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Emily Johnston, who admitted shutting down 5 pipelines last year with the help of four friends, has finally found a judge willing to hear her “necessity defence”.
I shut down an oil pipeline – because climate change is a ticking bomb
Emily Johnston
Friday 24 November 2017 20.00 AEDT
Normal methods of political action and protest are simply not working. If we don’t reduce emissions boldly and fast, that’s genocide.
Alittle over a year ago, four friends and I shut down all five pipelines carrying tar sands crude oil into the United States by using emergency shut-off valves. As recent months have made clear, climate change is not only an imminent threat; it is an existing catastrophe. It’s going to get worse, and tar sands oil—the dirtiest oil on Earth—is one of the reasons.
We did this very, very carefully—after talking to pipeline engineers, and doing our own research. Before we touched a thing, we called the pipeline companies twice to warn them, and let them turn off the pipelines themselves if they thought that was better; all of them did so.
We knew we were at risk for years in prison. But the nation needs to wake up nowto what’s coming our way if we don’t reduce emissions boldly and fast; business as usual is now genocidal.
In shutting off the pipelines, we hoped to be part of that wake-up, to put ourselves in legal jeopardy in order to state dramatically and unambiguously that normal methods of political action and protest are simply not working with anywhere near the speed that we need them to.
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Three of our trials (which are in four states) had already rejected the use of the necessity defense. In North Dakota, the judge said essentially “I’m not going to let you put US energy policy on trial”. But recently, I and the other Minnesota defendants were finally granted it.
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I was struck by the North Dakota judge’s implicit understanding that letting science be spoken in her courtroom would have had the effect of putting energy policy on trial—of reversing, in effect, who was the defendant, and who the prosecutor.
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According to a progressive news outlet, the Minnesota judge who allowed the presentation of the “necessity defence” is Judge Robert Tiffany.
The FBI defines eco-terrorism as “…the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.”.
Emily claims she and her friends took every step possible to avoid risk to life. But what she did was risky and irresponsible.
Any slip-up by pumping companies scrambling to respond to her abrupt closure of emergency valves, of pipes carrying vast quantities of flammable liquids, could have caused a rupture or worse. A moving column of thousands of tons of flammable liquid can deliver a tremendous hammer blow against vulnerable infrastructure if its transit is not carefully managed.
Crews distracted by her and her friends irresponsible antics might not have noticed another emergency developing elsewhere in the system. Even though on this occasion everything ended without further mishap, Emily and her friends were responsible for a period of significantly heightened risk.
As for Emily’s claimed justification for her actions, what an ego. There was no immediate threat to life. Emily and her eco-terrorist friends don’t get to decide what is legal, the representatives elected by the people have that responsibility. By leading an attack on vital infrastructure, Emily and her friends tried to usurp everyone elses rights.
I have never called for or led direct action against renewable infrastructure, despite my belief that renewable infrastructure causes tremendous long term harm, because unlike Emily I don’t believe I have a general right to deprive others of their rights. In any case, wind turbines in particular have an entertaining habit of destroying themselves.
One thing for sure. If Emily and her friends are not punished for their irresponsibility, others will be inspired to copy her actions. The next group of clowns who decide to attack vital energy infrastructure might be less careful, or less lucky. People will die unless this craziness is stopped.
Emily Johnston is entitled to her opinions but not entitled to take dangerous actions in support of them. However ‘Eco’ the idea may be, terrorism is still a public danger and should be dealt with as such.
Self-indulgent psychopaths.
Hitler, Stalin, Jones, Amin, Bundy all had the same mental affliction.
Pompus control freaks not caring one bit who dies from their criminal actions.
Their whole premise is built on despicable greed, propaganda and indifference to the misery of others.
This fraud has nothing to do with science.
It has simply become the biggest organised crime gang ever created by humanity.
Throw away the key on the wacko
She never consulted any credible engineers. No one of any knowledge would think shutting valves would be harmless
Okay, I have a solution to the problem, so you all please be kind enough to bear with me on this.
These people (in my view) are nuttier than squirrel scats. They do not see the consequences of their moonbat ideas, or if they do, they just don’t care. Someone earlier suggested taking away all their modern stuff, including modern housing and commo devices. Make them live in a purely “natural” world – whatever that is. Pick a spot for their compound, with enough room for them to grow a garden and be self-sufficient but they have to provide for their own medical needs, their own heating and cooking fuels, and their own water and waste disposal issues. Tell them that, once they’re in there, they can’t come out for five years, minimum (depending on the sentence they get). Build an unscalable wall and once they’re in, lock the gates. Make it clear that they will get NO HELP EVER.
If they survive the minimum sentence, fine. Maybe they will have learned their lesson, maybe not, but the only thing that will work on these nutballs is a hard, hard does of reality.
I only bring this up because in the 1970s, a group of hippies bought land in Tennessee and moved there to start a commune. They called it The Farm. It’s still there, but reality hit home when a mining company wanted their land and they had to fight to keep the mining company out. That cost money. I think they wised up.
The majority of us live in the real world. These latter-day hippie mimics are poor shadows of them, living in some dream world that does not exist, never did and never will.
“Emily and her friends were responsible for a period of significantly heightened risk.” Interesting that there seems to be no talk of prosecuting her for proceeding with this action WITHOUT doing/providing an acceptable environmental impact analysis meeting all the regulatory requirements. Fines and jail time are surely in order – after all, the pipeline company did NOT consider this action (unnecessary emergency shutoff) as one of the stressors in their EIS.
Oh, I love that: Failure to file an Environmental Impact Statement before acting..
That is why we need “economic terrorism” laws, cause someone to lose money by your actions, you are a terrorist.
So, we should stop getting oil sands oil from a country like Canada, instead we should continue to get oil from those “nice” countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia?
America, wake up! Endlessly argumenting to and fro about the degreee of lawbreaking of a bunch of spoiled brat terrorists and potential killers is going too far. For heaven’s sake, DO SOMETHING and stop talking!
What’s most frightening, is the ease with which these eco-terrorists performed their actions.
All they did was close valves, and the only damage to the valve sites was some broken chains and locks.
Imagine the devastation if these were real terrorists bent on crippling America’s energy infrastructure?
Inasmuch as terrorists believe their cause to be justified, wouldn’t their actions be covered by the “necessity” defense?
Something for the judge to consider.
“Rascal November 26, 2017 at 12:31 am
What’s most frightening, is the ease with which these eco-terrorists performed their actions.”
Because what is known to these types who perpetrate terrorist acts is that authorities, usually, won’t act until they do. The perpetrators of recent city attacks in France, Belgium and the UK, almost all were known to authorities as “risks”, but authorities did nothing. But drive 10mph over the speed limit…
Petroleum valve stations, at least in NYC, are very heavily monitored, and access is unusually difficult, even if on official business with proper authorization.
I know this as a fact since I spent over ten years as an inspector with the FDNY, and one of the responsibilities of my unit was monitoring the pipelines in the City.
You were on video as you even approached the installation, and any attempt to enter unlawfully was dealt with by proper authorities.
This situation reminds me of the trial of activists in the UK where they were objecting to the replacement of old coal generation by a new clean burn power station. I think they brought James Hansen over to support their case. They won their case and were acquitted.
The old power station had reached its 20,000 hour electricity generation allowed under the EU Emissions Directive, and the owners E.On wanted to demolish the old station and build a new cleaner one.
See http://www.platformlondon.org/2016/09/12/power-station-giant-down-and-commemorate/
The people that should be sued, besides these idiots or course, are the ones that perpetrate the false narrative that weather events are the result of AGW, not due to normal weather and natural climate change. Many IPCC authors are individually extremest in their views, while the IPCC reports clearly state no link between AGW and weather. Those that spread this false narrative, and the complacent media, are responsible for idiots like Emily, as they give her enough reason to take action. I hope the judge allows science into the courtroom, because Emily will become “woke” again, this time to the BS she believed in.
The most entertaining thing here is that everyone is still calling them ‘fosil fuels’ which is bad science-and no one is actually looking at what really influnces the NATURAL cycles of life, earth, orbit, and human beings ignorance of all of it. Im sure all u people wld also propose spraying the skies to help somehow-do the planet a favor and leave it alone.
Frankly, any definition of terrorism that doesn’t involve directly seeking to terrify people, is bullshit.
Hopefully, she’ll have a long stint in chokey so she can fully reflect on her actions.
Cross examinations of the “climate experts” by a prosecutor who, if worth their salt, knows the “BS” that McKibben will proffer (including the hurricanes and wildfires) and will have rebuttal witnesses up the wazoo. I’d love to be there for the cross.
We have the same sort of activists in New Zealand
One who should know better is Russel Norman a former leader of the Green Party in our parliament.He resigned to take up a eco management job and is heavily involved with Greenpeace .
He and a bunch of other loons in April 2017 motored out 50 nautical miles off the east coast of the North Island to protest at a oil survey ship the Amazon Warrior
.Norman and others jumped into the sea as a protest . They were charged in the Napier Court but they do not appear to answer the charges till April 2018 .
We now have a coalition government including the Greens and as our Prime Minister is very sympathetic to the greens and their catastrophic climate change meme I expect these loons will be given a full pardon .
I suppose that they think that the end result justified the fuel to run a boat 100 nautical miles but they were protesting against oil exploration .
Very ironic.
From: http://www.twincities.com/2017/10/17/minnesota-judge-allows-unusual-defense-for-4-pipeline-protesters/ October 17, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/05/in-defense-of-the-electric-car-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-2656267
Radical environmentalists are the great killers of our time, ranking with Hitler, Stalin and Mao. One example of this criminal malfeasance is the ban of DDT, which has greatly increased malaria in the tropics – another global scale holocaust based on false environmental alarmism. A more recent example is global warming hysteria and the war against cheap, reliable, abundant energy, which is the lifeblood of society.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the environmental movement was taken over by Marxists… and evolved into the watermelon outfit it is today. Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, wrote this article circa 1994. It still rings true today. Read “The Rise of Eco-Extremism”.
http://www.ecosense.me/index.php/key-environmental-issues/10-key-environmental-issues/208-key-environmental-issues-4
Marxists come in many packages with many labels – for example: Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Stalinists, Shachtmanites, etc.
When I was at McGill in the 1960’s. there were about a dozen different Marxist groups – so many that their group names were extremely long – just to differentiate them.
In general, we observed that they fit into two groups:
1. The make-love-not-war, dope-smoking Harpo Marxists,
and
2. The nasty, angry, violent Groucho Marxists.
Most climate alarmists have embraced a Harpo Marxist approach and a few are Groucho Marxists – they just do not realize it – they think they are “Progressives”.
Regards, Allan 🙂
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/06/aussie-liberal-press-notices-the-importance-of-reliable-electricity/comment-page-1/#comment-2573966
The Groucho Marxists are the leaders – they want power for its own sake at any cost, and typically are sociopaths or psychopaths. The great killers of recent history, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot. etc. were of this odious ilk – first they get power, then they implement their crazy schemes that do not work and too often kill everyone who opposes them.
The Harpo Marxists are the followers – the “sheeple” – these are people of less-than-average education/intelligence who are easily duped and follow the Groucho’s until it is too late, their rights are lost and their society destroyed. They are attracted to simplistic concepts that “feel good” but rarely “do good”. George Carlin said: “You know how stupid the average person is, right? Well, half of them are stupider than that!”
One can easily identify many members of these two groups in the global warming debate – and none of them are skeptics.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/16/the-great-carbon-scam/comment-page-1/#comment-2583687
OMG – Hillary and I agree on something – the ease of manipulation and stupidity of the average Democrat voter – and half of them are stupider than that!