BREAKING: Dr Patrick Hart is the first working GP to be sent to prison for nonviolent direct action. Sentenced to 12 months for a Just Stop Oil action against ExxonMobil petrol pumps. Why did he do it? Because he's seen children die at the hands of the fossil fuel industry.

Dr Hart has been a law-abiding citizen all his life, not even receiving a parking ticket until he took direct action. What would drive someone like him to break the law? The knowledge that laws can be unjust and patients will no longer live and die in dignity globally.

Why break the law? Because to have a chance of waking humanity from its sleepwalk towards catastrophe, we must challenge social norms. Billions of lives are at stake if we continue on our present path. People of conscience must step up and take action.

Who should really be keeping patients safe from climate breakdown? Not doctors but our government - yet Labour have no plan to end fossil fuels, the Paris Agreement lies in tatters, and catastrophic heating is locked in.

Dr Hart went to work as a GP in order to keep his patients safe. And that is also why he took part in direct action. He is the kind of doctor we need. He honours public trust in the profession. He knows the science: that UK government policies are creating untold suffering.

In August 2021, the UN issued a “code red for humanity”, calling for strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In response, Dr Hart and five other medics carefully broke windows at the offices of JP Morgan, the world’s biggest funder of fossil fuels.

In April 2024, JP Morgan announced the clean energy transition could take “decades or generations” and they would continue to invest billions in fossil fuels, a practice described by the sec. general of the UN as “moral and economic madness”. Dr Hart has opposed this madness.

There was a mass media blackout around the JP Morgan action. The media are culpable here. The climate crisis is the number one issue that should be the front page of every news outlet every day. People are dying right now. Many many more will die in the coming years.

In this trial, Dr Hart was allowed no defence in law. But in an earlier trial, for disrupting a rugby final, a jury found him not guilty. Juries find in favour of activists if given half a chance, hence why the governnment has removed that chance.

Afterwards his acquittal in the rugby trial, Dr Hart said “Normal people recognise that civil resistance is absolutely essential to break through the lies of the politicians, fossil fuel companies and banks who are destroying life on Earth...

"I told the jury that I am taking the most effective action I can, on the best available evidence, to protect the health of my patients. To put it simply: I am doing my duty as a doctor... Our health and the health of the ones we love is the most precious thing we have...

“The climate crisis is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. Every day that we delay action people are dying. I won’t give up until we see the changes that we need to stop the harm being done to us.”

Before sentencing, Dr Hart said “I will continue to fight against the death sentence of fossil fuels for as long as I have strength in me. I have no greater duty as a doctor at this moment in history.”

Josh Mullis and Bil Harmer dive into risk mitigation and security checks in a special “In Security” podcast episode from the Mount Everest. Don’t miss it! 🔗: @productivai @craft_ventures @WilHarm3 @pchamal