Climate activists say prison sentence unjust, but judge and critics say protests crossed the line

Roger Hallam, co-founder of the radical climate activist groups Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for conspiring to block traffic on a major artery surrounding London in an effort to create “the biggest disruption in British modern history.” Four of his accomplices were also sentenced last week. 

The five activists had planned their scheme on a Zoom call in which they sought to recruit volunteers for the protest, The Guardian reported. 

Fanaticism

Hallam took to X to voice his complaints about the sentence, arguing that it amounted to a punishment for “nonviolent action.” He said his crime was “giving a talk on civil disobedience as an effective, evidence-based method for stopping the elite from putting enough carbon in the atmosphere to send us to extinction.” 

Hallam stated in his lengthy diatribe that he wanted to present to the jury a 250-page dossier of research that would aid his defense, but the judge deemed the material invalid. 

“Climate science is now illegal in the British courtroom,” Hallam declared. 

There is little to no widely accepted science that global warming could plausibly result in the extinction of the human race, a species capable of surviving year-round in Antarctica and for periods in outer space. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations consortium of the world’s leading climate researchers, has five emissions scenarios — with and without policies to mitigate them — called Shared Socio‐Economic Pathways (SSPs).

Under every scenario, the human race is, to one degree or another, better off economically in 100 years than it is today, and there is no valid scientific model projecting the end of the human race. 

While Hallam insisted his actions were non-violent and based in science, Judge Christopher Hehir disagreed. While Hehir didn’t dispute that global warming was happening, he told the defendants in his sentencing remarks that they had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.” 

“Your fanaticism makes you entirely heedless of the rights of your fellow citizens. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views,” the judge said.

While Hallam characterized his crime as merely “giving a talk,” the sentencing remarks explain that the Zoom call revealed how “intricately planned the disruption was, and the level of sophistication involved.” It led to actions from dozens of protestors over the course of seven days in November 2022. They climbed over the gantries at various points along M25, which disrupted traffic along every sector of the orbiting highway. 

Far from being nonviolent, as Hallam claimed, evidence presented at court suggested this protest went beyond just creating an inconvenience for motorists using the M25.

The jury heard evidence about people who missed funerals, missed flights and students missing exams. A child with special needs was unable to take his medication, which made him “volatile.” Someone with an aggressive form of cancer missed a doctor's appointment and had to wait two months to get another. People lost wages, a delivery driver was unable to deliver thousands of dollars worth of food to a hospital, and a police officer was injured when he was knocked off his motorcycle. 

Disrupting society

Regardless of whether their position has any merits, it’s unclear why the protestors believe that such tactics solicit sympathy for their cause. The multi day protest on the M25 was one of many over the past few years. 

In the U.S., climate activists have disrupted a Congressional baseball game, a Broadway play, and the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship. At times, they’ve gotten physical, such as when they clashed with attendees of a gala hosted by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Protestors struggled with police, and some were dragged off roads by angry drivers. 

This is on top of attacking the historic Magna Carta and priceless works of art. For the most part, the sentences have thus far been fairly light. When two Belgian climate activists were sentenced for gluing their heads to Johannes Vermeer’s painting “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” they got two months in prison. Two climate activists who vandalized a statue in the U.S. National Gallery received 60 days in prison and 150 hours of community service. Two members of Just Stop Oil vandalized the ancient Stonehenge monument in England last week, according to the BBC. No arrests have been made.

Tom Nelson, a climate and energy podcaster and producer of “Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth),” told Just the News that the scale of the crime on the M25 was large and the sentences justified. 

“Belief in a stupid anti-science scam doesn't give anyone the right to block traffic on a highway,” Nelson said. 

Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said in a post on X that while he sometimes disagreed “vehemently” with Hallam, he thought the sentences unfair and setting a dangerous precedent. 

“A five year jail sentence for organizing climate action is utterly disproportionate and a sign of a broader push to criminalize peaceful protest,” Hausfather wrote. 

In a subsequent comment on the post, he defended the act of blocking traffic as a form of protest. 

“If we define peaceful protest as designated protest zones that don't cause any public inconvenience we've more or less defined it out of existence. Past protest movements (civil rights, anti-war, suffrage) were disruptive in a way that modern whitewashing understates,” Hausfather wrote. 

Dr. Matt Wielicki, former assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Alabama and publisher of “Irrational Fear” told Just the News that he doesn’t want to see people going to jail for protesting. But blocking traffic is only a peaceful protest until a first responder can’t get to an emergency. 

“Part of being in a civil society is being able to have disagreements without disrupting society,” Wielicki said. 

He pointed out that these groups are not just holding isolated protests. They are becoming a fixture at many events, including throwing orange powder on billiards tables during a tournament. 

“It just seems like, especially in Europe, everything is being disrupted by these people. You just can't be in a civil society and think that your righteous cause is enough to disrupt everybody else, and everybody else has to suffer until everybody goes along with you. That's just not how civil society operates,” Wielicki said. 

The sentences may deter escalation of these behaviors to something much more harmful. Hallam has hinted at violence and extremism in the past. “We are going to force the governments to act. And if they don't, we will bring them down and create a democracy fit for purpose. And yes, some may die in the process,” he once said. 

Well funded

Wielicki said that these groups who are carrying out these highly disruptive protests have deep pockets thanks to the donors that support them. 

For example, British billionaire Chris Hohn, who made a gain of $9.5bn in 2021, was the single biggest individual donor to Extinction Rebellion in 2022, according to The Guardian.

California based Climate Emergency Fund, which had $6.3 million in donations in 2022, according to tax documents, has provided funding to Just Stop Oil.  Rory Kennedy, sister of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., co-founded the Climate Emergency Fund. Rory Kennedy was featured in a New York Times article about the millionaires who are funding Extinction Rebellion. 

Wielicki said that the judge should have taken their financing into account and levied large fines against these protestors.  “I'd rather see them get choked in terms of money and funds than seeing Roger [Hallam] go to jail,” Wielicki said. 

Climate activists, especially in radical groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, truly believe, as shown in Hallam’s post on X criticizing the sentence, that they are crusaders saving the world from the apocalypse. This has led many to characterize the movement as a modern religion. Rather than being deterred by severe punishments, religious fanatics can be galvanized by the sense of being martyrs. 

Fining these well-funded groups, Wielicki said, would help mitigate that effect. 

“I think the judge had it completely right when he called them fanatics…I don't see him [Hallam] shying away from his sentence. I see him out on social media saying, 'Look, I’ve been given five years. Look at me.’ He seems to be very proud of it. I think he’s going to wear it like a badge of honor,” Wielicki said. 

Multiple media outlets have quoted statements from various climate groups who view the sentences as an attack on their right to protest. It’s likely the next big disrupting protest is right around the corner.