In its determination to develop the fossil fuel industry, the Polish government appears to have been systematically harassing environmentalists. Environmental charities and NGOs campaigning against the potentially very dangerous exploitation of shale gas and coal claim to have received continuous harassment from the security forces.
The right wing end of the Polish media has been only too happy to help, using deliberately inflammatory, if ridiculous, language such as “eco-terrorist” about environmental campaigners
Poland has a history of blocking EU initiatives on reducing carbon emissions, perhaps because it currently gets nearly all its energy from the burning of fossil fuels.
Tell the Polish government that people and groups working to protect the environment are not “working against the public interests of the state”. They are working to provide a future for their country, children and planet, something the government should be doing too.
We the undersigned ask that you stop harassing environmentalists. They have a very valid case, in that fossil fuel exploitation risks serious and sometimes deadly pollution in the short term and is the cause of immensely serious global environmental problems such as climate change and ocean acidification.
Expansion of the fossil fuel industry is only ever going to have very short term interests and these groups are campaigning to protect the future. Even if the government has little intention of listening to them, they certainly do not deserve the sort of systematic harassment that would only be appropriate for terrorist organisations or the fringe of the extreme right.
Spending public money on harassing well-meaning groups and civilians is also a complete waste of public money and we suggest that you use this for something rather more productive such as, for example, the development of renewables, which the country is going to need sooner or later anyway. Fossil fuels will not last forever.
In summary, environmentalist groups are not a danger to Poland, quite the opposite, and we ask that you stop this bullying immediately.
Thank you for your attention.
