"What if climate activists turn to terrorism?" Topic

"he first the world heard of the self-styled Earth Defence Army (eda) was in February 2028, when the Jamnagar oil refinery in Gujarat, the world's largest, ground to a halt after a crippling cyber-attack. In a video manifesto the eda claimed responsibility for the attack, providing detailed evidence of its involvement. The group's masked leaders warned that oil companies around the world would face similar attacks—as would banks and investors associated with them. "The planet cannot fight back," one eda member declared, "so we have no choice but to fight back on its behalf."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Typical Economist fearmongering. The Sea Shepherds is the only organization that's ever come close to committing acts of terrorism nominally on behalf of the environment, including ramming and scuttling whaling ships and being the subject of a long-running reality tv show. Environmental activism somehow has failed to attract violent personalities, unlike religion, race, or politics.

Some already have.

Some activists in the US were recently charged under terrorism offences for 'Placing a box of plastic waste on the doorstep of an executive of a company that causes plastic waste to end up in the ocean.' [that's the gist of what they are charged with] They could face 15 years in prison.

It is also a terrorist offence to film inside factory farms in the US.

It's hard to credit how either could be terrorism in the generally accepted sense of the word.

While many governments brand the Sea Shepherd Conservationists as terrorists this is hotly disputed too.

So I don't doubt many have committed acts of terrorism if these are the standards.

Have there been any acts that did or could have caused death or injury?

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Don, do you have any more recent information on this 12 year old story. Did the FBI find out who was responsible and was it done by an environmental group or person? If not than this doesn't show anything.

Nonsense. A terrorist is a terrorist and an activist is an activist. If what Skarper wrote is right, I wonder what happened in the land of the free !

IIRC, a while ago some activists took to driving iron spikes into tress in the Pacific Northwest. The effect was to cause loggers' chainsaws to kick back. Ended up seriously injuring some loggers.

Some activists are criminals for sure.

VAIL, Co — Firefighters knew it was arson before they were on the scene.

Big fires in the dark create a foreboding glow. In the cold, clear pre-dawn hours of Monday, Oct. 19, 1998, three buildings and four chairlifts atop Vail Mountain were engulfed in arson fires set by a group of eco-terrorists called The Family that was associated with the Earth Liberation Front.

Almost before the smoke cleared, the FBI was calling it the "the worst act of eco-terrorism in the United States."

Seven members of The Family were involved; six eventually went to prison. The FBI says the seventh might be holed up in Spain and remains on the agency's Most Wanted list.

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Retaliation in da name of motha oith?

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The Lord of the Flies approves…

Eliminate the threat

This has been long discussed, and plenty of groups have done things that were not called "terrorism" at the time but would be now.

Earth First! springs to mind.

If the government ever takes more stringent measures to counter the effects of global warming, it's just as likely it will be the climate change deniers committing activist/terrorist acts. What a world we live in.

Thanks.

Amicalement
Armand

be the climate change deniers

No one is denying the climate is changing; it has been changing for billions of years. Let's keep the politics out of science.

Agreed, USAFp.

Activists and terrorists aren't always mutually exclusive.

Some fools do deny the climate is changing at all – but let's discount them as beyond help.

The issue is those who deny the human impact on climate change.

There is a huge amount of propaganda being spread around to promote the idea there are two sides to this question and more research is needed.

Scientifically, the jury is back and we are in proved beyond reasonable doubt territory.

Ergo – we should act now. Unilaterally, multilaterally and individually. Whatever can be done must be done – NOW!

It is already too late to stop huge amounts of damage to the planet. But we might be able to salvage something for people in 50-100 years to have a livable environment.

The trouble is, to make meaningful change we need to seize the wealth of the richest 10% and use it to reduce our impact on the climate. And since these people by and large own the governments there is not much chance of that happening.

While there have been few if any violent acts from environmental activists so far – the political climate is ripe for it.

At the moment terrorism, taking something closer to the dictionary definition rather than some rather over egged legislation, is not something that the broader movement would condone or engage in. Cyber attacks might be a bit of a grey area. But if you're vulnerable to green-hackers Russian criminals or NK ransomware attackers will probably have got there first! Torching an SUV dealership is something I'd stick in the criminal damage for propaganda purposes rather then terrorist category. Yes there has been the odd lone wolf but IIRC they've been more anti-technology than driven by climate change.

The movement IMO is unlikely to change without a significant change in attitude among the grassroots. That will probably occur only once there are significant displacements from low lying coastal communities in developed countries who feel aggrieved by a lack compensation and/or equity in their re-settlement. That's when you get a sub-set people sufficiently angry to engage in true terrorist action. We can probably also look forward to an upswing in nationalist violence as changes in climate belts drive multi-million strong migrations….

"While there have been few if any violent acts from environmental activists so far – the political climate is ripe for it."

Here's just a short list. Unabomber was an Eco-terrorist.

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From what I've read, it seems like lone wolves are a rarity.

More likely to be those working in small cells, or groups, with perhaps some linkage to a larger organization, or affiliation.

Lone wolves are on the rise – perhaps courtesy of the interwebs where people can exist in their own little bubbles of confirmatory bias getting angrier and angrier until something snaps in a small percentage.