Environmentalist groups touting a “climate emergency” are preparing to deploy new tactics in opposing President Trump’s energy policies and, according to a recent article in Grist, aren’t taking any options off the table. Given the destructive actions already undertaken by many radical environmentalist organizations, this news is concerning.
In the last few years alone, environmental protesters have thrown cans of soup at priceless Van Gogh paintings, graffitied Stonehenge with orange paint, and even blocked commuters from getting home by gluing themselves to roadways. If environmentalists consider these actions to be opening acts, Americans should be wary of what may come next.
The challenge with many environmental groups is they believe their cause is so just that they have license to do just about anything, even engage in violence and destruction. This was the case in North Dakota eight years ago, when environmental protesters set fires, clashed with construction workers, and threw Molotov cocktails at police officers as part of their demonstrations against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Energy Transfer, the company that operates the pipeline, is now suing Greenpeace over its role in the protests. The lawsuit alleges that Greenpeace instigated the violent demonstrations by spreading false claims about the project including that the pipeline would cross tribal lands and desecrate sacred burial grounds.
In actuality, the pipeline’s footprint does not cross the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s reservation or any land owned by the tribe. In addition, the North Dakota State Historical Society concluded that there was no evidence to suggest the project would disturb any Native American cultural sites.
Beyond spreading false rumors, Greenpeace is alleged to have provided financial support and supplies to a group known as the Red Warrior Resistance camp, which was described as a command center from which “disruptive actions” could be launched against the pipeline. Tribal leaders later asked that encampment to leave after disagreements over the group’s militant tactics.
Greenpeace’s actions in North Dakota fit a longstanding pattern for the group in combining deliberately misleading information with high-profile protests that endanger people and property. In 2021, the organization had to apologize after a paraglider it was using to disrupt a soccer match in Germany crashed into the field injuring two bystanders.
In Great Britain, Greenpeace was given credit for stopping the scuttling of an oil rig in the Atlantic, but the group later was forced to apologize for dramatically overstating that the amount of oil in the rig was 5,000 tons when the actual number was closer to ten.
Greenpeace also apologized to officials in Peru after their activists illegally entered and subsequently damaged parts of the Nazca Lines, a United Nations heritage site. The group entered the site, considered sacred to the Peruvian people, to unfurl banners promoting renewable energy.
Apologies may come quickly from Greenpeace, but accountability doesn’t. According to media reports, Greenpeace’s CEO was quietly replaced last summer allegedly over concerns that she wanted to reach a settlement in the North Dakota lawsuit. Instead, Greenpeace is now raising money off the lawsuit claiming it is an attempt to silence the organization.
The truth is that no one is trying to silence Greenpeace or any other environmentalist group. They are, however, being asked to comply with the law just like every other organization and individual. If they can’t, there should be consequences.
Spreading misinformation and stirring destructive violence aren’t tactics to be deployed, they are crimes and should be treated as such.
George Landrith is the president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank devoted to promoting a strong national defense, free markets, individual liberty, and constitutionally limited government. Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics.