognition by senior judges that an allowance should be made on sentencing for peaceful protests of public importance.”
Schwarz has often represented those fighting for a just and ecologically sustainable future.
More than 20 years ago, I interviewed Schwarz for the book, Green Backlash. He was then worried about how the government and establishment were clamping down on people protesting against road building.
He warned that the British Government was “trying to kill the messenger, rather than address the real issues. This is very worrying, because it is a blinkered way of dealing with issues.”
Schwarz added, “it is a sign of a healthy democracy that new issues are put on the agenda and by clamping down on new issues or those that try to put new issues on the agenda, then we are negating democracy.”
Then the establishment was trying to crush the anti-roads movement and now it is trying to crush climate change campaigners.
We cannot carry on building airports and expanding aircraft travel is we are going to address climate change.
As Leo Murray, one of the co-founders of Plane Stupid, points out: “If a third runway is built at Heathrow we will have no hope of meeting our legally binding carbon targets.”
Murray adds that if the judge does jail the Heathrow 13, they will be “Britain’s first ever climate prisoners.”
If you are concerned about this, there is a petition which can be signed here.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed as SoCalGas Faces Criminal Charges Over Porter Ranch Gas Leak
FBI Joins Flint Drinking Water Investigation
These 3 Women Attend Monsanto’s Annual Shareholder Meeting Demanding Answers
This Kid Warrior Is Assembling a Teen Army to the Save the Planet
Though made in large part of plastic, glass, ceramics, gold and copper, they also contain critical resources. The gallium used for LEDs and the camera flash, the tantalum in capacitors and indium that powers the display were all pulled from the ground — at a price for nature and people.
"Mining raw materials is always problematic, both with regard to human rights and ecology," said Melanie Müller, raw materials expert of the German think tank SWP. "Their production process is pretty toxic."
The gallium and indium in many phones comes from China or South Korea, the tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Rwanda. All in, such materials comprise less than ten grams of a phone's weight. But these grams finance an international mining industry that causes radioactive earth dumps, poisoned groundwater and Indigenous population displacement.
Environmental Damage: 'Nature Has Been Overexploited'
The problem is that modern technologies don't work without what are known as critical raw materials. Collectively, solar panels, drones, 3D printers and smartphone contain as many as 30 of these different elements sourced from around the globe. A prime example is lithium from Chile, which is essential in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.
"No one, not even within the industry, would deny that mining lithium causes enormous environmental damage," Müller explained, in reference to the artificial lakes companies create when flushing the metal out of underground brine reservoirs. "The process uses vast amounts of water, so you end up with these huge flooded areas where the lithium settles."
This means of extraction results in the destruction and contamination of the natural water system. Unique plants and animals lose access to groundwater and watering holes. There have also been reports of freshwater becoming salinated due to extensive acidic waste water during lithium mining.
But lithium is not the only raw material that causes damage. Securing just one ton of rare earth elements produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste, and has devastated large regions of China, said Günther Hilpert, head of the Asia Research Division of the German think tank SWP.
He says companies there have adopted a process of spraying acid over the mining areas in order to separate the rare earths from other ores, and that mined areas are often abandoned after excavation.
"They are no longer viable for agricultural use," Hilpert said. "Nature has been overexploited."
China is not the only country with low environmental mining standards and poor resource governance. In Madagascar, for example, a thriving illegal gem and metal mining sector has been linked to rainforest depletion and destruction of natural lemur habitats.
States like Madagascar, Rwanda and the DRC score poorly on the Environmental Performance Index that ranks 180 countries for their effort on factors including conservation, air quality, waste management and emissions. Environmentalists are therefore particularly concerned that these countries are mining highly toxic materials like beryllium, tantalum and cobalt.
But it is not only nature that suffers from the extraction of high-demand critical raw materials.
"It is a dirty, toxic, partly radioactive industry," Hilpert said. "China, for example, has never really cared about human rights when it comes to achieving production targets."
Dirty, Toxic, Radioactive: Working in the Mining Sector
One of the most extreme examples is Baotou, a Chinese city in Inner Mongolia, where rare earth mining poisoned surrounding farms and nearby villages, causing thousands of people to leave the area.
In 2012, The Guardian described a toxic lake created in conjunction with rare earth mining as "a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world."
Local residents reported health issues including aching legs, diabetes, osteoporosis and chest problems, The Guardian wrote.
South Africa has also been held up for turning a blind eye to the health impacts of mining.
"The platinum sector in South Africa has been criticized for performing very poorly on human rights — even within the raw materials sector," Müller said.
In 2012, security forces killed 34 miners who had been protesting poor working conditions and low wages at a mine owned by the British company Lonmin. What became known as the "Marikana massacre" triggered several spontaneous strikes across the country's mining sector.
Müller says miners can still face exposure to acid drainage — a frequent byproduct of platinum mining — that can cause chemical burns and severe lung damage. Though this can be prevented by a careful waste system.
Some progress was made in 2016 when the South African government announced plans to make mining companies pay $800 million (€679 million) for recycling acid mine water. But they didn't all comply. In 2020, activists sued Australian-owned mining company Mintails and the government to cover the cost of environmental cleanup.
Another massive issue around mining is water consumption. Since the extraction of critical raw materials is very water intensive, drought prone countries such as South Africa, have witnessed an increase in conflicts over supply.
For years, industry, government and the South African public debated – without a clear agreement – whether companies should get privileged access to water and how much the population may suffer from shortages.
Mining in Brazil: Replacing Nature, People, Land Rights
Beyond the direct health and environmental impact of mining toxic substances, quarrying critical raw materials destroys livelihoods, as developments in Brazil demonstrate.
"Brazil is the major worldwide niobium producer and reserves in [the state of] Minas Gerais would last more than 200 years [at the current rate of demand]," said Juliana Siqueira-Gay, environmental engineer and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo.
While the overall number of niobium mining requests is stagnating, the share of claims for Indigenous land has skyrocketed from 3 to 36 percent within one year. If granted, 23 percent of the Amazon forest and the homeland of 222 Indigenous groups could fall victim to deforestation in the name of mining, a study by Siqueira-Gay finds.
In early 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a bill which would allow corporations to develop areas populated by Indigenous communities in the future. The law has not yet entered into force, but "this policy could have long-lasting negative effects on Brazil's socio-biodiversity," said Siqueira-Gay.
One example are the niobium reserves in Seis Lagos, in Brazil's northeast, which could be quarried to build electrolytic capacitors for smartphones.
"They overlap the Balaio Indigenous land and it would cause major impacts in Indigenous communities by clearing forests responsible for providing food, raw materials and regulating the local climate," Siqueira-Gay explained.
She says scientific good practice guidelines offer a blueprint for sustainable mining that adheres to human rights and protects forests. Quarries in South America — and especially Brazil — funded by multilaterial banks like the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group have to follow these guidelines, Siqueira-Gay said.
They force companies to develop sustainable water supply, minimize acid exposure and re-vegetate mined surfaces. "First, negative impacts must be avoided, then minimized and at last compensated — not the other way around."
Reposted with permission from DW.