A lawsuit may end the heyday of destructive environmental activism

Beginning in the 1970s, environmental activism hasn’t been conducted at a political level. It’s been an on-the-ground war with activists running up against industries they don’t like and trying to destroy their day-to-day operations. However, if Energy Transfer, a Texas company, wins its upcoming case against Greenpeace for lost profits and defamatory damages due to oil protests, the environmental movement may discover that these tactics are no longer worth the cost.

In the mid-1970s, Greenpeace members began physically blocking whaling ships, starting with the Soviet whaling fleet. Given that this was the Cold War, Americans were not too outraged. This activism, however, was the template for the next 50s years of environmental protests.

For example, beginning in the 1980s, environmentalists went to war against the logging industry in Oregon and Washington, all to save the spotted owl. The fact that activists were destroying thousands of livelihoods was irrelevant. The bird must live. And to help the bird live, this war involved actively interfering with logging operations, everything from camping out in trees to planting spikes in trees so that saws would splinter, injuring or killing loggers.

Image: Dakota Pipeline protest by Desiree Kane. CC BY 3.0.

More recently, we’ve seen the anti-oil movement disrupt traffic, destroy art work, and generally harass people in their daily lives. What’s less visible, although it’s been happening on scale, is environmentalists engaging in the same tactic used for the spotted owls; namely, descending on the places where oil is drilled to disrupt business on the ground.

It seems a distant memory now but, for almost a year, from April 2016 to February 2017, activists engaged in a massive protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. It took Trump sending in the national guard and law enforcement to end the protest. While it was ongoing, though, all work on the project had to stop.

Among those business affected was Energy Transfer Partners. Energy Transfer, a company in the business of building storage and pipeline systems for oil and gas. Kelcy Warren, the magnate behind Energy Transfer, decided that he wasn’t going to slink away, just grateful that Trump stepped in.

Instead, in 2017, Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace USA, BankTrack, and EarthFirst!, accusing them of violating the Patriot Act by engaging in eco-terrorism. A federal court dismissed the case, but it turned out that wasn’t the end.

Instead of slinking away, Energy Transfer came back with a state court lawsuit alleging that Greenpeace incited and funded the protests, and that it spread misinformation about the company and its role in the pipeline project. That case is going to trial in the coming month.

Energy Transfer has a straightforward claim: Greenpeace allegedly engaged in and funded illegal and defamatory activity that caused Energy Transfer to suffer monetary and reputational damages. Having worked on a lot of lawsuits with similar claims in the business context, if Energy Transfer can prove its facts, this should be a no-brainer.

What’s going to be interesting is how the court treats Greenpeace’s defense. I haven’t read the pleadings, but Greenpeace has a website that states its position, and you won’t be surprised to learn that it’s all about racism and Trump:

The goal of this suit is to silence opposition by misrepresenting what happened on the ground at Standing Rock — making outrageous and racist claims that big green organizations like Greenpeace orchestrated the Indigenous-led movement at Standing Rock.

This lawsuit is about silencing opposition in Donald Trump’s America. 

Speaking strictly from a legal perspective, these are not good defenses. Free speech is, of course, a right inherent in every American. But property rights matter, too. Before the modern era, no court would ever seriously have considered defamation and physical interference with economic opportunities to be free speech.

However, one really doesn’t know nowadays what an activist court will do. Given that the court has allowed the case to go to trial, though, it doesn’t appear to be too activist.

Here's the really important thing about the lawsuit, though, and I’m again quoting Greenpeace: “This suit could have far-reaching consequences for journalists, advocacy organizations, and anyone who values free speech.” What Greenpeace really mean is that, if they lose, activists can no longer destroy private property with impunity. That’s a big deal. Oh, and Greenpeace will also be bankrupted.

I believe that we are all stewards of the earth. It’s stupid to destroy our environment because that ultimately means destroying ourselves.

And right there you see the difference between traditional environmentalists and the radical environmental movement that Greenpeace represents: These radicals don’t want to save the environment for generations of people; they want to return the earth to a pre-human habitation, because, while spotted owls and whales have worth to them, people do not.

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com