An outrageous judgement in the UK....

The UK court bought Greenpeace's arguments....

Whatever you may think of the anti-nuclear environmental group Greenpeace, the collapse of the case against its activists for causing criminal damage to a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent is embarrassing to the Brown Government, for it leaves it looking, well, browner than ever.

Six activists admitted trying to shut down the station and painting "Gordon" down the chimney in a protest at EON's plans to build an even bigger coal-fired station next door.

But a jury of nine bought the activists' argument, supported in person by James Hansen, the US climate scientist and director of Nasa, that Greenpeace were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage to property around the world.

The jury, in other words, took at face value pronouncements by ministers such as Hilary Benn, David Miliband, and Gordon Brown himself, and by Sir David King, the former chief scientist, that that global warming is with us and that the proliferation of coal-fired plants in China, at a rate of two a day, risks dangerous climate change. Proliferation of coal fired plants in China is damaging, but not apparently proliferation in Britain.