The Strategy of Radical Environmentalism
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Radical Environmentalism: the New Civil Disobedience?
Seattle Journal for Social Justice Volume 6 Issue 1 Fall/Winter 2007 Article 35 November 2007 Radical Environmentalism: The New Civil Disobedience? Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj Recommended Citation Hernandez, Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia (2007) "Radical Environmentalism: The New Civil Disobedience?," Seattle Journal for Social Justice: Vol. 6 : Iss. 1 , Article 35. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol6/iss1/35 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Publications and Programs at Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Seattle Journal for Social Justice by an authorized editor of Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 289 Radical Environmentalism: The New Civil Disobedience? César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández1 God said, “I have given you every seed-bearing plant which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree that bears fruit with seed. It will be for your food. To every wild animal, to every bird of the sky, to everything that creeps along the ground, to everything that has the breath of life, I give every green plant for food.” So it was. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Book of Genesis2 We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. -
Disaggregating the Scare from the Greens
DISAGGREGATING THE SCARE FROM THE GREENS Lee Hall*† INTRODUCTION When the Vermont Law Review graciously asked me to contribute to this Symposium focusing on the tension between national security and fundamental values, specifically for a segment on ecological and animal- related activism as “the threat of unpopular ideas,” it seemed apt to ask a basic question about the title: Why should we come to think of reverence for life or serious concern for the Earth that sustains us as “unpopular ideas”? What we really appear to be saying is that the methods used, condoned, or promoted by certain people are unpopular. So before we proceed further, intimidation should be disaggregated from respect for the environment and its living inhabitants. Two recent and high-profile law-enforcement initiatives have viewed environmental and animal-advocacy groups as threats in the United States. These initiatives are the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) prosecution and Operation Backfire. The former prosecution targeted SHAC—a campaign to close one animal-testing firm—and referred also to the underground Animal Liberation Front (ALF).1 The latter prosecution *. Legal director of Friends of Animals, an international animal-rights organization founded in 1957. †. Lee Hall, who can be reached at [email protected], thanks Lydia Fiedler, the Vermont Law School, and Friends of Animals for making it possible to participate in the 2008 Symposium and prepare this Article for publication. 1. See Indictment at 14–16, United States v. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA, Inc., No. 3:04-cr-00373-AET-2 (D.N.J. May 27, 2004), available at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nj/press/files/ pdffiles/shacind.pdf (last visited Apr. -
Frank Zelko Research Fellow, GHI
“MAKE IT A GREEN PEACE”: THE HISTORY OF AN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION Frank Zelko Research Fellow, GHI In the early 1970s, the United States Congress’s House Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation held a series of hearings on the sub- ject of marine mammal protection. Among those who testified were rep- resentatives of America’s oldest and most established wilderness protec- tion groups, such as the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and the National Wildlife Federation. Although it was important to ensure that the world’s populations of whales and seals remained as healthy as pos- sible, these organizations argued, they did not support a policy of abso- lute protection. As long as the survival of the species was ensured, they believed, it was legitimate to use its “surplus” members for the benefit of people. In his testimony before the subcommittee, Thomas Kimball of the National Wildlife Federation employed phrases such as “renewable re- sources,” “stewardship,” and “professional wildlife management.” The “harvesting of surplus wildlife populations,” his organization felt, wasan “important management tool if the continuing long-range well-being of an animal population is the ultimate objective.”1 A few years later, a group of environmental protesters off the coast of California came across a fleet of Soviet whaling boats. Using motorized inflatable dinghies, the activists positioned themselves between a whal- er’s harpoon and a fleeing pod of sperm whales, acting as human shields to protect the defenseless giants. Whaling, these activists insisted, was not merely an issue of wildlife preservation or resource stewardship. Rather, it was an unconscionable act of violence perpetrated against a species whose intelligence and sensitivity put them in the same biological cat- egory as human beings. -
Rainbow Warrior Case
1 Rainbow Warrior Case Rainbow Warrior (NEW ZEALAND v. FRANCE) France-New Zealand Arbitration Tribunal. 30 April 1990 (Jiménez de Aréchaga, Chairman; Sir Kenneth Keith and Professor Bredin, Members) SUMMARY: The facts: - In July 1985 a team of French agents sabotaged and sank the Rainbow Warrior, a vessel belonging to Greenpeace International, while it lay in harbour in New Zealand. One member of the crew was killed. Two of the agents, Major Mafart and Captain Prieur, were subsequently arrested in New Zealand and, having pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminal damage, were sentenced by a New Zealand court to ten years' imprisonment.1 A dispute arose between France, which demanded the release of the two agents, and New Zealand, which claimed compensation for the incident. New Zealand also complained that France was threatening to disrupt New Zealand trade with the European Communities unless the two agents were released. The two countries requested the Secretary-General of the United Nations to mediate and to propose a solution in the form of a ruling, which both Parties agreed in advance to accept. The Secretary-General's ruling, which was given in 1986, required France to pay US $7 million to New Zealand and to undertake not to take certain defined measures injurious to New Zealand trade with the European Communities.2 The ruling also provided that Major Mafart and Captain Prieur were to be released into French custody but were to spend the next three years on an isolated French military base in the Pacific. The two States concluded an agreement in the form of an exchange of letters on 9 July 1986 ("the First Agreement"),3 which provided for the implementation of the ruling. -
Radical Environmentalism ~ the Initial Decades a Historical, Documentary Bibliography
Radical Environmentalism ~ The Initial Decades A Historical, Documentary Bibliography This resource continues to be refined – some links may not be created yet. This bibliography provides a partially annotated, thematic review the central religious, ethical, and political dimensions, and the key historical watersheds, which occurred during the initial decades of the radical environmental movement. It focuses especially on Earth First!, but seeks also to illuminate kindred movements and its splinter group, such as the Earth Liberation Front. The Critique of Western, Industrial Civilization, the Case against Anthropocentrism and Humanism, and “Deep Ecology” as a Proposed Alternative Worldview. Radical environmentalism articulated a comprehensive critique of western civilization, both its religions and philosophical underpinnings as well as its agricultural and industrial modes of production. Soon after Earth First! was founded to advance a biocentric ethics and militant strategy, in early 1982, its founders became acquainted with “deep ecology.” They quickly deep ecology as a convenient trope for their own ethical perspectives. The following articles provide a representative sample of those articulating the radical environmental social critique, fledgling articulation of the alternative worldview and required militant tactics, and manifesto-like calls to action. From the mid-1980s, the articles deal increasingly with tensions in the growing movement, as authors begin criticize and defend aspects deep ecology and radical environmental ideology, as they had been articulated in the early years of Earth First. **Foreman, Dave. "Earth First!" The Progressive 45, no. 10 (October 1981): 39-42. An important manifesto and call for environmental activists to put the Earth First! and take on the earth’s destroyers with direct action resistance. -
Burn It Down! Anarchism, Activism, and the Vancouver Five, 1967–1985
Burn it Down! Anarchism, Activism, and the Vancouver Five, 1967–1985 by Eryk Martin M.A., University of Victoria, 2008 B.A. (Hons.), University of Victoria, 2006 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Eryk Martin 2016 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2016 Approval Name: Eryk Martin Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (History) Title: Burn it Down! Anarchism, Activism, and the Vancouver Five, 1967–1985 Examining Committee: Chair: Dimitris Krallis Associate Professor Mark Leier Senior Supervisor Professor Karen Ferguson Supervisor Professor Roxanne Panchasi Supervisor Associate Professor Lara Campbell Internal Examiner Professor Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Joan Sangster External Examiner Professor Gender and Women’s Studies Trent University Date Defended/Approved: January 15, 2016 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract This dissertation investigates the experiences of five Canadian anarchists commonly knoWn as the Vancouver Five, Who came together in the early 1980s to destroy a BC Hydro power station in Qualicum Beach, bomb a Toronto factory that Was building parts for American cruise missiles, and assist in the firebombing of pornography stores in Vancouver. It uses these events in order to analyze the development and transformation of anarchist activism between 1967 and 1985. Focusing closely on anarchist ideas, tactics, and political projects, it explores the resurgence of anarchism as a vibrant form of leftWing activism in the late tWentieth century. In addressing the ideological basis and contested cultural meanings of armed struggle, it uncovers Why and how the Vancouver Five transformed themselves into an underground, clandestine force. -
Issue Terrorism: an Analysis of Trends in North America
ISSUE TERRORISM: AN ANALYSIS OF TRENDS IN NORTH AMERICA Jesse L. Cale B.A., Mount Royal College, 2001 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS In the School of Criminology O Jesse L. Cale 2003 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY November 2003 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL Name: Jesse L. Cale Degree: M.A. Title of Thesis: issue Terrorism: An Analysis of Trends in North America Examining Committee: Chair: Neil Madu, M.A. Raymon?! R. Corr o, m~ Senior Su~ervisorT William G. Glackman, Ph.D. Me&r Ronald Roesch, Ph.D. ~xternalExaminer Psychology Department Simon Fraser University Date Approved: \ q 7- Y\,?, -? ii PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENCE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, project or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essay Issue Terrorism: An Analysis of Trends in North America Name ABSTRACT I Issue motivated terrorism can be understood as an extreme, illegitimate, and often violent response to a controversial issue within a given society. -
Transition in Canada’S Important Fossil Own Interests (To the Great Frustration Fulfilling, for the Greatest Number of Fuel Sectors (Page 16)
in transition CANADIAN CENTRE FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES JULY/AUGUST 2018 $6.95 Contributors Martin Adelaar is a retired Cynthia Khoo is a public of Technology (UOIT), and energy management interest lawyer who focuses one of the world’s foremost consultant and advocate on internet policy and digital authorities and renowned and a member of the Ottawa rights. Her column, Below the authors on hate crime. She is Renewable Energy Co- Fold, appears regularly in the Director of the newly formed Vol. 25, No. 2 operative. Monitor. Centre on Hate, Bias and ISSN 1198-497X Extremism at UOIT. Canada Post Publication 40009942 Frank Bayerl is a retired Marc Lee is a senior economist translator and regular with the British Columbia Roger Peters is a retired The Monitor is published six times volunteer at the CCPA’s office of the Canadian Centre environmental researcher, a year by the Canadian Centre for national office in Ottawa. for Policy Alternatives. consultant, writer and Policy Alternatives. Simon Enoch is Director of the Laura Macdonald is a professor advocate, and a founding The opinions expressed in the CCPA-Saskatchewan. in the department of political member of the Ottawa Monitor are those of the authors science and the Institute of Renewable Energy Co- and do not necessarily reflect Gerard Di Trolio writes Political Economy at Carleton operative. the views of the CCPA. about labour and politics. His articles have appeared in University, and co-investigator Peter G. Prontzos is Professor Please send feedback to RankandFile.ca, where he is an on the SSHRC-funded research Emeritus of Political Science at [email protected]. -
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and Ecoterrorism Thomas J
Fordham University Masthead Logo DigitalResearch@Fordham Student Theses 2015-Present Environmental Studies Spring 5-15-2016 Controlling What Is Wild: The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and Ecoterrorism Thomas J. Levendosky Fordham University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://fordham.bepress.com/environ_2015 Recommended Citation Levendosky, Thomas J., "Controlling What Is Wild: The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and Ecoterrorism" (2016). Student Theses 2015-Present. 33. https://fordham.bepress.com/environ_2015/33 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Environmental Studies at DigitalResearch@Fordham. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Theses 2015-Present by an authorized administrator of DigitalResearch@Fordham. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Controlling What Is Wild The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and Ecoterrorism Thomas Levendosky Environmental Studies 4000: Senior Thesis May 15, 2016 1 Abstract This thesis examines the extremist side of the environmental activism commonly known as ecoterrorism, and the subsequent implications of categorizing criminal activism as terrorism. Groups such as Earth First!, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the Environmental Liberation Front (ELF) strive to protect the natural world from the detrimental impacts of industrialization. Activists affiliated with these groups endorse direct action against environmentally harmful enterprises. Extremists are motivated by the belief that they are on the frontline defending the defenseless. They hope to dissuade corporations and government agencies from exploiting the natural world by exposing unethical practices and causing economic damage. The strategy of direct action can involve sabotaging of industrial equipment (monkeywrenching), arson, and tree spiking. Direct action also promotes nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to obstruct industrial development. -
9 Contentious Traditions, Eco-Political Discourse and Identity
GENTLE GIANTS, BARBARIC BEASTS AND WHALE WARRIORS: Contentious Traditions, Eco-Political Discourse and Identity Politics Rob van Ginkel Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam [email protected] Abstract Traditions are usually enmeshed in cultural politics, especially if they are highly controversial and heavily contested. In this article, I will firstly go into the tradition of the Faroe Islands’ grindadráp, a bloody pilot whale drive, which in Faroese eyes constitutes an inalienable part of their culture. It is strongly opposed by environmentalists and a wider audience. Secondly, I will examine the attempts of Makah Indians to revitalize their tradition of whale hunting in an effort to reinforce their identity. In this case, too, there was massive opposition, but the tribe nonetheless obtained permission to go whaling again. The eco-political discourse on Faroese and Makah whale hunting harbors a strong component of evaluating the merits and demerits of Faroese and Makah culture and the genuineness and legitimateness of the whaling traditions. The present article describes and analyses the debate, in particular as it relates to the issues of heritage and its contested authenticity. It argues that authenticity is not an ontological category but can only be produced in practice. Introduction In the commonsensical perception, ‘tradition’ often rings a bell of repetitive continuity. The term derives from the Latin traditio: to hand over. It is commonly thought of as an inherited pattern of thought or action, a specific practice of long standing, that which is transmitted from generation to generation. Departing from a similar conception, the pioneers of folklore and anthropology often conflated tradition and culture. -
The Eco-Terrorist Wave (1970-2016)
THE ECO-TERRORIST WAVE (1970-2016) By João Raphael da Silva Submitted to Central European University Department of International Relations In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations Supervisor: Professor Matthijs Bogaards Word Count: Budapest, Hungary 2017 CEU eTD Collection 1 ABSTRACT The present research aims to shed light on the geographical and temporal spread of the ecological typology of terrorism – hereinafter referred as “Eco-Terrorism” – through the lens of the David C. Rapoport’s Wave and Tom Parker and Nick Sitter’s Strain Theories. This typology that has posed high levels of threats to the United States and the European Union member States remains uncovered by these two theoretical frameworks. My arguments are that, first, like many other typologies previously covered by the above-mentioned theories, Eco-Terrorism spread. Second, “Wave”, “Strain” or “Wavy Strain” should be able to explain the pattern followed by Eco-Terrorism. Making use of the “Contagion Effect” as an analytical tool, the present research found that, like in other typologies, as an indirect way of contagion, literary production has played a crucial role in the spread of Eco-Terrorism, with a slight difference on who was writing them. Eventually, they became leaders or members of an organization, but in most of the cases were philosophers and fiction authors. In addition, it was found that the system of organization of the ALF and the ELF contributes to the spread. As a direct way of contagion, aside from training like in other typologies, the spread occurs when members of a certain organization disaffiliate from an organization and found a new one, and sometimes when two organizations act in cooperation. -
Sea Shepherd Buys Anti-Whaling Ship from Japan Marine Conservation Group Acquires Ship from Unsuspecting Japanese Authorities Through US Firm
Sea Shepherd buys anti-whaling ship from Japan Marine conservation group acquires ship from unsuspecting Japanese authorities through US firm Justin McCurry in Tokyo guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 December 2012 05.32 EST The marine conservation group Sea Shepherd has scored a propaganda victory over Japan after it emerged it had bought its newest anti-whaling vessel from the Japanese government, apparently without its knowledge. The $2m dollar vessel, which previously belonged to the country's meteorological agency, was bought from unsuspecting Japanese authorities by a US company, re-registered in the Pacific island of Tuvalu as the New Atlantis, and delivered to Australia by a Japanese crew. The ship, which was unveiled on Tuesday in Hobart, was reflagged to Australia and named after Sam Simon, the founding producer of The Simpsons TV series and a prominent animal rights campaigner. It is the newest addition to a fleet of four Sea Shepherd vessels that is expected to pursue Japan's whalers soon after they leave for the Antarctic later this month. "We have four ships, one helicopter, drones and more than 120 volunteer crew from around the world ready to defend majestic whales from the illegal operations of the Japanese whaling fleet," said Sea Shepherd's founder, Paul Watson. Watson will join this season's campaign, called Operation Zero Tolerance, despite jumping bail in Germany after being placed on an Interpol wanted list for allegedly endangering a fishing vessel crew in 2002. To compound Japan's embarrassment, the 184ft vessel was previously moored in Shimonoseki, home to the country's Antarctic whaling fleet, after being retired by the meteorological agency in 2010.