NJ 'Rocking Chair Rebels' Arrested At Climate Change Protest

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — When faced with the choice of blocking a busy road or staying silent about climate change, which is the “lesser of two evils?” This question was a no-brainer for former Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Ted Glick, 72, and his wife, Jane Califf, a pair of longtime activists from Bloomfield.

Glick and Califf were among more than a dozen seniors who were literally arrested in their rocking chairs during a rally in Wilmington, Delaware last June. Blocking a street in front of JP Morgan Chase credit card headquarters, the environmental advocates held a peaceful sit-in to demand that Chase Bank shift its investments in fossil fuels to renewable energy to ward off a “full-blown climate crisis.”

The protest ended when the activists were arrested and given the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

After their arrest, court officials offered the activists a deal: pay a $10 fine and be done with the whole mess. Instead, they had another idea, Glick told Patch: a little-used legal defense known as the “Choice of Evils.”

According to Glick, here’s how the Delaware criminal code statute reads:

“Unless inconsistent with the ensuing sections of this Criminal Code defining justifiable use of physical force, or with some other provisions of law, conduct which would otherwise constitute an offense is justifiable when it is necessary as an emergency measure to avoid an imminent public or private injury which is about to occur by reason of a situation occasioned or developed through no fault of the defendant, and which is of such gravity that, according to ordinary standards of intelligence and morality, the desirability and urgency of avoiding such injury clearly outweigh the desirability of avoiding the injury sought to be prevented by the statute defining the offense in issue.”

On Nov. 12, the self-described “Rocking Chair Rebels” headed to court to argue that they broke the law to prevent a greater harm from happening.

When the prosecutor – who was also the arresting officer – asked how the move justified the inconvenience to local drivers, the activists responded by testifying that there are already “drastic, imminent harms” occurring due to climate change, which are much worse for those drivers than a bad day in traffic.

In the end, the judge disagreed with the 11 activists who chose to go to trial, finding them guilty of disorderly conduct and imposing fines and court costs of $97. But that money bought something, Glick said: a rare chance to get some important environmental reports officially “on the record.”

One example? A 50-page summary of the sixth assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which The Guardian called the group’s “starkest warning yet” about irreversible global climate changes.

They also submitted copies of the 2021 Banking on Climate Chaos report, which alleges that the world’s 60 largest commercial and investment banks – including JPMorgan Chase – poured $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels from 2016–2020.

Glick emphasized that climate change is just as relevant to New Jersey residents as it is those in Delaware.

“I’ve been active in New Jersey opposing new fossil fuel projects in the state for about a decade,” he said. “People all over the country are doing the same things in their states. All of us have to contend with a federal government and mega-banks that have continued to allow and finance new such projects, digging the climate crisis hole we are in even deeper.”

• See related article: ‘Trump Is So Bad It Made Me Stop Eating’; NJ Man On Hunger Strike
• See related article: No Jail For Essex County Activists Arrested At Pipeline Protest

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