Four years ago, on this day, July 17th, 2022
On 17th July 2022 local activist and general practitioner, Dr David McKelvey joined other healthcare professionals to carefully and symbolically crack panes of glass at JP Morgan in London. The action was shortly before the hottest day ever record in the UK; JP Morgan is the largest funder of fossil fuels in the world. The group had signs which read “In medical climate emergency break glass.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 419ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that there have been urgent warnings, broadly publicised, about climate change caused by carbon dioxide build-up, since 1988. Let that sink in. People have been born, educated, had children and those children have had children in that time.
The specific context was XR had turned up in 2018 and was going to save the world. By late 2019 it was pretty obvious that they were not, in fact, going to save the world. The pandemic saved their blushes, but reality does continue…
What I think we can learn from this – we are stuck in the emotacycle, and we “memory wand” ourselves all the time.
What happened next
The jury would not convict.
17 Feb 26 Share:
Six members of Health for XR unanimously acquitted of criminal damage by a jury, despite legal defences being withdrawn
Six medical professionals (doctors and nurses), all members of Health for XR, have been unanimously acquitted of criminal damage, having been charged following a protest in 2022. Health for XR is aligned with Extinction Rebellion, “a socio-political movement which utilises nonviolent resistance to avert climate breakdown, halt biodiversity loss and minimise the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse”.
In July 2022, the six medical professionals cracked windows at the European Headquarters of JP Morgan in Canary Wharf, the world’s largest financier of fossil fuels, as an intervention to try to save lives in the face of an unprecedented heatwave and the climate and ecological emergency.
All six were charged with criminal damage and first tried at Snaresbrook Crown Court in 2024. The jury, however, were unable to reach a verdict, despite all available legal defences having been withdrawn prior to trial.
The retrial commenced on 4th February 2026 and, following a nine-day trial, the jury unanimously acquitted all six defendants under four hours on 16th February 2026.
This is of course entirely unrelated to the government wanting to restrict jury trials.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
July 17, 1912 – Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal on climate change
July 17, 1968 – Scoop Jackson’s colloquium
July 17, 1991 – G7 DOESN’T talk about climate…
July 17, 2006 – Australian Prime Minister shits on renewables, blah blah “realistic”
July 17, 2014 – Australian elected idiot is highly visibly idiotic