Dr Sarah Brown is fighting to keep her medical practice licence after she was jailed for 31 days. Picture: Just Stop Oil/Alamy
A GP who was jailed for taking part in a Just Stop Oil protest has defended her actions by claiming they were part of a doctor’s ‘fundamental duty is to protect health and life’.
Dr Sarah Brown is now fighting to keep her medical practice licence after she was jailed for 31 days for contempt of court and breaching an injunction to not demonstrate outside Kingsbury oil terminal, Warwickshire, in 2022.
The doctor from Birmingham could now be struck off from the medical register following a tribunal today.
Dr Brown defended her actions in a statement published by Just Stop Oil: “As a doctor, my fundamental duty is to protect health and life.
“This includes proactive efforts to prevent disease and death. The climate crisis is the most significant existential threat to global health we have ever faced.”
🚨 BREAKING: Former GP Faces Losing Medical Licence for Taking Action to Protect Patients' Lives
🩺 This week, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service is reviewing the case of Dr Sarah Benn, 57, who has been arrested multiple times taking action to stop oil.
Nearly 4,000 British Airways customers were affected by the protest
Just Stop Oil activist Cressida Gethin pictured with naturalist Chris Packham.
A Just Stop Oil protester who disrupted thousands of journeys at Heathrow by scaling a gantry above the M25 has said she would repeat the stunt.
Cressida Gethin, 22, climbed the gantry in July 2022 to protest the UK reaching its hottest temperature on record, 40C (104F), the day before.
As a result of the protest by the climate activist group, 3,923 British Airways customers were affected by cancellations and delays, a court heard in February.
The protester faces being sent to prison when she is sentenced next month.
In an interview with environmentalist Chris Packham, Gethin said she would like to speak to some of the people affected by the protest as she said that she would have no hesitation protesting in the same way again.
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Gethin added that she faced a “very real moral dilemma of knowing that people would be stuck in their cars and missing important events”.
She continued: “I heard one person missed their parent’s funeral, which I would never want. It doesn’t sit easy with me.”
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022. Roger Hallam was instrumental is founding Just Stop Oil.
I am very pleased to announce an audio podcast featuring renowned climate activist Roger Hallam and myself on 1 May 2024 at 7pm BST (GMT +1).
The podcast is titled ‘Talking about a Revolution’ and to include addressing the following themes: What is a revolution – historically and in the 21st century?, that revolution means exiting the system and being in resistance to it, why that is necessary as we face social/eco collapse and concrete pathways to action at the present moment.
I have research to do as preparation. Roger has many videos on youtube, I’m finding many of them long and long-winded. The podcast is likely to last at least 30 minutes. Roger has a reputation for sometimes being abrasive and I have been known to call a cnut a cnut so it is probably wise to accept that there may be some profanities. Further audio podcasts may follow.
Getting to net zero emissions by mid-century is conventionally understood as humanity’s best hope for keeping Earth’s surface temperature (already 1.2°C above its pre-industrial level) from increasing well beyond 1.5°C – potentially reaching a point at which it could cause widespread societal breakdown.
At least one prominent climate scientist, however, disagrees.
James Hansen of Columbia University in the US published a paper with colleagues in November which claims temperatures are set to rise further and faster than the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In his view, the 1.5°C target is dead.
He also claims net zero is no longer sufficient to prevent warming of more than 2°C. To regain some control over Earth’s rising temperature, Hansen supports accelerating the retirement of fossil fuels, greater cooperation between major polluters that accommodates the needs of the developing world and, controversially, intervening in Earth’s “radiation balance” (the difference between incoming and outgoing light and heat) to cool the planet’s surface.
You can listen to more articles from The Conversation narrated by Noa.
There would probably be wide support for the first two prescriptions. But Hansen’s support for what amounts to the deliberate reduction of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface has brought into the open an idea that makes many uncomfortable.
Michael Mann from the University of Pennsylvania in the US and another titan of climate science, spoke for many when he dismissed solar radiation management as “potentially very dangerous” and a “desperate action” motivated by the “fallacy … that large-scale warming will be substantially greater than current-generation models project”.
Their positions are irreconcilable. So who is right – Hansen or Mann?
Earth’s radiation balance
First, an explanation.
There are only two ways to reduce global warming. One is to increase the amount of heat radiated from Earth’s surface that escapes to space. The other is to increase the amount of sunlight reflected back to space before it lands on something – whether a particle in the atmosphere or something on Earth’s surface – and is converted to heat.
There are many ways to do both. Anything that reduces the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will let more heat escape to space (replacing fossil fuels with renewables, eating less meat and tilling the soil less for example). Anything that makes the planet brighter will reflect more sunlight to space (such as refreezing the Arctic, making clouds whiter or putting more reflective particles in the atmosphere).
But the key difference between the two, in terms of their impact on global warming, is their response time. That is, the time it takes for a change in the factors that allow more heat to escape or sunlight to be reflected to appear as a change in Earth’s surface temperature.
Intervening to speed up the loss of heat from Earth’s surface cools the planet slowly, over decades and longer. Intervening to increase the sunlight Earth reflects back to space cools the planet more or less immediately.
The essence of the dispute between Mann and Hansen is whether reducing greenhouse gases, by a combination of reducing new emissions and permanently removing past emissions from the atmosphere, is now enough on its own to prevent warming from reaching levels that threaten economic and social stability.
Mann says it is. Hansen says that, while doing these things remains essential, it is no longer sufficient and we must also make Earth more reflective.
When will warming end?
Mann aligns with IPCC orthodoxy when he says that emissions reaching net zero will result, within a decade or two, in Earth’s surface temperature stabilising at the level it has then reached.
In effect, there is no significant warming in the pipeline from past emissions. All future warming will be due to future emissions. This is the basis for the global policy imperative to get to net zero.
In his new paper, Hansen argues that if the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases remains close to its current level, the surface temperature will stabilise after several hundred years between 8°C and 10°C above the pre-industrial level.
Of this, at least 2°C will emerge by mid-century, and probably a further 3°C a century from now. A temperature increase of this magnitude would be catastrophic for life on Earth. Hansen adds that to avoid such an outcome, brightening Earth is now necessary to halt the warming in the pipeline from past emissions.
Bright surfaces, like ice sheets, reflect light to space. Tobetv/Shutterstock
But at the same time, we must also largely eliminate emissions if we are to stop recreating this problem in the future.
Still getting hotter…
We are scientists who study the feasibility and effectiveness of alternative responses to climate change, addressing both the engineering and political realities of enabling change at the scale and speed necessary.
We find Mann’s rebuttal of Hansen’s claims unconvincing. Crucially, Mann does not engage directly with Hansen’s analysis of new data covering the last 65 million years.
Hansen explains how the models used by IPCC scientists to assess future climate scenarios have significantly underestimated the warming effect of increased greenhouse gas emissions, the cooling effect of aerosols and how long the climate takes to respond to these changes.
Besides greenhouse gases, humanity also emits aerosols. These are tiny particles comprising a wide range of chemicals. Some, such as the sulphur dioxide emitted when coal and oil are burned, offset the warming from greenhouse gases by reflecting sunlight back to space.
Others, such as soot, have the opposite effect and add to warming. The cooling aerosols dominate by a large margin.
Hansen projects that in coming months, lower levels of aerosol pollution from shipping will cause warming of as much as 0.5°C more than IPCC models have predicted. This will take global warming close to 2°C as early as next year, although it is likely then to fall slightly as the present El Niño wanes.
Underpinning Hansen’s argument is his conviction that the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously reported. The IPCC estimates that doubling atmospheric CO₂ raises Earth’s temperature by 3°C. Hansen calculates it to be 4.8°C.
This, and the much longer climate response time that Hansen calculates from the historical record, would have a significant impact on climate model projections.
Time for reflection
The differences between Mann and Hansen are significant for the global response to climate change.
Mann says that allowing emissions to reach net zero by mid-century is sufficient, while Hansen maintains that on its own it would be disastrous and that steps must now be taken in addition to brighten the planet.
Brightening Earth could also reverse the reductions in reflectivity already caused by climate change. Data indicates that from 1998 to 2017, Earth dimmed by about 0.5 watts per square metre, largely due to the loss of ice.
Given what’s at stake, we hope Mann and Hansen resolve these differences quickly to help the public and policymakers understand what it will take to minimise the likelihood of imminent massive and widespread ecosystem destruction and its disastrous effects on humanity.
While 1.5°C may be dead, there may still be time to prevent cascading system failures. But not if we continue to squabble over the nature and extent of the risks.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Roger Hallam was involved in starting the climate activism groups Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. He is still involved with Just Stop Oil and often gets arrested and imprisoned. [22/3 Apologies had a typo calling Roger Roget]
I used to be a social science researcher at King’s College, London. The name of the game in that trade is to look at everything in context. So I will provide some context. There is overwhelming evidence that the climate science industry is structurally underestimating the realities we face. “Worst than expected” is the standard phrase of just about every article as new stats are published. A few years ago we were going to pass 1.5C around 2050 – now it is already happening. I remember reading reports that the Arctic will melt in the summer around 2100. Papers now predict 2035, if not before. AMOC – the ocean current that stops the 60 million people on these islands from starving to death – was going to collapse at some point next century. Now a recent paper tells us the odds are it will collapse by 2050. If you have not been paying attention, this will create a collapse of temperatures overnight of 3-8C across Europe. So don’t be surprised if it happens before your pension comes due.
I’m like you. I don’t like to believe things are true if they conflict with my baseline beliefs – like “we will muddle through”. But then it becomes more difficult when it actually comes true. Scientists have been telling us privately and then publicly for years that staying under 1.5C was bollocks – and now here we are. For two decades or more the best kept secret of the climate space has been that aerosols (pollution from burning fossil fuel emissions) have been holding down temperatures by .5C-1C. As we passed 1.8C last September the pretence started to collapse as scientists raged about each other on a dark corner of Twitter. It’s the start of the exposure of the world’s biggest cover up. That they knew we were fucked a decade or more ago. Not that the media is interested. Everyone is still in on the pretence, it seems.
Just Stop Oil supporters have disrupted a public event featuring Emily Thornberry. As Thornberry was delivering her open remarks, the pair stood up to confront the Labour front-bencher and Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales. They threw orange confetti and addressed the assembly, remarking “We need you to make a commitment to revoke the Tory licences for oil and gas infrastructure which will lock us on to the worst pathways of global warming and climate catastrophe”, and “Labour needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone else has clocked that new oil and gas means more floods, more fires, rising food prices… when are you going to get it?”. Members of the audience were repeatedly heard to say “hear, hear!” to these comments.
After the action takers were escorted from the room, Emily Thornberry addressed the audience, saying:
“I have had Just Stop Oil outside my house, I have had Gaza protests pretty much everywhere I go. I assumed it was Gaza then I saw the orange and thought ‘Oh, right! It’s Just Stop Oil’. The worst thing is that one becomes hardened to it… I’m happy to argue the issues, I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza, or I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.”
One of those taking action today was Genevieve Shanahan, 33, a university lecturer in Management and Sustainability. She said:
“Today I’m approaching Emily Thornberry to implore her to stand up to fossil fuel extremists and use her influence within Labour to secure a commitment to cancel these licences. The Labour Party are poised to win the next general election, and rather than grabbing this opportunity to protect the British public from this violence they are instead – unbelievably – dropping their existing climate commitments.”
“As a lecturer in sustainability, I need to practise what I teach. In my classroom we examine how permitting investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure would lock in economic incentives that will, according to all reasonable models, make climate collapse inevitable. If the Tories’ new oil and gas licences go ahead then that’s it – it’s game over for all of us.”
Keir Starmer accused of aiding and abetting genocide
Let’s look at Emily Thornberry’s response. She is shadow Attorney General for England and Wales and so should know the law.
From my quick and limited review of the law of genocide, there are 2 main crimes supporting genocide: aiding and abetting genocide and complicity in genocide although unfortunately there is not a clear distinction due to how the law has developed. Aiding and abetting is more serious since there is a greater involvement in the act of genocide. So it is plausible that Keir “I support Zionism without qualification” Starmer is aiding and abetting genocide when he says that Israel has the right to withold power and water: he is clearly helping and supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Where does this leave Emily Thornberry and other Labour shadow cabinet members and MPs? Thornberry said “… I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza …”. She’s supporting her glorious Zionist leader and certainly not diverging from his Zionist policy of aiding and abetting genocide. The cabinet has collective responsibility i.e. they’re all guilty, and the shadow cabinet should be held to the same standard. MPs? Do they depart from Starmer’s Zionist aiding and abetting?
Genocide is a most serious crime and it’s clear that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide. Responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza? I’d say complicit because there is no opposition to it and the electorate are very likely to regard it as such. There’s the further issue of course that these politician cnuts are supposed to represent their electorate who want an end to Israel massacring children and other Gazans.
“I’m not happy to be told … I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.” Thornberry doesn’t want to be held to account for any of her actions or inactions. It’s certainly aiding and abetting again. Doing nothing to oppose it? Then complicity.
