Category: Updates

CDP Co-Founder and Staff Attorney Alice Cherry was recognized in the 2019 Straubel Leadership Awards.

The Washington Supreme Court has declined to review a ruling by the state’s Court of Appeals upholding the right of CDP client Ken Ward to present a necessity defense at trial. The Court of Appeals ruling, issued in April of this year, had overturned a previous decision by the trial court to bar all evidence...

A Lansing, Michigan prosecutor has unexpectedly dropped charges against 13 protesters who were poised to argue the climate necessity defense at a trial initially scheduled for this month.

The Straubel Foundation recently posted a short article about CDP’s work and the upcoming documentary film Necessity: Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance. Climate Defense Project Executive Director Kelsey Skaggs is one of the foundation’s fellows this year. You can follow the film on Facebook or sign up for updates on the Necessity website.

On Friday, April 26, CDP partnered with psychologist and documentary filmmaker Jan Haaken to host a screening of her film Necessity: Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance, in which CDP attorneys are interviewed. Held at the OK Stereo Loft in Oakland, the event featured a panel discussion with Haaken, CDP co-founder and attorney Alice Cherry, and...

Climate Defense Project April 8, 2019 Contact: Kelsey Skaggs, (510) 883-3118; info@climatedefenseproject.org Today the Washington Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the conviction of climate activist Ken Ward and sent his case back to the lower court for a third trial because Ward was denied his Sixth Amendment right to present the necessity defense to a...

CDP Staff Attorney Alice Cherry moderated and participated in a panel on the climate necessity defense — along with Valve Turner Emily Johnston, law professor Lance Long, and Marla Marcum of the Climate Disobedience Center — at the 2019 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, held at the University of Oregon School of Law. The title...

Check out CDP’s Kelsey Skaggs in conversation with podcast host, author, and legal scholar Grace Nosek. In this episode of Planet Potluck, a climate change-themed podcast, Kelsey and Grace discuss climate litigation, the fossil fuel industry, climate civil disobedience, and the community that can be found in resistance movements. Learn more about the podcast here.

CDP staff attorney Ted Hamilton and Stetson University College of Law professor Lance N. Long have published the first law review article on the climate necessity defense: The Climate Necessity Defense: Proof and Judicial Error in Climate Protest Cases. The article (which you can download directly by visiting the link) reviews the history of the...

CDP co-founders Kelsey Skaggs and Alice Cherry are featured in the upcoming film Necessity: Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance.  Directed by Jan Haaken and Samantha Praus, this feature-length documentary tells the story of climate activists and attorneys as they work to resist pipelines carrying tar sands oil—the most polluting fuel on the planet—from Canada into the United...