Editorial: Greens are The New Reds
There are two things bothering me. Okay, actually, there are a lot of things bothering me, but let’s keep the list short. The first is a recent report that the FBI thinks ‘eco-terrorism’ is the number one domestic terror threat in the US. Greens, it seems, really are the new reds.
The second is the notion that concern for the environment is now so widespread that we can claim to have ‘won’ the environmental ‘war’. It’s hard to reconcile this notion with the war that is currently being waged against environmental campaigners behind the scenes, in the media and through the courts.
Environmentalists – especially the ones who ruffle feathers, challenge the status quo and hang ironic banners on the Houses of Parliament that say ‘BAA Headquarters’ – have long been targets for political and commercial interests. But rather than fight on the issues, vested interests – and not just in the US – prefer to fight a PR war that uses doubt and insult to discredit these unruly individuals.
They also stoop to espionage – the recent case of activist group Plane Stupid being infiltrated by an aviation industry spy being a good case in point. But this is not new. Documents recently released in the US show that a private security company run by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organisations from the late 1990s through at least 2000.
The courts are likewise enlisted: in the US, judges are banning protesters from protesting – for life. The lawyers that helped force the Department for Children, Schools and Families to stop schools showing An Inconvenient Truth without also showing films like Channel 4’s widely discredited The Great Global Warming Swindle – for ‘balance’ – have given seminars telling other lawyers how to ‘win’ as they did.
In the US, the media are already comparing the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) to Al-Qaida. ELF is being blamed for torching a street of $2 million plus eco houses in Washington State. There is little credible evidence that ELF is to blame. Indeed, there is suspicion that the builders did it to recoup their losses in a ‘soft’ property market.
Are ELF extremists? Yes. Are they vandals, arsonists, bullies even? Based on their past behaviour, yes. But terrorists?
My concern is how quickly the eco-terrorist label could spill over on to average people who engage in direct action or civil disobedience. We picked up this thread with our student issue in February, noting that today’s students, were they to protest in the manner of their 1968 counterparts, would be branded terrorists.
In this issue we highlight the plight of residents of Merthyr Tydfil who are trying to stop opencast coal mining taking place 30m from their homes (see page 24). The woman who led the legal challenge has suffered multiple threats to her wellbeing: her dog was shot; she has had to install CCTV around her home for security. Imagine the mindset of these people: ‘Stop this terrorist threat, granny, or the dog gets it.’
In the meantime, officially sanctioned eco-terrorism – oil companies that dump wastes on pristine landscapes, the 2010 Winter Olympics committee razing vast stretches of wilderness to build yet another sports village, the chemical companies that poison entire communities – goes largely unchallenged and unpunished.
Extremist groups are often made up of people who feel they have exhausted every ‘civilised’ avenue in order to be heard. They are people left with the notion that only by making a really big noise will they get their concerns on the agenda. Vested interests would like nothing more than for intelligent, concerned ecologists everywhere to stop fighting, speak softly and carry no sticks at all. The rise of direct action groups in the UK and elsewhere is an indication that people are increasingly fed-up with greenwashing, and with the eco-spin of CSR.
It’s a sign that the war, if that is what you choose to call it, is really only getting started.
- This editorial first appeared in the May 2008 edition of the Ecologist.
