Daily Caller: An eco-terrorist responsible for sabotaging an oil pipeline in North Dakota suggested Saturday that shutting down the multi-billion dollar line was necessary to defuse the ticking time bomb of man-made global warming.
Temporarily taking offline a pair of pipelines in Minnesota earlier this year was part of an effort to save the world from fossil fuels, Seattle activist and poet Emily Johnston wrote in an editorial for The Guardian. A judge is allowing her to use a “necessity defense” to justify her actions last year against the Enbridge pipeline.
“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,” Johnston wrote, referring to a spate of hurricanes that clobbered the U.S. earlier this summer.
Clearwater County District Judge Robert Tiffany gave Johnston – and other activists from anti-oil group, Climate Direct Action – the option of arguing the fear of cataclysmic climate change justifies any action taken to stymie oil production and transport. The judge’s decision allows the group to produce various climate experts to testify about the upcoming climate Armageddon.
Most necessity defenses are allowed in instances like when someone is arrested for breaking and entering after hearing a baby crying in a burning building and rushing in to save the infant. The action was justifiable to prevent the immediate harm of another person.
Some of Johnston’s fellow conspirators are having second thoughts about their sabotage efforts – one activist argued after being convicted that maybe his fellow saboteurs overinflated the imminent danger.
Michael Foster, who was convicted in October of criminal mischief after damaging the Keystone Pipeline, told reporters shortly after his conviction that he might “honor the judge and the jury and their verdict” rather than appealing the conviction.
“It’s been a year, and pollution is worse today than the day I turned the Keystone valve shut,” said Foster, who faces up to 21 years in prison for his action. “Based on that alone, I wonder how effective it was. If people don’t respond quickly (to climate change), it won’t matter.” read more
Can anyone spare some lead they can recycle for these caring folks?!
From Seattle, huh?
I’m surprised……not.
Pollution is worse today than it was a year ago? And the proof of that is what?
This is one equal and that who belongs in a cage for her own protection, She is a danger to herself and others.
So if man made warming needs to be stopped now, what would be the next step in her plan? Kill everybody but her and like minded earth huggers?
21 years seems a bit short of a time out to think this over.
So lemme see if I got this straight: Oil transported via diesel spewing locomotives, owned by an extremely rich liberal, do not contribute to air pollution. But the very same oil transported through a pipeline does cause air pollution? Time to sue educators who forced this nonsense down student’s throats.
When their paid expert testifies, ask what disaster will harm which person imminently. That should prove amusing.
She lost me at Seattle poet. The only thing worse than a Seattle poet is a San Francisco mime.
This judge is irresponsible and dangerous. All the loons who think Trump is Hitler are no doubt checking out “Necessity Defense”. James Hodgkinson would no doubt be trying the “Necessity Defense” were he still alive.
Actually not TT. He is giving this lady her day in court. The expert testimony is at her expense. Let her pay.
All I see is the judge has a gross misunderstanding of the word “necessity”
Lives a very primative lifestyle and smells like it too.
I see. But when you don’t want to bake a gay cake due to, “higher laws” you should go to jail.
“…could set a legal precedent for future activists who wish to damage oil infrastructure…”
Neat. Legal precedent for defending one’s property already exists. I wonder how this might turn out. Perhaps some things are forever beyond our capacity to determine.
I just don’t understand why they want to save the world if they hate humanity. Do they want to save the world for wildlife and plants, and to Hell with humanity? Then they should just shut up, leave us alone, and let climate change happen.
Gaia could not be reached for comment.