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By David Yager
Fossil Fuels and the Law – Will Eco-Terrorism Become Acceptable?
By David Yager
November 29, 2021
An excellent indicator of growing societal acceptance of what was once a new concept is its appearance in a dictionary with a definition.
So it goes for “eco-terrorism.” The Meriam-Webster online dictionary defines it as, “Sabotage intended to hinder activities that are considered damaging to the environment.”
Illegal actions by groups or individuals who have decided legal activities are wrong, and therefore they must act accordingly and take matters into their own hands.
According to National Post columnist Tasha Kheiriddin, eco-terrorism “…was coined in 1983 by writer Ron Arnold referring to ‘a crime committed to save nature’ in reference to acts by figures such as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured two dozen others in the name of anti-industrialization.”
Eco-terrorism is back in the news courtesy of famous Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki. He was the hook for Kheiriddin’s article. Lamenting what he and other environmental crusaders have decreed is the inadequate curtailment of the use of the fossil fuels that so many depend upon to stay alive, Suzuki stated on camera, “We’re in deep do-do. This is what we’ve come to. The next stage after this, there are going to be pipelines blown up if our leaders don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”
After all, what choice does self-described “civil society” have but to take uncivil action if everyone else doesn’t do what they’re told?
This was no ordinary gathering. Suzuki was speaking at an Extinction Rebellion (ER) event in Victoria only days after an abnormally heavy rainfall had flooded the southwest corner of BC and shut off gasoline and diesel fuel supplies. ER is as radical as they come, routinely resorting to civil disobedience and publicity stunts like blocking roads to make their point.
Few are invited to participate in such events. Even fewer attend. But Suzuki went anyway, obviously his kind of company. While Suzuki tried to explain afterwards that he was only speaking figuratively when his remarks became headline news, he was there which legitimized their existence and behavior.
After significant condemnation, Suzuki later publicly apologized citing “frustration.” What’s a dedicated climate activist to do after warning the world for years that fossil fuel emissions must go down when they are still going up?
ER continued to exploit the event days later. The Vancouver Sun wrote November 23 about an ER news release stating, “…the environmental group insists that Suzuki’s comments were not controversial, and indicative of what is to come if governments do not address climate change.”
It quoted an ER spokesperson who said, “Not only will pipelines be blown up, but we can be certain that world leaders will put on trial for treason or worse – be killed…The same goes for the media. When the Canadian public realizes that the press has been misleading them about how the climate emergency is being addressed, you can be assured that people will become violent.”
Although ER claims to be non-violent, the article quote read, “…we cannot control the actions of those outside of this movement who may commit acts of violence.”
If this were a one-off event, that would be fine. But it isn’t. As the so-called “climate emergency” unfolds but nothing changes quickly enough, environmentalists, politicians and commentators are becoming increasingly emboldened about what could or should be done.
Unless society’s tolerance of such behavior declines immediately, this growing, powerful, dangerous and ultimate deadly genie will be impossible to stuff back in the bottle.
Earlier this year writer and Swedish university professor Andreas Malm released a book titled, How To Blow Up A Pipeline.
The summary on the The Guardian Bookshop website reads, “With the stakes so high, why haven’t we moved beyond peaceful protest? …Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop–with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines.”
It ends, “…Malm offers us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire.”
Shortly after COP 26 ended Malm wrote a column in the The Guardian titled, “The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure.” Lamenting the failure of so many governments in too many countries to take what he classifies as essential actions against fossil fuels, he writes about the moral imperative of the climate concerned to disrupt and destroy the hydrocarbon supply chain.
“We could destroy the machines that destroy this planet. If someone has planted a time bomb in your home, you are entitled to dismantle it…This is the moral case which, I would argue, justifies destroying fossil fuel property. That is completely separate from harming human bodies, for which there is no moral case.”
Which is apparently what fossil fuels are doing to all of us.
He concludes, “We are deep into the catastrophe; the hour is late, but the escalation has only just begun. We don’t know what exactly will work. The one thing we can be certain of is this: we are in a death spiral, we have to break out of it, and we must try something more. The days of gentle protest may be long over.”
Not once does Malm mention or even consider the collateral damage such actions would create. Poverty. Starvation. Economic collapse. Complete social chaos.
The premise is that it is more important to quit increasing the GHG content of the atmosphere than keep 21st century society functioning.
Would you or I not have been arrested for publicly advocating such actions in a different era? Would the RCMP or FBI not have a file open on us or have us under surveillance? Is this how far public tolerance of radical environmentalism has moved towards social acceptability?
This was coined “eco-terrorism” because the “terrorism” part is supposed to be bad. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines terrorism as, “The unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion.”
While it seems improbable that Canadians will start blowing things up, sabotage is not without precedent. In the 1990s infamous farmer Wiebo Ludwig was charged and convicted of blowing up wellsites in northwest Alberta because he opposed sour gas development. A stunting teenager in a pickup truck was shot and killed on the Ludwig property at the time. No charges were laid.
Vandalism of equipment by pipeline opponents is becoming increasingly acceptable, acceptable defined as temporary arrests without financial penalties or long-term incarceration. This has happened on multiple projects including the Enbridge Line 9 reversal in Ontario, the Trans Mountain expansion and most recently Coastal GasLink. In South Dakota equipment for construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline was vandalized, as were vehicles related to natural gas development in New Brunswick.
The intentional sabotage of Enbridge Line 9 in Ontario seems to have slipped through the cracks in the collective memories of Canadian oil pipeline opposition. The pipeline runs from Sarnia to Montreal and was originally built in the 1970s under the orders of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government to ensure Quebec could secure western Canadian oil during the price and supply crisis of the day.
As soon as the supply and price issued disappeared, the line was reversed and carried imported oil to refineries in southern Ontario.
Early last decade, with oil production in the west and a refinery in Montreal, Suncor had applied to the National Energy Board to reverse it yet again back to its original purpose. NEB approval was received in 2012.
This move incited loud opposition in the region because Line 9 would be carrying the then-lethal “dilbit”, the diluted version of pipeline-destroying “tar sands”. That this oil cut holes in pipelines was part of the Tar Sands campaign that began in 2008 and ratcheted up in 2010 after Enbridge Line 6B in Michigan ruptured resulting in a major oil spill into the Kalamazoo River.
In 2015 Line 9 reversal opponents broke into an Enbridge production facility and videoed themselves closing a valve while the pipeline was operating. This could have been a dangerous event. They also chained themselves to equipment. Their intention was to gain publicity and be arrested, which they were.
They were charged and went to trial but after a year in court the Sarnia newspaper, The Observer, reported, “…all charges were withdrawn…after they agreed to an 18-month court order to stay away from Enbridge property.”
The lawyer for the defendants stated, “It’s the first time that activists of this nature have been charged with the endangering life charge, and so its precedent-setting in a way that in this particular incident, the Crown could not prove the charge.”
This was due in part because Enbridge either failed or was reluctant to provide technical evidence that the pressure buildup caused by closing the valve could create further damage including a rupture. Enbridge was being extremely cautious after its regrettable accident in Michigan.
Enbridge was disappointed in the judge’s decision which the newspaper called “precedent setting,” defined as you could get away with this type of activity without fines or criminal conviction. The environmentalists were emboldened claiming, in some perverse form of logic, that the court decision showed “…how flawed your (Enbridge’s) pipelines are. The only way they can prove these cases by admitting that their pipelines are subject to rupture.”
Enbridge responded, “Tampering with energy infrastructure is very serious and potentially dangerous” and “…has the potential to cause real harm to the public, the environment (and) the activists themselves.”
Around the world, it is not uncommon for the poor to be burned and killed while tapping into refined product pipelines. But this is not to save the planet but to steal fuel that they cannot otherwise afford.
In 2020 a national blockade of rail lines in support of Coastal GasLink opponents caused major disruptions across the country. Again, few arrests and fewer convictions.
Getting arrested used to be embarrassing. In the environmental movement is it a badge of honor. Green Party MP and Leader (at that time) Elizabeth May and BC NDP MLA Kennedy Stewart (now Mayor of Vancouver) were arrested in 2018 for ignoring a court order by entering the Trans Mountain construction site in Burnaby.
The penalty? Almost immediate release and enhanced credibility among those opposed to pipelines and fossil fuels. Not a single news story today mentions these elected public figures intentionally broke the law and were arrested three years ago.
That it is illegal becomes meaningless if enough people believe the intentions are noble.
The latest twist in Alberta’s public inquiry into foreign funding of anti-oil campaigns is that the multiple environmental groups referenced in the report are threatening to sue Alberta Premier Jason Kenney for smearing their reputations.
Although the so-called “Allen Report” concluded no laws were broken, it did unequivocally state that having $1.28 billion of foreign money pour into Canada to affect public opinion including blocking oil sands expansion and pipelines was something Albertans and Canadians should know about.
But the parties mentioned now believe they have been slandered. So Dogwood Initiative, Environmental Defence Canada, Greenpeace Canada, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, Sierra Club of British Columbia Foundation, West Coast Environmental Law and Research Foundation and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee have written a letter demanding an apology or legal action will follow.
This is a publicity stunt of course. But not only are environmental groups and environmentalists increasingly above the law, but their reputations as noble crusaders for the greater good must also remain unchallenged and unquestioned.
Surely the discussion about climate change, fossil fuels and what to do next has finally reached the point of absurdity. Too many politicians, commentators, thought leaders and ordinary Canadians are saying too little when social anarchy and infrastructure sabotage are justified in the name of environmental protection.
Or look the other way as opponents intentionally break the law by blocking roads and rail lines and vandalize equipment and infrastructure to attract attention.
It all ties back to modern tribal politics. Many politicians get elected on platforms opposing or obstructing fossil fuels in the name of climate change.
So when these increasingly extreme actions and pronouncements occur, too many politicians remain silent so it doesn’t cost them votes.
The first act of Calgary’s newly elected city council was to declare a climate emergency. Mayor Gondek never mentioned this being her first order of business during her campaign. Now Calgary’s municipal government, Gondek, Suzuki, Malm and ER are using the same terminology for the same reason.
It has become a question of tactics, not intent.
The escalation of breaking the law to attract attention to the climate change issues will continue until enough ordinary Canadians raise their voices to show politicians there are more votes supporting common sense than climate virtue signalling leading to civil disobedience and illegal activity.
What a country.
David Yager is an oilfield service executive, oil and gas writer, energy analyst and author of From Miracle to Menace – Alberta, A Carbon Story. More at www.miracletomenace.ca
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