Charges dropped against climate activists who tried to shut down pipelines Seattle residents had hoped to use ‘necessity defense’ in Minnesota court, arguing threat to planet was so great they had no choice.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/climate-change-activists-necessity-defense-charges-dropped

A Minnesota judge abruptly dismissed charges against three climate change activists during their trial on Tuesday, saying prosecutors had failed to prove that the protesters’ attempt to shut down two Enbridge Energy oil pipelines caused any damage.

The Clearwater county district judge Robert Tiffany threw the case out after prosecutors rested their case and before the protesters could use their defense: that the threat of climate change from using crude oil drilled from Canadian tar sands was so imminent that the activists’ actions were not only morally right, but necessary.

The attorneys had long fought to use a “necessity defense” during the trial of the three Seattle-area residents, two of whom admitted turning the emergency shut-off valves on the northwest Minnesota pipelines in 2016 as part of a coordinated action in four states. Such a defense has been used by other activists protesting against pipelines.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/10/thankful-avoid-prison-acquitted-valve-turners-lament-lost-chance-defend-planet  

Thankful to Avoid Prison, Acquitted Valve Turners Lament Lost Chance to Defend Planet-Saving Necessity of Pipeline Shutdown

"It's great that the defendants were found not guilty," said Dr. James Hansen, "but we missed an opportunity to inform the public about the injustice of climate change."

Great Book: "The Wizard and the Prophet" by Charles C. Mann A plan for surviving Global Warming and the Population Bomb.

No matter what Trump and the Climate Change Deniers believe, we are headed for some rough times ahead. By the year 2050 it's predicted that there will be 10 billion people alive... how will we feed them all? OR will we control the population by mass starvation? It's also possible to reduce population by endless war... and/or genetically designed diseases... bio-weapons... Hurricanes and wildfires... However, we ought to create a future for ourselves and our children that does not involve creating I dystopian nightmare world. Ya-Think?

This book studies two main plans for preventing disaster... The Wizards believe that we can invent solutions to our problems and The Prophets believe that by changing our lifestyle/behavior we can save our lives. No doubt we need to do both...

Some simple things we can do to prevent eco-disaster. Use Less Electricity [removing the need for coal fired power plants]... Have fewer children [removing the need for over farming the limited land]... and Drive our cars less [ burning less oil and gas that creates air pollution]...

https://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Prophet-Remarkable-Scientists-Tomorrows/dp/0307961699

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World. An incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world.

Norman Borlaug: Agricultural Scientist that invented wheat that produced vastly more food per acre. The Green Revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

William Vogt was an ecologist interested in population control and author of "Road to Survival"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Vogt

According to Charles C. Mann, "Vogt...laid out the basic ideas for the modern environmental movement. In particular, what is called 'apocalyptic environmentalism'—the belief that unless humankind drastically reduces consumption and limits population, it will ravage global ecosystems.