The Failures of a Desultory Movement:
A Study of Radical Environmentalists and the Environmental Movement
Written by: Brittany Whitaker
Senior Capstone, 2006
**The formatting's a little flooky but you get the idea**
~ Introduction ~ In this age of the “war on terror,” it is important to take a critical look at this epidemic that seems to be everywhere in the news. Because the word terror, much like the words love or morals, seems to be subjective, we must examine it in order to clarify and define it for ourselves.
Although what has been deemed “ecoterror” is only a small contributor to a massive pandemic issue called terrorism, there are links and commonalities between the two. However, this paper will propose that what is termed “ecoterror” is merely an immature and poorly executed stage of an upcoming (and necessary) environmental revolution.
In an effort to dissolve some preconceived notions, including my own, about “ecoterrorists,” a closer examination of the radical environmentalists’ viewpoints, through exploration of some of the actions that they have taken in the past will help us to understand the true motivation and justification behind using such extreme tactics. It will also help to understand how effective tactics taken by radical environmentalist have been in advancing the environmental movement.
Throughout the history section of this paper, ideological divisions will be presented between environmentalists; divisions that have ultimately led to the movement’s desultory momentum. This paper will hypothesize that it was these divisions, ultimately a broken front within the movement, along with a few other factors that has prevented the overall progression of the movement.
Also, this paper will be exploring the belief systems of environmentalists in general and tactics they use as a basis for comparison to the radical viewpoint. Individuals and organizations will be presented in the “case studies” section, as well as throughout, as examples of the large range of viewpoints and approaches that exist in the movement today. A focus will be on environmentalists in the United States, although there will be some mention of international origins of US groups within the “history” section.
Once this is done, this paper will examine the effectiveness of the tactics used within the environmental movement through parallel comparisons with the efficacy of tactics used in the civil rights movement (as well as a few others) in the section called “civil disobedience.” Finally, it will conclude with suggestions for changes that could be made to help remedy the proposed current problems in the environmental movement.
~ Definitions ~
Before delving into the heart of this paper, it is necessary to give definitions for the often subjective terms that will be used heavily throughout this paper. The following definitions are based on how I chose to use the words in this paper, and are NOT definitive to all situations outside the margins of this paper. However, aspects of these definitions were influenced by other sources, so they are not unfounded in principle. In addition, the words enclosed in the parenthesis are synonyms to the words in bold, (for example, the word ‘radical’ is often used interchangeably with ‘extreme’ and so on), and if the word is listed after the italicized word “biased” it means that these words are considered biased synonym(s).
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Radical (extreme): The most radical/extreme form of philosophy that often results in the use of militant and destructive tactics.
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Radical environmentalism (extreme environmentalism; biased: ecoterrorism): A movement made up of resisters who are typically leftist that uses a militaristic approach to environmental issues.
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Fanaticism: Often a title given to all environmentalists in general, it is used to define those individuals who view an issue with an irrational outlook or behavior, often driven by strong enthusiasm and emotions.
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Radical environmentalists (extreme environmentalists; biased: ecoterrorists): Those individuals who are active members of radical environmentalism (see above) supporting its ideologies;
[i] that is, they will not hesitate to use illegal means to achieve their goals when necessary.
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Radical fundamentalists (biased: terrorists): Those individuals who, according to much of the western world, are considered terrorist due to their violent and destructive ideology. They are resisters who will not hesitate to kill or be killed for their theological cause. (Includes, for example, Al Qaeda)
NOTE: In an effort to approach this study free of biases I will only refer to individuals as “ecoterrorists” and “terrorists” when speaking for those who refer to them as such.
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Philosophy: An individual or group’s set of ideas or beliefs concerning their cause. In case of environmentalists, it’s concerning the environment.
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Tactic: The technique in activism used by a group to progress toward a common goal.
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Ideology: The body of ideas reflecting the needs and aspirations of an individual or group.
[ii] For the purposes of this paper, it will be used to define both the group/individual’s body of philosophies and tactics.
Philosophy + Tactics = Ideology
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Ecotage (economic/ecologic sabotage -> eco-sabotage; “monkey wrenching”**): The tactic used by radical environmentalists. The unlawful destruction of, in some cases, a person, or in most cases, a person’s property in order to serve the purpose of an environmental cause in which the perpetrator(s) flee(s) the scene, keeping their personal identity a secret.
NOTE: **Radical environmentalists often will refer to the tactic they use as “monkey wrenching” named after a term used by a prominent radical environmentalist leader, Edward Abby, in his 1975 book, “The Monkey Wrench Gang.”
[iii]·
Civil disobedience (non-violent civil disobedience): Those acts done in protest for a cause, such as picketing and tree-sits, in which the activists stay present on the scene, leaving themselves susceptible for arrest in order to publicly show their commitment to the cause. It requires the activists to be nonviolent as well as nonresistant. Violent civil disobedience, in contrast, allows for the use of force when used as personal defense.
NOTE: Civil disobedience is not to be used synonymously with ecotage. Some individuals within the radical environmentalist movement have been know to refer to an act of ‘monkey wrenching’ as civil disobedience, but this is most likely only because the act was done in protest. Protest may be the essence of civil disobedience, but it is not the whole of it (at least for the purposes of this paper). Further distinguishing factors and reasoning behind distinguishing between ecotage and civil disobedience will be explained in detail in the “civil disobedience” section.
~ History ~The history of the environmental movement has been scattered with schisms within some of the most prominent environmental groups. In its past, activist groups have had a tendency of reaching a point where they have realized differences in the member’s viewpoints, desires, and chosen tactics, and as a result they divide into two groups. Often these divisions have led to the radicalism of the newly formed splinter group, but every so often, in the environmental history presented in this paper, the splintered group/individual made a conservative shift in ideology. The few exceptions will be presented towards the end of the history section.
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The beginning of the environmental movement, and ultimately the beginning of the era of radical environmentalism, began with two very influential and notable leaders, John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. These environmental philosophers were influential catalysts in environmental philosophical progression within the United States. Many historians believe them to be the first leaders of the environmental movement mostly due to the influence they had in transpiring environmental philosophy and concern within the United States.
[iv]In the age before Muir and Pinchot, wilderness in America was often viewed as something to be conquered and consumed. (For those who did not see wilderness as a resource, they saw it as something scary and to be avoided). America was ‘the land of milk and honey,’ and many believed that its resources would never be depleted. However, around the late 1800s, when Muir and Pinchot first became active representatives in the public eye, people were slowly dawning on the sobering truth that America’s wilderness and resources could have a limit.
[v]I have observed that it has typically been a trend in environmental history that as the public has been directly effected by human-induced environmental issues, only then will they push, often aggressively, for a change to be made. The first reaction of this type was what we now refer to as the conservation movement, which was in reaction to the rapid depletion of wild lands.
[vi]The conservation movement began with a controversy that is still present within the environmental movement today. It was an argument that was instigated and led by Muir and Pinchot, the fathers of the environmental movement. In essence it asked, ‘should the US government completely protect (i.e. preserve) the little land we have left, or manage it for its resources?’
[vii]John Muir, an ardent lover of all things wild and an active visionary in the public eye, became the voice of preservationists in the conservation movement. His love for the environment began when he temporarily lost his eyesight in a factory accident. After regaining his eyesight from what he feared would be a permanent injury, he saw the world with a new perspective. He no longer took the beauty of the environment for granted, and went as far as viewing it as a gift from God and heaven on earth. With this rebirth Muir began to popularize a new spiritual philosophy of the environment, sometimes referred to as ‘deep ecology.’
[viii]Muir’s philosophy was a precursor to modern day biological theories in that he argued for the preservation of large tracts of land, which he believed were required to successfully protect the diversity of the environment. He spent much of his career working to convince politicians of the truth in his theories. He was a strong political voice and even worked with President Theodore Roosevelt in developing some of the first American National Parks.
[ix]Gifford Pinchot, on the other hand, had an alternate view of the environment than Muir. A first generation American, Pinchot’s family had originally come from France. When Gifford’s father, James Pinchot came to America, many believe that he was the first to bring forestry to America. Although James Pinchot made a fortune logging in the United States, he had always regretted the damage his logging had on the land and pursued his repentance through his son. When Gifford was old enough to go to college his father asked him if he wanted to be a forester, and he accepted, started his studies at Yale and later studied for his PhD at a university in France. Leading the life that his father hoped, Gifford brought ‘healthy’ logging techniques to America, and the conservation philosophy.
[x]The movement created by Pinchot’s philosophy is now referred to as the Wise-Use Movement. Pinchot strongly advocated for ‘Wise-Use’ of the forest, attesting against what Muir believed, that the forests were too precious of a resource to let sit without being touched. He spent his career pushing politicians to let him use applied forestry to glean forests of their resources, no matter the level of protection imposed on them by law, and in 1905 was appointed to the head of the newly created United States Forest Service (USFS) by President Theodore Roosevelt. This marked his first steps in his progression as the figurehead of the Wise-Use Movement.
[xi]The trend of schisms in the environmental movement began as far back as the early 1900s with the division of the original US environmentalists into preservationists, those who moved in a biocentric direction, and conservationists, those with a more anthropocentric view of the environment. The original leaders of these philosophies, John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, are clear examples of this division of thought.
Before realizing their philosophical differences, Muir and Pinchot actually worked together, believing they were a part of a common cause. Initially Muir agreed with Pinchot’s “Wise-Use” approach since he understood the US’s economic need to use the forest, but he could not ignore their growing philosophical differences for long. Muir realized that he could not bear to see the forests being cut down, even if the foresters were “wise” in their use of the trees they cut. Around 1860, while pondering the future of his land, Muir grew to realize that he valued the spiritual benefit of the forest much more than the economic benefits they brought through its harvest, thus beginning his career as a protector and keeper of the wilderness.
[xii]With Muir’s more radical shift in his philosophy came the beginning of the age of preservationists, and later led to the formation of a group called the Sierra Club, which Muir initially created to protect the habitat in Sierra Nevada, but later grew to address all of the United State’s land. Later on, in 1935, Aldo Leopold formed another preservationist organization called the Wilderness Society, whose ideologies paralleled those of the Sierra Club’s.
The next schism began to form in 1979 with the release of the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II). Under the conditions of the 1964 Wilderness Act, a study of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the National Park Service (NPC), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) was done to evaluate their holdings as to what areas were eligible for the act’s strict federal protections. In 1971 a preliminary study was done, but failed to include the impacts of logging and mining on road-less land. In response to this failing, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society pushed for a new evaluation to be done, this time making sure to include the impacts that logging and mining had on the land. The Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society were optimistic when preliminary reports estimated that 65 million acres would be protected under the Wilderness Act. However, the results came back lower than the environmentalists’ had hoped. The survey recommended that only 15 million acres would be protected while 36 million acres would be open for development. Most of the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society saw the results as at least a small victory for the forests, while at the same time some individuals employed within each organization had finally reached their limit of toleration for the compromises made by the environmental groups they had supported for so long.
[xiii]In 1980, Dave Foreman and Bart Koehler from the Wilderness Society, and Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and Ron Kezar from the Sierra Club, decided to go on a camping trip in Mexico’s Pinacate Desert. On their way home, they discussed the frustrations they felt towards the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society’s reactions to the results of the RARE II study. They came to a consensus that changes needed to be made in the tactics used by environmentalists, and as a result the campers ultimately formed a radical activist organization, later dubbed Earth First! by the members.
[xiv]Inspired by tactics used by characters in a book they had read called The Monkey Wrench Gang written by Edward Abbey, they incorporated the book’s ideology into the foundation of their group, and deciding to adopt the tactic as their own. In the book the tactic used was called monkey wrenching, so this term was later used to refer to their approach to the movement. They believed that working through the political system was no longer effective, and more radical tactics were the only way to make the required steps to progress the movement.
[xv] Earth First!, now known for their monkey wrenching, has often been strongly associated with ecotage, however, through the group’s development it experienced shifts in radicalism of tactics as the members also changed. Early on, the group tended to only resort to ecotage as a last resort, using civil disobedience as their primary tactic. But as the group developed, new members introduced more radical philosophies, thus strongly affecting their tactical approach.
[xvi]Earth First! later adopted the slogan “no compromise in defense of mother earth,” clearly showing how much they disliked the compromises taken by the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. Dave Forman exemplified his distaste for compromise and demonstrated his motivation for using radical tactics when he said, “If you come home to a bunch of Hell’s Angels raping your wife, old mother, and eleven-year-old daughter, you don’t sit down and talk balance with them or suggest compromise. You get your twelve-gauge shotgun and blow them to hell.” Later Earth First! came to refer to The Sierra Club, and groups like it, as “reform environmentalists.”
[xvii] With the creation of Earth First! the schism between the “reform environmentalists” and this new radical group was completed.
Another schism occurred with the creation of a group called the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). ALF began in Britain in 1979 as a result of a growing animal rights movement (due mainly to fox hunting). ALF in the UK was grown out of other radical UK animal rights groups like ‘the Band of Mercy.’ However, it is not clear what caused individuals from the Band of Mercy to leave the group and create ALF.
[xviii] ALF believed, as a ‘daughter group’ of called Earth Liberation Front (ELF) later adopted and applied to a general environmental cause, that strong ecotage was required to demand animal rights. They felt that too many lives would be lost if they approached the issues with weak civil disobedience as PETA practiced, and politically, more than laws needed to be passed; they needed to change people’s philosophy towards animals.
[xix] Later, in 1981, the United States branch of ALF was formed. One woman created the US branch of the group, her identity still unknown, who first got introduced to radical approaches to the movement by the less radical group, ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)’, when she participated in a raid of a medical laboratory which abused chimpanzees.
[xx] As a result, the creation of ALF successfully established a more radical underground sect of PETA which will be discussed more thoroughly in the ‘terrorism and the future of radical thought.’
Twelve years after Earth First!’s break from the moderate environmentalist groups in 1992, an additional group was formed in the US from disappointed Earth First! members, calling themselves the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Like ALF, the schism of ELF from Earth First! was made because ELF wanted to move towards the use of strong ecotage as its primary tactic. In addition, ELF loosely based their tactics and structure on those of ALF and would later develop a mutually supportive inter-group connection with their brother group.
[xxi] Earth First!, although at this point had already begun to move in a radical tactical direction, was not willing to resort to violence, whereas the early members of ELF believed it necessary at times.
[xxii] This required that a new group, ELF, be formed.
In 1977 another group was formed out of a schism. Like ALF, the schism from the group Greenpeace established a more radical underground group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation. Like ALF, Sea Shepherd Conservation was founded due to differences in tactical approaches with the original group. Or more specifically, Sea Shepherd Conservation was created in 1977 after an active member of Greenpeace, Paul Watson, was excommunicated from the group after taking a sealer’s club and throwing it into the ocean. To other Greenpeace members this crossed the line from their accepted tactic of civil disobedience and interference, into ecotage, a tactic they did not want to support.
[xxiii] According to the Greenpeace mission statement “Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organization that uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, … Greenpeace is committed to the principles of non-violence.
[xxiv]” According to this mission statement, by destroying the sealer’s property, even if it was just one club, Watson was breaking their commitment to non-violence, thus, in doing so, he was also breaking his commitment to Greenpeace. The year after Watson’s incident with the sealers, he went on to organize a group of more radical thinkers who he later named the Sea Shepherd Conservation.
[xxv]The final schism found in environmental history was not one group breaking from another; it was one individual who decided to take the philosophy of Earth First! and increase the radicalism of their tactics. He is noteworthy to mention because he crossed another line, a fairly significant line, from ecotage into serial killing. His name was Theodore Kaczynski, but the media knew him as “the Unabomber.” From 1975 to 1995 The Unabomber sent letter bombs to people around the United States that he felt were contributing to the advancement of technology, consequently killing two and injuring 23 others.
[xxvi] Although Kaczynski started his bombings before the creation of Earth First!, it is believed that, after attending an Earth First! conference in 1994, the Unabomber’s focus of his attacks were influenced by Earth First!, giving him a new environmental cause.
[xxvii]Officials also believe that a list of ‘wise-use’ supporters compiled by Earth First! as a source for members to target for protest called The Eco-F****r Hit List (expletive omitted), had influenced Kaczynski’s targets. Not long after publication of the list in the Earth First Journal, the Unabomber bombed the first two organizations that were listed on the hit list. However, it was never clear if Kaczynski really did use or even read the list, as he did not address the letter bombs to the same individuals of the groups mentioned on the list. Nevertheless, it has been observed that Kaczynski’s agenda changed from targeting technology-based people, some of which had worked at the same universities that he had worked at, to targeting individuals who were more generally harming the environment.
[xxviii] Whether this was due to the Earth First! meeting that Kaczynski allegedly attended or not is still unknown. Regardless of this uncertainty, there is some strong evidence that Kaczynski had been influenced by Earth First!, thus qualifying this as an example of a radical schism.
Sometimes leaders within an activist group, instead of breaking off and creating a new organization, will work within their group to try and convert members to shift their ideology. This happened in the 1990s with Judi Bari and her group Earth First!. She had become unhappy with the increased preference of the use of monkey wrenching within the group, believing it to be ineffective, and attempted to push the group’s tactics in a more conservative direction, hoping to lead the group to use civil disobedience as their primary tactic.
[xxix] Bari, in this way, is a prime example of a shift in a more conservative direction.
A few other individuals who made a conservative switch did not attempt to convert the group like Bari did, but actually went down the figurative ‘chain of radicalism’ to a more conservative group. Both Mike Roselle and Dave Foreman left Earth First!, presumably after members started to become more radical in their tactics, joining other more conservative environmental groups.
[xxx] Foreman is noted as saying in response to the group’s shift towards radicalism, “ How do you keep from hating the people you confront? How can you be an effective activist but not be consumed with hatred? I don’t know…but I’m working on it. I’ll be damned if I’ll let myself fall into that trap.
[xxxi]” He escaped that ‘trap’ by leaving Earth First!.
In 1986, Roselle left Earth First! to join Greenpeace where he became an active member, participating in their acts of civil disobedience. Also, as previously alluded, in 1986, Dave Foreman leaves Earth First! just a year after publishing his guide to ecotage. He later went on to become the director of the Sierra Club in 1995.
[xxxii] Both converts are surprising, considering these men were two of the four founders of Earth First!, and may help to demonstrate when the group’s members most likely became predominantly radical in their ideology.
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Timeline of the Environmental Movement as it relates to the progression of radical ideology[xxxiii]1789: British lawyer and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, publishes An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, in which he presents arguments for animal rights, and becomes one of the first animal rights philosophers.
[xxxiv],
[xxxv] His thoughts later influenced many radical animal rights activists, including the Band of Mercy (see 1834).
1798: British writer, Thomas Malthus, published an essay called An Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he theorized that in the near future the world would reach a carrying capacity where the food supply would no longer be able to support the population numbers, leading to mass starvation. The term Malthusian is now used to refer to an apocalyptic individual who believes that the apocalyptic disaster will occur to the human race as a result of environmental degradation.
1811-1816: Ned Ludd, a fabric weaver during the industrial revolution, sparked a rebellion against the new machines that threatened to take over his job. He advocated using sabotage to destroy the looms, and to this day is regarded as a role model to Earth First! activists who sometimes will refer to themselves as Neo-Luddites.
1834: The Band of Mercy, the first radical animal rights group in the UK, is formed. It protested against hunting by blowing horns to scare animals away, blockading roads, setting off smoke bombs, distracting dogs with meat and false scents, and even setting themselves in front of the hunters and the hunted.
1860s: John Muir begins to develop his preservationist philosophy when he realizes that unless he protected the environment by working to set-aside tracts of wild land; it would soon be developed and destroyed.
1864: George Perkins Marsh publishes his book, Man and Nature, in which he first introduces the concepts of the philosophy that sparked the conservation movement within the public. He wrote that man’s use of the environment should include a commensurate sense of responsibility. This sense of stewardship for the environment comprises the foundational principles of the conservation philosophy.
1892: John Muir formed the Sierra Club as a means to protect Sierra Nevada. Its goal was to enlist the support and cooperation of the people including the government in preserving the forests and other natural features of Sierra. It later extended its focus to address all land in the United States.
1905: Gifford Pinchot appointed head of the newly created United States Forest Service by President Theodore Roosevelt.
1907:The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale a political fiction telling the story of an anarchist terrorist plotting to bomb Greenwich Observatory, is written and published by Joseph Conrad. It was later said to have had a significant influence on the actions and tactics of Theodore Kaczynski, “the Unabomber.”
1935: Aldo Leopold created the Wilderness Society, an ideologically paralleled group to the Sierra Club, which was started 43 years earlier.
1955: David Brower, the first full-time paid executive director of the Sierra Club, successfully prevents the building of a dam in Colorado’s Dinosaur National Monument but under certain conditions. As part of a compromise, he had to agree not to oppose the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, which later becomes the focus of protests led by Earth First!.
1962: Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, a book which is often said to be the beginning of the modern day environmental movement.
1964: Sept. 3rd The Wilderness Act gets passed as United States law based off of Aldo Leopold’s work to designate land as wilderness area within a national forest. This act is seen by many to be the “Magna Carta of American Conservation.”
1970s: · Berry Weisberg suggests that use of military action, including sabotage, is a necessary aspect of the progression of the environmental movement.
· “The Fox” commits some of the first acts of ecotage while still seemingly managing to maintain some of the sophistication of civil disobedience. He committed several acts of ecotage without ever getting caught while receiving extensive media coverage. Some of his most famous protests include hanging a banner over the Indiana toll way that mocked the ad campaigns of U.S. Steel. Later, he walked into the Chicago office of the vice president of U.S. Steel and dumped a container of sewage onto his desk that he had collected from their sewage drains. He also sent thousands of stickers to sympathizers around the country to stick on bars of Dial soap that told consumers about how the company polluted the air with their factories.
1971: · Greenpeace formed in Vancouver, Canada
[xxxvi]· Under the conditions of the 1964 Wilderness Act, a study of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the National Park Service (NPC), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) was done, called the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE), to evaluate their holdings as to what areas were eligible for the act’s strict federal protections. It was later re-evaluated (RARE II) due to environmentalists’ threats of lawsuit since the study did not include the impacts of logging and mining.
1972: · The book “Ecotage!” by Sam Love is published. Some believe this book was based off of acts perpetrated by “The Fox” (see 1970s). This book is also said to be the origin of the term “ecotage” and might have inspired acts by the group “eco-raiders” as well as having inspired Edward Abbey’s book The Monkey Wrench Gang (see 1975).
· Ingrid Newkirk began the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) after witnessing cats being put down at an animal shelter.
1975: · Edward Abbey publishes The Monkey Wrench Gang creating the possibility of the accelerated and widespread use of radical ecotage as the chosen tactic in the environmental movement.
· The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, begins his career sending letter bombs, which lasts until 1995 after Kaczynski began to be more vocal in the public, which later lead to his arrest. Through his letter bombs, he killed three people and injured 23.
1976: Animal Liberation Front (ALF) founded in England due to increasing concern for animal rights, in particular concerning fox hunts.
[xxxvii]1977: · Paul Watson, a prominent activist and member of Greenpeace was kicked out of the group when he threw a sealing club into the ocean. To other Greenpeace members this crossed the line from civil disobedience into ecotage, since he destroyed the sealing companies property. Shortly after, Watson went on to form the more radical Sea Shepherd Conservation.
1979: · A secondary study done of federal land (see 1971), called the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II), was done, this time including data on the impact of logging and mining. Fifteen million acres were now protected, while 36 million were opened for development. Pre-study estimates originally guessed that 62 million acres would be protected under the act. Groups like the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society viewed the results as a victory, while some individuals within these organizations were not happy, leading to their frustrations over the settlement. These individuals, who felt that new radical tactics were necessary to successfully protect the environment, later went on to form Earth First! (see 1980).
1980: Earth First! formed by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, and Ron Kezar after leaving work with moderate environmental groups (like the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society) due to their frustrations with the groups’ nature of compromise. They adopt the slogan “no compromise in defense of mother earth,” and design their group based on the acts of radical fictional characters in Edward Abbey’s 1975 book, The Monkey Wrench Gang.
1981: · One of Earth First!’s most publicized acts happened this year when members unfurled a gigantic banner onto the side of the Glen Canyon Dam, giving the illusion that there was a crack in the dam. To Earth First!, Glen Canyon Dam was symbolic of the historical compromises environmentalists made (see 1955), and the failures of the movement. The group freely claimed all responsibility, and of course as a result, the publicity as well.
· PETA raids a medical laboratory in Silver Spring Maryland where tests were being done on monkeys. This event led, shortly thereafter, to a participant of the act to form the United States branch of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
1985: · Dave Foreman publishes Ecodefense-A field guide to monkey wrenching giving activists an instructional booklet on how to commit ecotage.
· Mike Jekubel originates the use of tree sitting, although was far from mastering it as he was arrested after a day of protesting.
1986: Roselle quit Earth First! for Greenpeace USA. He was said to have always preferred civil disobedience to ecotage, believing civil disobedience to be a more effective tactic.
1988: Dave Foreman leaves Earth First! believing that it had become too leftist.
1990: · Second edition of the original Earth First! magazine Live Wild or Die released in which a list entitled the Eco-Fucker Hit List is published with names and contact information for 100 organizations who were noted to be in support of the Wise Use philosophy. It was later speculated that the Unabomber took the top two organizations on this list to later target.
· Judi Bari, a member of Earth First! (although never really comfortable with ecotage as a tactic) starts the Redwood Summer Campaign in an effort to introduce more civil disobedience, and less ecotage into the group.
· May 24th, a car bomb explodes inside Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney’s car, paralyzing Bari and severely injuring Cherney. Immediately, the FBI suspects that the bomb was Bari and Cherney’s, which had accidentally gone off before it could be used in a later act of ecotage. Bari and Cherney later sued the FBI and were awarded $4.4 million from the FBI for its false assumptions and subsequent slander.
1992: · The Earth Liberation Front’s (ELF) first acts of ecotage reported in the UK, although there is speculation that the group first began as far back as 1977 in America.
[xxxviii],
[xxxix]1994, November: Earth First! activist meet at the University of Montana to plot a strategy against multinational corporations. Authorities later reported that they believed the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, had been present at this meeting.
[xl],
[xli]1995: · Dave Foreman elected Director of the Sierra Club
· The Unabomber’s manifesto published in The New York Times and The Washington Post under the agreement that he would stop sending letter bombs after the papers complied.
1997: Leslie James Pickering and Craig Rosebraugh began to receive and publish acts of ecotage reported as being affiliated with ELF.
Dec 1997-Dec 1999: Julia Butterfly Hill participates in one of the longest protests in environmental history when she protests against logging by sitting in a redwood tree for two years. She later published a book about the experience, The Legacy of Luna, aptly named since she dubbed the tree she sat in “Luna.”
2001: · Connor Cash as well as three other teenagers arrested for a series of arsons of new residential homes in the Long Island area.
· Mark Sands arrested for the arson of several new suburban homes around the Phoenix area where he lived.
Post 9-11 effects on radical environmentalists:
2002: Rosebraugh, one of the publicists for ELF, subpoenaed to testify at the congressional hearing on “Ecoterror.”
2006: · Feb 14th, Once again Rosebraugh is subpoenaed to testify to a federal grand jury and the investigation into ELF continues.
[xlii]· April 4th, A federal prosecutor in California has charged four people with arson and explosives offences dating back to 2001, accusing them of being an eco-terrorist cell.
[xliii]· April 20th, Gov. Rendell of Pennsylvania signed legislation that would increase the penalty for crimes linked to "ecoterrorism."
[xliv]Affecting future environmentalists?…
2006: May 5th, The PG-rated movie Hoot is released in theatres, based on the 2002 novel by Carl Hiaasen. This movie is about three middle school aged kids who commit acts of ecotage at a construction site in an effort to protect the habitat of an endangered owl. Ultimately they discover that using the political system is a more effective and long-term solution.
[xlv]~ Perspectives ~ This section was included in this paper to attempt to show the ranges of ideologies that make up the individual in the environmental movement and those who don’t support or agree with those views. In the first section it compares the individuals who view the world with an environmental philosophy with those who do not. It will help to communicate the wide differences in their philosophies and hopefully help to explain why these two philosophical perspectives have had such a hard time working together in the past.
Following the first section the environmentalists and their perspectives have been explored. Although it is impossible to group the large scope of environmental philosophies into neat little groupings, I have attempted to do so in an effort to simplify and give a general overview of the views that make up the environmental movement today.
Biocentrics vs. AnthrocentricsAre humans a part of nature or a separate entity? How an individual answers this question will determine how they subsequently treat the environment in which they live. Many environmentalists see humans as separate from the environment and therefore should not cause any impact on it. Either that, or they feel humans should be absorbed into the fabric of our ecology, living with the land instead of off of it. In other words they should learn to live in our world in a way that causes as little impact to it as possible.
[xlvi] As Aldo Leopold, the founder of The Wilderness Society once said “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.
[xlvii]” In other words, environmentalists feel the environment should be left alone as much as possible. The term for a person with this philosophy is ‘biocentric.’
The individuals that are often targeted by environmentalists are those who feel they are superior to the environment in some way, and thus feel justified in the use, and often exploitation, of its resources. They usually base their actions on the belief that humans are superior beings in our environment who consequently have a right to control it; that every act we impose on the environment, whether destructive or not, is a natural occurrence in evolution which was allowed once humans were created. This philosophy is obviously in contradiction with biocentrism, and is often referred to as ‘anthropocentrism.’
[xlviii]These radically different belief systems are important to note because they point out the great differences in viewpoints between environmentalists and those individuals who may be targeted by them. Ignorance and misunderstanding is arguably the source of all prejudices, and there are plenty of prejudices towards both biocentric and anthropocentric thinkers. Because of the extreme differences between these two philosophical groups, anger and frustration with the other group is almost inevitable. Since the biocentric viewpoint is typically in the minority, environmentalists may consequently behave as the victim in their struggle to promote and popularize the biocentric philosophy. And as is often the case, when progress to prevent victimization becomes stagnant, radicalism is not far off, as examples of radical environmentalists in this paper will demonstrate.
~ ~
In this part of the perspectives section, I have divided up environmentalist, and then further divided radical environmentalist, into generalized sub-grouped viewpoints. It is presented in an attempt to demonstrate the ranges of ideologies that make up the environmental movement and show that not all environmentalists are radicals. Although it is impossible to group the large scope of environmental philosophies into neat little groupings, I have attempted to do so in an effort to simplify and give a general overview of the views that make up the environmental movement today. In the following section, each defining characteristic that has been used to differentiate between these views will be shown in detail. The first portion of this section is presented in order from most to least radical respectively.
Environmentalist profiles-Radical Environmental Anarchists-
On April 24th, 1995 a package was sent to the California Forestry Association addressed to Bill Dennison, ex-CEO of the company when it was known as the Timber Association of California. Only five days earlier, the bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building occurred in Oklahoma City. Ironically, the man who opened the package was joking that it was heavy enough to be a bomb. Little did he know, it was, and was later killed by the explosion. Due to the Oklahoma City bombing, bombs were on the minds of most every American. A man, known in the media as “the Unabomber,” had sent the package and was later identified as ex-math professor, Theodore Kaczynski.
[xlix]After several attacks prior to the bombing incident in 1995, he sent a manifesto to the media outlining the reasons why he had committed these crimes. He had a revolutionary message to send, and he used the media in an effort to gain support for his cause. At one point he wanted to send this message to the public because he was concerned about the public’s misunderstanding about radical environmentalists, and hoped to clear the misunderstandings up with a series of letters to The Washington Post.
[l] Kaczynski clearly explains his philosophy and how anti-technology relates the environment when he said,
“Our goal is to destroy the existing form of [technological] society …But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support, must have a positive ideal as well as a negative one…The positive ideal that we propose is…WILD nature. [So that humans] will not be subject to regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free will.
[li]”
Kaczynski is an example of radical environmental anarchists, they tend to mix politics in with environmental issues, and seek radical tactics as a means to achieve their goals. Radical environmental anarchists should be seen as a subgroup of the philosophy of radical environmentalists (see below). They feel just as strongly about protecting the environment, but they are more willing to kill people in the name of the environment. In other words they are more radical in their overall ideology of the environment than the other environmentalist outlined in this paper.
Also, they are more likely to feel threatened by technological advances, than by loggers and such. In fact, this philosophical view has roots, although less radical, all the way to the beginning of the industrial revolution when factory workers, who later where dubbed ‘Luddites’ after the leader, Ned Ludd, began to loose their jobs to machines.
[lii] In my opinion, these thinkers are the only individuals who are rightfully named ecoterrorists.
- Radical (apocalyptic) Environmentalists (deep ecologists; biased: ecoterrorists)-
In 1985, Dave Foreman, a leader of the newly formed group Earth First! wrote and published the book Ecodefense: A field guide to monkey wrenching. In it, he describes, in detail, how an inexperienced individual could successfully commit an act of ecotage, thus making it proper techniques available to the general public. For example, he explains how to tree spike, set up road spikes, cut down billboards, and even the best way to leave spray painted messages. He gives tips on how to avoid getting spotted while at the scene, and covers every angle, reminding the reader about little things like wiping down the equipment to prevent leaving fingerprints.
[liii]The fact that people like Foreman have put a lot of thought into the planning of the crimes helps to show that radical environmentalists are not always fanatics who commit their crimes involuntarily on the spur of the moment out of hate and anger. They have developed their techniques and have passed them on to sympathizing activists. This is one characteristic of most radical environmentalist, but there are those who have progressed into fanaticism, especially those who are apart of the animal rights movement (see “radical animal rights activists” below).
Radical environmentalists were the people who made up a majority of the radical environmentalist movement in the 70s and up to the present day. They base most of their actions on fear of future destruction of our environment. They tend to have an apocalyptic philosophy and assume the worst-case scenario, which they often believe is the complete destruction of the environment driven by American industry.
[liv]Today there is a range of individuals who make up this group. Despite different extremes in their tactics, radical environmentalists all have one thing in common: fear for the future of the environment. Ironically these are the same individuals that have been labeled as fear instigators, and named ecoterrorists by the FBI and the media.
[lv]One major misconception about radical environmentalists is that they immediately resort to ecotage as a tactic. Usually individuals will turn to it due to observed shortcomings in the progression of the environmental movement. They commit ecotage because they come to see it as a last resort to help save the environment.
[lvi]Some radicals were once moderate activists but, in many cases, they of have been angered into radicalism by what they see as the excessive compromise and lack of progression in the moderate’s political approach to the environmental movement.
[lvii] It is this unfortunate mixture of fear and anger that has led to people’s prejudices towards radicals.
Non-radicals often see radicals as irrational thinkers and actors, which due to the fact that fear and anger motivates much of their actions, is often accurate but not in all cases. Some acts of ecotage have been very well planed out (see example above), something that could not have been possible if these thinkers were only made up of fanatics. But when their anger and hate reaches extreme levels they become the most radical version on radical environmentalist, fanatics, and acting purely through their emotions. Radical environmentalists will be further broken down into three subgroups through examples given in “case studies” section.
-Moderate environmentalists (Preservationists, purists, biased: reform environmentalists)-
Moderate environmentalists were once composed primarily of individuals with what is known as a preservationist philosophy. The following quote, written by the founding father of the preservation movement, John Muir, demonstrates this group’s biocentric, and often, spiritual viewpoint of wilderness. In it he speaks of Hetch Hetchy valley, a valley that was being discussed as a possible location for a dam that would supply water to San Francisco. The quote is taken from his book The Yosemite, which was written as a plea to politicians and the public to protect the land which he found so beautiful, went as far as saying seeing it as a spiritual temple made by God.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest in…our magnificent National parks…—Nature’s sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like anything else worthwhile, from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been subject to attack by despoiling gain-seekers and mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately and selfishly commercial… Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite National Park, strife has been going on around its borders and I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however much its boundaries may be shorn, or its wild beauty destroyed…These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.
[lviii]”
However, as time passed closer to present day, the ideology of moderate environmental thinkers started to move in a more economical direction, thinking more like conservationists rather than preservationists, the very people Muir was fighting against.
[lix] Nonetheless, the moderate environmentalists’ philosophy is still hard to distinguish from the other more leftist, or radical leaning, environmentalist philosophies.
The term “reform” environmentalist is a biased term given to them by the more radical environmentalists. It implies that the moderate thinkers are more willing to compromise with the government in an effort to conserve at least part of the environment.
[lx] One of the first examples of this was when David Brower, like Muir had done decades before, worked to prevent the building of a dam. However, unlike Muir, Brower allowed for the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam as a compromise with politicians that would prevent an alternate construction location, the more prized location, at Dinosaur National Monument. Later Brower realized what he had allowed, never forgiving himself for his tolerance of the compromise.
[lxi]Moderate environmentalists, like those that make up the Sierra Club, the group founded by John Muir, use lobbying as their primary tactic, and work almost entirely from a political standpoint to make what they believe are more progressive and permanent changes, as demonstrated in the above example. For example, on the Sierra Club’s website, they claim they “are the leaders in grassroots legislation.”
[lxii] Because they are heavily political, this is usually why the group has allowed compromises, as the political system generally tries to make everyone happy, thus compromising with all interest groups. Moderate environmentalist will often support the radical environmentalist’s causes, as they often parallel their own, but would not condone their tactics.
-Rightist Moderate Environmentalists (Conservationists)-
The father of the conservationist philosophy, and the foe of John Muir was Gifford Pinchot, one of the first foresters in the United States. As a representation for rightist Moderate Environmentalists, he believed, unlike Muir, that the forest was best used as a long-term resource. He applied the utilitarian philosophy, “the greatest good for the greatest number”, to the environmental movement, but added “in the long run” to the end of the phrase, which typifies as essential aspect of the conservationists’ philosophy.
[lxiii]Rightist Moderate Environmentalists stress the long-term use of natural resources rather then the more common plundering mentality of the day. Other individuals who make up the conservationist philosophy are environmentalist whose interest in the land is as hunters and hikers who want to protect it so that their children can continue to hunt and hike in the future. More and more frequently today, these individuals are becoming the CEOs in large ‘moderate’ environmental organizations.
[lxiv]Miscellaneous views-Liberal Idealistic Educated Youth-
In 1971, a group called the “Tucson Eco-Raiders” began their career committing acts of ecotage, which ranged in its approach from cutting down billboards to pouring lead into the locks of developers in the area so that they were no longer usable. This group often targeted developers because they felt that it was necessary to stop these individuals from “flattening out everything.” In one example of ecotage the Tucson Eco-Raiders collected thousands of thrown away bottles and cans and deposited them on the doorstep of, Kalil Company, a soft-drink manufacturing bottling plant. On it they left a note that read “A little non-returnable glass: Kalil makes it Tucson’s problem, we make it Kalil’s problem. --Eco-Raiders.” Officials later discovered that the members of Eco-Raiders were five college-aged boys who were simply “fed up with rampant development in Arizona.
[lxv]”
The tactics used by these boys, ones that seem to hybridize civil disobedience with ecotage, are often typical of individuals that make up this group of thinkers. They are simply college-educated youths with the means to do great things; many of which don’t know where they are going, who they are, or what they want to be. They are simply looking for a way to matter in the world and make a difference at the same time. Because they just want to help they are easily influenced by pleas for help.
[lxvi] Radical environmentalists, very vocal in their search for support, tend to appeal to these thinkers and easily motivate them.
However, sometimes these youths act idealistically. They are often misinformed about issues and then act based on this misinformation while forgetting about the bigger picture or the consequences of their actions. Because of this, they are some of the most active participants of ecotage. Many grow up to realize they no longer support the radicals’ tactics and seek alternate means, usually civil disobedience, to do their part to progress the environmental movement. It is interesting to note that the appeal of radical action to recent college graduates is not unique to the environmental movement. Studies have shown that most of the individuals active in terrorist acts in the Middle East are also young college graduates.
[lxvii]- Civil Disobedience Activists (liberal grassroots environmentalists)-
In protest of logging of the redwood forests, an environmentalist, who only a short time before had first visited the redwood forests, decided to live in a tree to prevent further logging. Although sponsored and funded by Earth First!, a woman named Julia Butterfly Hill independently decided to live in a redwood tree. Since loggers sometimes couldn’t figure out which tree the “tree-sitter” was sitting in, they were often force to halt their entire project until the activist left the tree. Determined to make a difference, Hill remained in her tree for two years, all the while preventing the logging of the forest she had come to love so dearly through the publicity her protest raised on the issue. Support of her cause led politicians to get involved, reaching compromises with the logging companies.
[lxviii]Julia Butterfly Hill is a perfect example of a Civil Disobedience Activist. These individuals, like the deep ecologists, often feel despair for the future of the environment. The only way that they differ from the radical environmentalists is in their tactics. Their belief systems and motives are the same. They prefer, however, to use civil disobedience as the tactic since they believe that more then just political efforts need to be made in order to make changes, and often feel that ecotage is not an option as a tactic. They feel that picketing, chaining and placing themselves in the path of bulldozers, chainsaws, and harpoons in combination with extensive media exposure is some of the only ways to make real changes.
[lxix]They will often place themselves in harm’s way risking almost guaranteed arrest. In fact, they often are expecting arrest. The success of their tactic lies entirely on their media exposure since they use their arrests as a means to get sympathy, and hence activism, out of potential supporters.
[lxx] I will be discussing the pros and cons for this groups approach to the movement more in the “civil disobedience” section.
-Radical Animal Rights Activists (biased: animal rights fanatics)-
On September 11th, 1981 a police officer, who has since remained anonymous, was assigned a case to investigate the possible abuse of monkeys in a medical laboratory in Maryland. An animal rights spy working within the lab had reported to police that the monkeys had been artificially disabled, meaning their nerves and muscles had been surgically cut and fingers and limbs amputated, and burnt with lighters to test their ability to feel pain in their disabled limbs. Oftentimes the monkeys were strapped down and forced to attempt to get their only source of food with their remaining working extremities in an effort to test their mobility. In addition the spy had reported that the monkeys were left sitting in their own feces, and the food they were given was placed on the floor of their cages, becoming saturated with their waste. The police officer assigned to this case had a dream not long after seeing the condition of the monkeys which helps to represent a vital characteristic in radical animal rights activists.
[lxxi]“She was a prisoner. Strapped down to a hospital gurney, she kept trying to undo the straps, knowing she had only moments in which to escape. Somehow she managed to work her arms free. She could hear a man coming. Desperately she reached for the latches that closed the locks on her waste and leg straps. Her knuckles and wrists ached as she worked frantically to undo the straps. Nothing was working. She looked down. Her fingers were missing, bleeding useless. She began crying for help, but no one could hear her. [The scientist from the lab] leaned over the gurney and dangled a tray in front of her. On it were bloody fingers mixed with fruit. She awoke, her heart pounding.
[lxxii]”
This police officer had shown the highest sense of empathy towards these animals when she personalized the monkeys’ torture. Because of her concern for these animals she worked really hard to get the monkeys permanently taken away from the lab by pushing that the scientists be taken to court charged with animal abuse. But in court the judge who took the case decided that the laws against animal abuse did not apply to animals when they were being used for medical research, and the “property” of the lab should be immediately returned. The officer later found out that the lab planned one final experiment on the repossessed monkeys, and then would kill them.
It was the officer’s experiences with these poor animals that ultimately led her to organize the United States chapter of one of the most radical animal rights activist groups today: the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).
[lxxiii] Almost all animal rights activist have this same sympathy towards animals, radical or not, but it is a required sense of despair and hopelessness for the rights of animals that causes them to cross the line into radicalism.
Radical animal rights activists can be considered the same as the radical environmentalists or ecoterrorists. They only differ in their motivation for using ecotage as a tactic. Deep ecologist will target companies that are harming the environment, where as the radical animal rights activist target those companies that are directly or indirectly harming animals, most commonly this includes university laboratories. There connection to animals is often on a different level than deep ecologists with the environment, as shown in the above example. It is a more personalized connection where the individuals see the animals as equals or even sometimes superior to humans.
-Posing Radical Environmentalists (“posers”)-
June 2001 was a scary time for the suburban residents of Tucson Arizona. Someone had been committing the arson of several unoccupied luxury homes in the Phoenix area (see image 1), and was burning down their homes left and right. A later interview reveled the real motivation behind the attacks. Mark Warren Sands said he committed the arson because “the [newly built] houses were spoiling his favorite jogging trail.” He then continued burning down homes because he needed a scapegoat, going as far as leaving scribbled messages which said things like “U Build-We burn agin” [sic] using the “we” and misspelled words to make the police think that young environmentalists were to blame for the crimes. In the end his only motive for continuing to commit arson was that he enjoyed the newfound attention he was receiving from the media, and was addicted to the “ego gratification” he got from it.
[lxxiv] All the while he tainted the public’s view of radical environmentalists as he got closer and closer to seriously injuring or even killing someone. This is just one example of how the media can be misused and can negatively impact the environmental movement. This is a perfect example of how posing radical environmentalists begin their career.
Posing radical environmentalists cannot really be considered environmentalists. However, their tactics have a direct negative impact on the radical environmentalists so they are important to mention in this paper. “Posers,” as I will call them, are those individuals who act as copycats, using the radical environmentalists as scapegoats. They commit false ecotage for multiple different reasons, but mostly for very hypocritical and selfish reasons. In some cases individuals start committing false ecotage when they move into a pristinely beautiful location, and then use the tactic to scare other individuals from moving into the area so that they can have it to themselves.
[lxxv]~ Case Studies ~In the following section, case studies have been done of some of the most notorious radical environmental groups ranging in extremes of their ideology. They are listed in order from the least to most radical. There are many more groups, both underground and aboveground, which are activists in the environmental movement. The section following this section, “terrorism and the future of radicalism,” will present some of the more radical and present groups that are also actively practicing today.
Earth First!As mentioned in the History section, Earth First! was started when, in 1980, a group of individuals who had worked for the moderate environmental organizations, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, decided to go on a camping trip in Mexico’s Pinacate Desert. On their way home they discussed their frustrations they felt towards the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society’s reactions to the results of the RARE II study, and the environmental movement as a whole. They came to a consensus that changes needed to be made in the tactics used by environmentalists, and as a result the campers ultimately formed a radical activist organization, later dubbed Earth First! by the group’s members.
[lxxvi]Together, Dave Foreman and Bart Koehler from the Wilderness Society, and Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and Ron Kezar from the Sierra Club began a radical environmental organization that today is known for its use of ecotage as their tactic. Earth First! did not always rely on ecotage as their tactic, originally they relied on a variety of approaches to civil disobedience, committing some of the most publicized acts in environmental history.
[lxxvii]Their first act of civil disobedience as a radical group is an example of this. In 1981, members unfurled a gigantic banner onto the side of the Glen Canyon Dam, giving the illusion that there was a crack in the dam. This was a significant act of protest for the environmentalists because, to Earth First!, Glen Canyon Dam was symbolic of the historical compromises environmentalists made (see 1955), and ultimately the failures of the movement.
[lxxviii]Some of the fundamental principles that the founding fathers required of this group were that it remain a grass-roots organization that would never allow their causes to be reformed by politicians who demanded compromise before resolution. They also required that Earth First! be composed of individuals willing to take the necessary steps, whether that required the use of ecotage or its more milder cousin civil disobedience, to seek political changes regarding the environmental rights of the causes they were fighting for. They used strong words such as “taking a militant stand for the environment”, and their slogan “No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth” demonstrating the seriousness of the group. But at the same time it was always stressed that during their protests, the group should never harm any living thing.
[lxxix]The early Earth First! activists like Dave Foreman justified the creation of the group and their tactics, such as the crack on the dam, when he explained that…“the people who started Earth First! decided there was a need for a radical wing that would make the Sierra Club look moderate. Someone has to say what needs to be said, and to do what needs to be done and take the kinds of strong actions…to dramatize it.” In doing so, the group had hoped that politicians would already see the demands of moderate environmentalists as compromises and be more willing to accept their initial demands. The group basically intended to become the environmental scapegoat, allowing their group to take the attacks of politicians and the media, rather than the moderate groups.
[lxxx]Wolke later went on to justify the group’s use of extreme tactics saying that “Earth First!’s proposals and tactics make sense…Who gives a damn if a bureaucrat thinks we are unrealistic…in a world where Homo sapiens will drive nearly half of the world’s species to extinction by the end of the 21st century?
[lxxxi]”
The philosophy of the group becomes clear in the previous statement. Earth First!’s agenda is motivated by their belief that humans and industry are causing the degradation of our environment. They are fighting for more that just environmental health rights like many environmental organizations; they are also fighting for the fundamental protection of the environment and the species that are struggling to live within it. In essence they are fighting for the preservation of the environment for its own sake, and not driven by any anthropocentric agenda. Foreman addresses this issue when he said, “Wilderness is the essence of everything we’re after. We aren’t an environmental group. Environmental groups worry about environmental health hazards to human beings…and they ask why we’re so wrapped up in something as irrelevant and tangential and elitist as wilderness…Wilderness is the essence of everything. It’s the real world.” This is also evident in the name they chose for their group saying that they “are concerned about humans, but it’s Earth First!,” truly displaying the biocentric view of the environment.
[lxxxii]Another example of the variety of approaches to civil disobedience that the group used in an effort to gain supporters of the group was when the Foreman, Koehler, and Kezar traveled across country to college campuses and meeting halls spreading the word on environmental issues and introducing Earth First! to the public. Their shows were more than the expected audacious speeches; they also used music and humor in the spirit of populism, protest, and ecological agitation to help get their message across. In addition they sold bumper stickers and handed out subscriptions to their newly created newsletter. Their approach worked, attracting more than 1,500 supporters in a year, as evident in their newsletter subscriptions.
[lxxxiii]Following the year after the group went on the road, membership continued to grow. Unfortunately for the founders of Earth First!, so did the group’s radicalism, getting beyond even their control. Acts that members committed started to push the line from civil disobedience into ecotage as its primary tactic. As a result, by 1986, both Foreman and Roselle left the group, claiming it had become too fanatical and no longer grounded on the original principles intended in the creation of the group.
[lxxxiv] Even today it is impossible to state what the group’s primary tactic is, and how radical the group is because of the range of ideological thought that now makes up the members of Earth First! which has sometimes led to conflicts within group members.
An example of this was when, in 1990, Judi Bari, an active member of Earth First! attempted to draw the group back to its civil disobedience roots. In an attempt to do so she began a campaign she called the Redwood Summer Campaign. In this campaign Bari had intended to use protests such as picketing and tree sits to protest against logging the redwood forests. Many members of Earth First! grew angry with her attempt to convert the groups ideology, and saw her as a traitor.
[lxxxv]Later on in 1990, a bomb was placed under the divers seat of Bari’s car and exploded while she and another member of Earth First! was on their way to the campaign site. Immediately, the FBI was on the scene arresting the badly wounded Bari because they had assumed that she had intended to use the bomb herself and it simply had accidentally exploded in her car. Later the FBI realized their mistake and released the now paralyzed Bari. Although it is still unknown who placed the bomb in the car, I believe, based on the strong radical ideology of most Earth First! members at that time, that it was placed in the car by angry Earth First! members who wanted to keep Bari from causing a conservative shift in the group, thus preserving its radicalism. They were not ready for a shift in ideology, so a fellow member forcing one on the group, a traitor, can incur more hatred than the hatred that they normally directed towards anti-environmentalists.
Earth Liberation Front Despite the new radicalism that Earth First! adopted, groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) were later formed which pushed the environmental movement in an even more radical direction. Throughout Earth First!’s shift in their radicalism, there was one principle that the group never abandoned: their belief that their tactics should never harm any living thing. ELF, which later formed in 1992, strayed somewhat from this rule, believing that changes needed to be taken by any means necessary including through acts that could very possibly kill someone, acts like arson. As the ELF website explains, “The organization broke off of Earth First! due to a group of members willing to take a more radical and if necessary, violent stance about the environment.
[lxxxvi]” ELF has different terminology for their approach to ecotage, calling it “direct action,” a term that seems too understated for what it designates.
[lxxxvii]ELF is not so much a group as it is a banner representing an ideology. This is because there are no official members, and anyone can claim to be working for ELF so long as they make tactical decisions based on the “group’s” cause. As they say in their website “acts of ecotage have been individual choices, and are not endorsed, encouraged, or approved of by the management and participants of [ELF]. Also on the website, a posting explains how the group works. Basically all a “member” does is “go out, take action, [and] then send a press release [to the website] to claim action under the group's name.”
[lxxxviii] This is the basic structure of the group, if you can call it a structure. Because of the decentralized nature of the group it has been very hard for the FBI to catch and convict activists working under the ELF name.
ELF’s motivation for committing ecotage is very similar to Earth First!’s, however they tend to view its purpose in a slightly different way. They justify their actions in their philosophy of the environment saying that…“the profit motive caused and reinforced by the capitalist society is destroying all life on this planet. The only way, at this point in time, to stop that continued destruction of life is to…take the profit motive out of killing.”
[lxxxix] In other words, their philosophy would more heavily interpret the word “ecotage” as it was initially intended, that is, as economic sabotage instead of ecological sabotage. Because they view ecotage in this way, the group tends to encourage committing ecotage as frequently as possible, targeting “big money” environmental threats. One of their guidelines published by the North American ELF press office states that members should…“cause as much economic damage as possible to a given entity that is profiting off the destruction of the natural environment and life for selfish greed and profit.
[xc]” In fact, in the US, since the group first started in 1997 until 2002, there have been more than 600 attacks whose damages have totaled more than $50 million, and these were only the reported cases.
[xci],
[xcii]An example of a well-known act of ecotage committed by ELF occurred on October 18th 1998 when ELF members burned down several buildings at the Vail, Colorado ski facility. Damages totaled $12 million, making it the most expensive attack at the time and consequently receiving extensive media coverage. They allegedly attacked the ski resort because it was built in threatened lynx habitat, and was planning on expanding. An ELF communiqué stated that the planned expansion adding…“12 miles of roads and 885 acres of clear cuts will ruin the last, and best lynx habitat in the state,” and went on to say that, “putting profits ahead of Colorado’s wildlife will not be tolerated. Our action is just a warning. We will be back if this greedy corporation continues to trespass into wild and unroaded areas.”
Today, burning cars, in particular those at Hummer and SUV dealerships are regular targets of ELF ecotage. Sometimes private individual’s cars will be targeted, and in one case in 2003, a truck at the Navel Academy in Montgomery, Alabama was targeted as a protest against the war in Iraq, leaving spray painted messages sprawled across the side of the truck, since graffiti is a required aspect of ELF (and ALF) ecotage.
[xciii] Both groups use graffiti as a form of intimidation to the target, and to attract more attention to the protest.
Animal Liberation FrontBefore ELF, there was ALF. It started in the UK in 1979 mostly as a means to protest against fox hunting, what is believed to be an essential part of British culture.
[xciv] Because of fox hunting’s strong roots in British history, many people have been hard to give it up, causing more conflicts than maybe the issue’s worth. Out of these conflicts grew the radical animal liberation movement.
[xcv] The first group of activists in this movement called themselves the Band of Mercy, which started in the UK in 1824 fighting against hunters. ALF, which later grew out of the ideologies of the Band of Mercy, is one of the groups that was born from the movement and has aided it into the use of more radical tactics. However there are many smaller activist organizations that are as active, if not more active, than ALF.
[xcvi] As mentioned earlier, ELF constructed its group very much like ALF, using the group’s decentralized cell structure as its example.
[xcvii] In order to prevent the possibility of members turning in others to the police, names are often withheld within the cells. In the UK in the 80s, they had what they called “ALF boot camp” where individuals could be trained in the art of ecotage, all the while only referring to each other by their first initial of their first names, to maintain its secrecy. In addition to names, no specifics would be given about the participant’s lives outside of ALF.
[xcviii] In fact, it was at this boot camp that the leader of the US branch of ALF was trained. She was originally a police officer who got involved in an animal abuse case (see Environmental profiles: radical animal rights activists) which led to her realization that she wanted to commit her life to protecting the rights of animals as best she knew how, inevitably leading her to ALF, starting the group in 1981. She had heard of the UK ALF through friends who were active PETA members who had been committing their own version of ecotage in the animal rights movement, which usually consisted of stealing abused animals from their owners.
[xcix] Although the leader of the US ALF group has managed to remain anonymous to the public, her acts of ecotage, and those of the cells of the US ALF group, are well know in the media.
As far as ALF’s tactics go, it is arguably the most radical of all environmental groups today. They consistently push the line from ecotage into violence by using bombs to destroy unoccupied buildings. A typical act for the group is invading an anti-animal corporation in the middle of the night, stealing the animals, and then either bombing the building or setting it on fire, in the process destroying any data that might have been obtained through research (in the case of research laboratories).
[c]Although this is the typical approach, other techniques have been used. The most famous of which was when, in 1984, members of ALF announced that it had put bleach into Mars
TM candy bars because the company was supporting dental research, which used monkeys in its studies. It turned out to be a hoax, but had caused enough public fear that the bars had to be pulled from the shelves.
[ci]Although they use ecotage as its main tactic, radical animal rights activists view it differently than other radical environmentalists. They don’t usually use ecotage as a means to delay harm before a lawsuit is filed and laws passed, they have pretty much deferred all political tactics believing them to be ineffective and too slow. They also view violence differently. They don’t see their actions as violent; instead they view any act that harms people or animals as violence. Instead they see their acts as fighting in a “freedom movement.” This is how they justify their acts, seeing them as purely a means to an end.
[cii] David Barbarash, as former spokesman for ALF, shows the group’s philosophy well when he said, “We’re very dangerous philosophically. Part of the danger is that we don’t buy into the illusion that property is worth more than life…we bring that insane priority into the light, which is something the system cannot survive.
[ciii]”
Today ALF is very much active in both the US and the UK. As resent as June of 2005, ALF was reported as being involved in the firebombing of a car, which took place in London. Many of the resent attacks in the UK have been targeted as a research laboratory called Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). One activist is noted as issuing this statement to this lab: “A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with HLS we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire.”
[civ] Arson and bombing has become a favored tactic of many radical environmentalists as more and more acts are reported each year.
[cv]The UnabomberAlthough bombing has become a more common tactic with radicals, none has been as threatening to human life as those of The Unabomber. As apparent in the name given to him by the press, The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski used bombing as his primary, if not only, tactic. In his bombing career he sent out 15 letter bombs across the United States. The name “Unabomber” was truncated from the words “university and airport bomber,” as those were his initial and most frequent targets. Although becoming one of the most feared radicals due to the violence of his tactics, he was not always so dangerous.
[cvi] As a child, Kaczynski was thought to be a genius, skipping both the sixth and eleventh grades. He supposedly was not very social; he never quite fit in with the other children, and supposedly was verbally abused by schoolmates. By the age of 16, he applied and was accepted to study math at Harvard University.
[cvii] After attending college, where he received his PhD in math, he was accepted to a teaching position at University of California, Berkley. However, because Kaczynski was not very social, many students gave him poor ratings as a teacher, which ultimately pushed Kaczynski to resign in 1969.
[cviii] Kaczynski left UC Berkley and began living a very simple life in his family’s shack-like cabin in Montana. He remained essentially unemployed, although taking the odd job, which gave him plenty of time to think and read. Officials reported that the shack Kaczynski was saying in was cluttered with many books. One of his favorite books supposedly was The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, a political fiction telling the story of an anarchist terrorist plotting to bomb Greenwich Observatory, written by Joseph Conrad.
[cix]This book must have had some sort of influence on Kaczynski’s chosen tactic because, in 1975, he sent out his first letter bomb. His early bombs were sent out to universities and airports, leading to the media to call him The Unabomber, which is a truncated version of ‘university and airline bombers.’ On each of his bombs he engraved the letters “’FC’ on several parts, being sure that the FBI would find it. Initially it was reported that the ‘FC’ stood for ‘fuck computers,’ which demonstrates the motives behind Kaczynski’s acts. He was an anarchist who was against the advancement of technology. He believed that, with the progression of technology, came the loss of human freedoms. After developing his theory, he later claimed ‘FC’ stood for ‘Freedom Club.’
[cx]Kaczynski’s philosophy is different from that of most radical environmentalists. He actions have a political motivational root, focusing on how the government should change because he believed that it is being negatively affected by technology. Kaczynski clearly explains his philosophy and how anti-technology relates the environment when he said,
“The technophiles are taking us all on an utterly reckless ride into the unknown. Many people understand something of what technological progress is doing to us yet take a passive attitude toward it because they think it is inevitable. But we (FC) don’t…we think it can be stopped… The two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and instability in industrial society…Our goal is to destroy the existing form of society…But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support, must have a positive ideal as well as a negative one…The positive ideal that we propose is…WILD nature. [So that humans] will not be subject to regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free will.
[cxi]”
As shown in above statement, Kaczynski, through out his attacks, maintained that he and other members of the ‘Freedom Club’ were responsible for the acts, rather than individually claiming all responsibility. In reality, he was the only one choosing the targets, and making and sending the letter bombs. As mentioned earlier, other radicals (see environmental profiles: posing radical environmentalists) have used the illusion that more than themselves are involved in a crime, most likely in an effort to throw officials off their trail.
[cxii]Although Kaczynski sent out many bombs during the twenty years of radical activism, only two people were killed and 26 injured. Unfortunately for Kaczynski, none of the dead or wounded were actually the intended target, in fact many of the people that he addressed the packages were no longer working at the company/organization that they had been sent to, leading to the victimization of curious secretaries and other ‘innocent’ people.
[cxiii] Typically his original targets included university laboratories, computer stores, and airlines, all of which are technology-based locations. However, after allegedly attending an Earth First! meeting in 1994 where issues with “wise-use” thinkers were raised, he seemed to focus his attention more towards members of the “wise-use” movement and move away from his original targets. It is believed that an Earth First! newsletter, published two years before had swayed him into this change. In it was a list of active “wise-use” thinkers, which was entitled the “Eco-Fucker Hit List.” It is believed that it was not just coincidence that The Unabomber targeted the first two organizations on the “Eco-Fucker Hit List.”
[cxiv]Around 1995, Kaczynski became more vocal in the media. He had a message to send the public and, after twenty years of sending bombs, had come to realize that the bombs were not sufficient in sending that message. So, as a result, he began sending more and more messages to the media, and in 1995, he made a deal with The New York Times and The Washington Post. He said that if the two newspapers published his lengthy paper in the newspaper, that he would stop sending letter bombs. The newspapers agreed to the arraignment, and what would later become known as The Unabomber’s Manifesto, was published.
[cxv] Using terms like “us” and “we” he sent the illusion that he was a part of a group of individuals working for a common cause. In reality he was the only one sending bombs, and the letters. In his manifesto, published in the New York Times and The Washington Post as part of a “peace” agreement, he explained that he believed that a government could not guarantee its citizens freedom while living within an industrial/technological society. He goes on to say that “the [government] cannot be reformed in such a way as to reconcile freedom with technology. The only way out is to dispense with the industrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution,…a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society.”
[cxvi]Unfortunately for Kaczynski, but luckily for the FBI, Kaczynski’s brother recognized Ted’s writing style and, after the FBI promised not to release whom had turned him in, had told the FBI where they could find his brother. Later the FBI broke their promise with Kaczynski’s brother and released the information to the media. Whether that was intentional or not is still unknown. Today, Kaczynski is serving out a life sentence in the federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
[cxvii]~ ‘Terrorism’ and the Future of Radical Thought ~ With all the fear and violence that has risen out of ‘terrorism,’ it is easy to get caught up with, and unquestioningly accept mainstream views on terrorism. Everyone may have his or her own opinions on the issue, but perhaps we should stop and think, do we even know what terrorism is? Politically, this question has led to arguments because, officially, there is no sole definition for terrorism. The FBI and other government organizations all have their own interpretation of the word, which has led to confusion on how to approach resolving the issue.
[cxviii]Because this term has been attached to criminals to sway stricter sentences, it has come up as an important issue for political discussion. In the years after September 11th, the topic has been more thoroughly explored and, as a result, official definitions for terrorism and thus stricter laws are pending.
[cxix] Throwing this term around should not be taken lightly. The public, post 9-11, have learned to take this label very seriously. Simply hinting at the presence of a terrorist instigates fear and hatred, whereas if the media and the government were to use any other term to describe radical environmentalists perhaps the general public would not be so discriminatory of them. In this sense, perhaps it is the government that is causing the ‘terror’, since they are creating fear that would otherwise not exist. In other words, perhaps the government is doing the political equivalent of ‘crying wolf.’
Because this topic is so controversial and could probably support a paper all in itself, this paper will not try to reach a conclusion on defining terrorism, but in the following few paragraphs, will present the contrasting definitions of terrorism given by both the FBI and the radical environmental groups, and will use them to project their viewpoints on the controversial issue of terrorism.
The FBI defines terrorism as, “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
[cxx]” Under this definition, those individuals who participated in the Boston Tea Party would, by today’s standards, be considered terrorists. Pretty much any group that strongly resisted against the established political system would be considered a terrorist.
Radical environmentalists, in contrast to the FBI’s definition, loosely and unofficially define terrorism as ‘any act that results in the injury or death of humans or animals.’ Because of this, potentially dangerous acts of ecotage, such as bombing, arson, and tree-spiking, would not be considered an act of terrorism so long as careful measures were taken to insure that no one was injured or killed, as is often the case. Even some of the most radical groups, like ALF, make a sincere effort to prevent harm to any person or animal.
[cxxi] However, this fact does not save them from being labeled as terrorists under the FBI’s definition.
Despite claims by radical environmentalists that they are not ecoterrorists, there are undeniable parallels between radical environmentalists’ tactics and group structure, and terrorist organizations. In fact, members of ALF have admitted to structuring their original group like the IRA (the Irish Republican Army), a well known theological and political ‘terrorist’ organization that is believed to be one of the first terrorist organizations created, or at least the group was one of the first to be labeled as a terrorist organization.
[cxxii] Throughout history perhaps there have been hundreds of groups that, by today’s standards, would be considered terrorist organizations. Only in recent history, however, have governments freely offered this condemning title to radical groups.
[cxxiii] In the past they tended to refer to ‘terrorism’ as ‘violence.’ In other words, what we call by today’s standards ‘terrorism’ would simply be referred to as violence.
[cxxiv]One of the ways that groups like ALF and ELF could be compared to terrorist organizations is in their basic structure. In the following few paragraphs the structure of “terrorist” organizations, like Al Qaeda, will be presented and compared with some of the more radical environmental organizations. This was done to present possible reasons for why people/groups like the FBI have come to name these groups “ecoterrorists,” disregarding the obvious assumption that they spread fear in the public through their tactics.
Radical fundamentalists, like Al Qaeda, typically have a hierarchically decentralized structure, with a ‘leader’, a ‘consultative council’ below him or her, ‘main committees’ below them, and then is broken up into small secretive cells, which are split into planning and execution phases. Members of one cell may not necessarily know those of another due to the requirement for secrecy and security, and when communication between cells is necessary it is done in extreme secrecy.
[cxxv] Despite the fact that there is a hierarchal leader, there is limited hierarchical control over the cells, which are typically organized and controlled locally.
[cxxvi] In addition, the underground cells are structured so that they have an aboveground support group, which can supply the group with needed resources (money, food, people who sympathies and support their cause), without the active radical’s inevitable subsequent arrest.
[cxxvii] Some of the more radical environmental groups (ALF/ELF) are structured very much like the fundamental radical groups that were referred to in the previous paragraph, however, there are small differences. The ‘leader’ with regard to radical environmentalists is less of a figurehead, as people like Osama Bin Laden could be considered, and more of an original organizer and protester. They typically do not have any more influence or authority to dictate on the current or future decisions made by the group than any other member, as shown through example by the situation with Earth First!’s original leaders. This is also true, to an extent, with fundamental radicals, but is especially exaggerated with radical environmentalists. Basically, radical environmentalist leaders can be seen as the original muse, but have left each cell to take the forefront of the group on their own.
Like radical fundamentalists, radical environmentalists are structured with an aboveground/underground structure but it serves a slightly different purpose. Aboveground supporters of underground groups behave as the impeccant voice behind the resisters, allowing for media exposure without the active radical’s inevitable subsequent arrest.
[cxxviii] As mentioned in the history section, in 1997, Leslie James Pickering and Craig Rosebraugh began to receive and publish acts of ecotage reported as being affiliated with ELF. Essentially, they became the aboveground contact for the underground activists.
[cxxix]Although it has been controversial and is arguable, several mainstream groups that are considered by the general public to at least be mildly radical, are also acting as aboveground contacts to their more radical underground daughter groups (see table 1). This situation may seem impossible due to the high level of secrecy within underground groups, but in fact is possible. This is because the aboveground groups are known supporters of the same cause, their only difference from members of the underground groups is that they have set personal standards as to how radical an ideology they are willing to allow themselves. It is also a possibility because some members of the underground groups were once members of their aboveground groups (see history section). This is why I have classified the underground groups as the ‘daughter’ group.
[cxxx]For example, those individuals who broke from PETA in 1981, creating ALF, did so because they wanted to increase their radicalism, however the connection between the two supposedly was never severed since they both supported the same cause. One did not view the other as wrong, they just believed in the efficacy of two different tactical approaches. As a result inter-group support has been possible and maintained. For example, it has been reported that videos taped by ALF during acts of ecotage, which graphically documented animal cruelty, were later publicized by PETA. In addition, some claim that funds collected by PETA in the past, have been given to ALF to finance their ecotage. In addition, close ties have been developed and maintained between ALF and ELF since they both sympathize with each other’s tactics.
[cxxxi] Instead of the causal connection, like is the case with PETA, they are connected through their tactics.
It is easy to see, given the previous examples, why groups like the FBI consider radical environmentalists to be ecoterrorists. Besides similarities of their structure with terrorism, it is true that the public has been fearful of radical environmentalists, thus essentially qualifying them as terrorists.
[cxxxii] Ecoterrorists seem unpredictable and fanatical leading people to believe that there is a possibility that radicals will harm them. Perhaps if the general public understood the standards towards violence that most radical environmentalist have set from themselves, they would have less of a reason to be fearful of them, and perhaps even less discriminatory of them.
But perhaps the public has reason to be fearful of radical environmentalists. Based on the historical trends presented in this paper, in the near future it is possible that another schism will occur, which has the potential to create physically violent groups, thus endangering the public. Perhaps radical environmentalists will take Al Qaeda’s lead and start organizing suicide bombers to get their message across. Or perhaps America could end up with a group of ‘Unabombers,’ each sending out letter bombs of their own. Although no one knows for sure, if history repeats itself, and if politicians continue to deny environmental demands, more extreme and violent radicals could emerge.
In fact, there is already some evidence of an increase in radical environmentalists’ violent philosophy, however it is still rare to see these philosophies acted upon. As of yet they still remain threats. For example, a newer radical animal rights group that is perhaps a schism from ALF, called the Animal Rights Militia (ARM), has supposedly threatened the lives of numerous presidents within the animal industry.
[cxxxiii] In addition, some individuals within the animal rights movement have concluded that violence is a necessary tactic at times.
One animal rights protestor in particular, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, has been vocal in his inevitable support of violent tactics. When asked in an interview if he would support murder as a tactical approach to the movement he responded by rephrasing the question saying, “Would I advocate taking five guilty vivisector's lives to save hundreds of millions of innocent animal lives? Yes, I would.”
[cxxxiv] Although Vlasak’s philosophy could be as much of a minority in the movement as Kaczynski’s was, it is essential to view his philosophy, and others with philosophies like him, as an emerging view, if only as a preparatory measure against future violent radicals’ attacks.
~ Finding Direction ~Now that the history of the environmental movement has been presented and a few example groups and individuals have been discussed, it is nessesary to analyze them in order to understand how environmentalists can use this information to hypothesize the best way to progress the movement. This paper will use what has been presented about environmentalist and compare them to other historical movements in an effort to give direction to the movement; exploring what changes can be made to improve the environmental movement as a whole. In the following section called ‘conclusion’, the author gives her theoredical interpritation of these comparisons.
~ ~
In the beginning years of the civil rights movement there weren’t activists so much as there were lobbyists, organizational leaders, and lawyers working to achieve the essential goal of the movement through the legislation.
[cxxxv] Comprably, these individuals made up the “Sierra Club” of the civil rights movement. As the movement progressed, more radical activists emerged focusing on spreading their cause through non-violent civil disobedience, structuring the movement in a grassroots based direction. This meant that they were gaining support from the general public through the use of sit-ins, pickets, speaches, and protests.
[cxxxvi] This could be seen as the equivalent to the tour of college campuses done by the founders of Earth First!, because, as should be remembered, Earth First! began as a group of people primarily practicing civil disobedience. Earth First! only progressed to ecotage later on.
[cxxxvii] Individuals who made up the non-violent civil disobedience activists, for example Martin Luther King Jr., were the probably the best publicised activists in the movement and historically are the most accounted. Despite this fact there still were activists who progressed into radicalism. Some of the better know of these thinkers included Malcolm X, who advocated violent civil disobedience as a defensive measure.
[cxxxviii] As a side note, it is said that Malcolm X believed that Martin Luther King Jr. would not have been so successful if it was not for the extreme approach Malcolm X had taken. He throught that he had helped to make Martin Luther King Jr. look moderate and thus caused politicians to work more with him, much like Earth First! believed that it helped the Sierra Club seem like a moderate group, leading to less legislative compormises.
[cxxxix]After Malcolm X’s assasination, groups began to form based on his ideology, such as the Black Panther Party. This group was viewed as the radicalist of the civil rights movement, using violence against racist police officers who used force against them. “The Black Panthers advocated arming African Americans for self-defense…They engaged in several violent confrontations with the police and soon became the object of nationwide police repression. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, considered the Black Panthers the greatest threat to internal security in the US.”
[cxl] They were essentially, although not exactly, equivalent to the late Earth First! group after they progressed into ecotage, and their violence would be comprable to that of ALF and ELF who are seen, much like the Black Panther Party, as the greatest domestic terrorist threat.
[cxli] In essence, they both believed in the use of radicalism when nessesary, either through ecotage or direct battles with the police.
[cxlii]The differences in their tactical approaches to radicalism can be explained through examination of the victims of the movements. During the civil rights movement African Americans were still valued on the same level as animals, that is it was easy for people like the police to injure or even kill an African American if they overstepped their boundries. In essence the activists were the victims of the civil rights movement.
[cxliii] In the environmental movement on the other hand, the victims of the cause was either the environment or animals, not really the activists themselves. This meant that people like the police could not have specifically attacked the activists to the point of killing them without having moral issues with the attack. Therefore there was no way that environmental activists could practice defensive civil disobedience, and truly act like the victim. As a result, they would only been seen as ‘the crazy environmentalists out to pick a pointless fight with the police.’
Like with the environmental movement, schisms occurred in groups towards radicalism when ‘outrages’ occurred in the movement. An example of this was the ‘Underground Weathermen’ which was a splinter group that was created after two leaders of the Black Panther Party were killed in a police raid in 1969.
[cxliv] ‘The Underground Weathermen’ felt that the tactic of peaceful protest used by the less radical groups were not effective, and believed that more radical tactics, including violence, was nessesary to progress the movement.
[cxlv] They could be seen as the equivalent of ALF and ELF in the environmental movement, the only big difference was that the ‘weathermen’ were willing to kill for their cause. Like ALF and ELF, the media and the FBI viewed them as terrorists. In addition, as with ALF and ELF, other civil rights activists believed that ‘The Weathermen’ were tainting the public’s view of all civil rights activists. But despite this fact, like ALF and ELF, the group still used tactics, such as bombing, to protest.
Even during the age of slavery, African American slaves were practicing radical tactics to resist brutalization and dehumanization. They did this in numerous covert and overt ways. Covertly they slowed their pace of work, abused farm animals, feigned illness, broke tools, and stole crops. Overtly they poisoned slaveholders, burned storehouses, escaped, and staged violent revolts. However none of these tactics had a direct impact on the abolition of slavery.
[cxlvi]Dispite the presence of radicals within the civil rights movement, many believe that it was the use of non-violent civil disobedience that made the movement so successful. One major activist in the civil rights movement, Patricia Anderson, said when asked about the use of violence in the civil rights movement, “…I do not believe that violence brings anything but more violence… Dr. King's message of non-violence was more effective in the long run, and from a P.R. point of view a much more efficient way of handling the situation that was at hand.”
[cxlvii] After years of protest she concludes that non-violent civil disobedience is most effective tactic in the civil rights movement, and due to the movement’s similarities, would most likely lead to the success of the environmental movement as well.
Another example of success through non-violent civil disobedience was with Mahatma Gandhi who, like the African Americans of the civil rights movement, was fighting for liberation for India from the colonizing rule of Britian.
[cxlviii] Gandhi defined nonresistance as "active resistance in a different plane. Nonresistance to evil does not mean absence of any resistance whatsoever but it means not resisting evil with evil but with good. Resistance, therefore, is transferred to a higher and absolutely effective plane."
[cxlix] He has been said to be one on the founding fathers of non-violent civil disobedience and his work has directly lead to the independence of India.
[cl] He is another great example of the success of non-violent civil disobedience.
~ Conclusion ~As show through the previously mentioned comparisons with other social movements, using violent civil disobedience and ‘terrorism’ is too radical, and using tactics like lobbying is not enough. Although a true comparison does not exist in other movements to ecotage, through examination of the most radical approaches to other movements it can be seen that ecotage should not be a utilized tactic. At least not used as frequently as it has been. This is because radicals who practice ecotage have their message taken, not as one of disparity as intended, but rather unprovoked hatred.
It’s not the act of ecotage itself that is the problem; it’s the bad image that radicals give environmentalists and their cause that’s crippling the progression of the movement. Without clear motives and strong evidence that the violence is done out of direct self-defense, radical environmentalists, and perhaps rightfully so, will be found guilty of a crime the FBI and the media have dubbed as ‘ecoterrorism.’ It should also be pointed out that if the environmental viewpoint does not become more commonplace, as environmentalist hope, ecotage would only continue to grow without any significant progress. Radicals will continue to schism, leading to an increase in the severity of the violence known as ‘ecoterrorism.’
Some radical environmentalists may argue that “every major socio-political change has required some degree of violence,” but any smart activists has to be careful that they are not seen as having stuck the first blow. Using ecotage as a tactic does not give this impression to the general public. The media focuses its attention only on the “crazy” acts the environmentalists are doing, not on the destruction the target group may have caused on the environment. Therefore ecotage only clutters up the path to ecorevolution because it looses support for the cause, and displaces the radicals’ intended underlying message.
Even if the media showed the tactics of radicals as they hope, there are other fundamental problems with ecotage. In the long run it has been generally true that ecotage does not make any significant or permanent changes. Ecotage is too focused on one individual or organization for one specific ‘crime’. At its best ecotage will scare companies from continuing their research, but the grant money is just reallocated to another laboratory, and yet radicals naively view this change as a victory. In reality there is no victory unless people can understand, sympathize, and support their philosophy and cause.
Resorting to ecotage, in an analogy with slavery (in keeping with the civil rights theme), would be like burning down a wealthy slave owner’s empty barn containing the farmer’s cotton gin and whip. Both of which are tools, which further the slave’s oppression, much like burning an animal-testing lab would destroy their data. In the best case scenario the farmer would sell his slaves due to his fear that more acts of ‘terror’ would follow, but there is no way the farmer would think twice about slavery since there is no persuasive argument against it. Plus, in the best-case scenario the slaves would most likely still remain slaves; they have just been sold to some other owner. Also, what if the next slave owner is worse then the victimized one. Often times environmentalists will only look at the target as an example for others, forgetting to see the truth about how bad they really are. In some cases with animal lab attacks the lab actually treats the animals really well, the activist only blindly saw the animals chains.
In addition, anything less than civil disobedience is too timid to create a revolution. You need to do more then lobby to politicians; you also need to demonstrate to society to gain the votes that encourage politicians to support your cause. Non-violent civil disobedience is necessary to start a revolution, and a revolution is necessary for lasting environmental changes. Otherwise society will only view environmentalists as it has been, as ‘sketchy masked psychos out to destroy US economy’; basically as the enemy not the victim. Secrecy does not gain sympathy. There needs to be a face, a leader running the show. Each day that activists remain in the shadow of secrecy brings them farther from their goals of protecting our environment, all the while loosing the respect of the very people who could be ammunition for the future of the movement.
Another problem with the environmental movement is the vast amounts of causes that make it up. How can a movement have a revolution when it doesn’t have a single cause or leader? Most environmentalists are directionally blind and confused, ending up getting involved in petty protests and legal battles. The movement has no forward momentum. There is no clear simple big picture goal like equality for all mankind, or freedom of India. Are environmentalists fighting for wilderness preservation, animal rights, human health rights, anti-technology, or maybe none of the above? It has never seemed clear.
Also, since there are so many causes, there are consequently too many interest groups getting involved in the movement. Environmentalists hoping for environmental reform will not succeed in their battle if their large divided fronts remain their sole combatants. What is the grand environmental cause, and when and how will environmentalists ever start working together to progress this cause? If we could figure out the answer to these questions, perhaps the necessary revolution could begin, and the movement could finally reach a consensus in the direction of its progression, whatever direction that may be, radical or otherwise.
[i]Peter C. List, Radical Environmentalism (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1993).
[ii]Reference.com, Dictionary, s.v. “ideology.”
[iii]T. O’Connor, Ecoterrorism, 25 May 2005,
(February 2006).
[iv]Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 4th ed. (Yale University Press; 2001).
[v]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[vi]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[vii]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[viii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “John Muir,”
[ix]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[x]Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Gifford Pinchot,”
[xi]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[xii]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[xiii] Douglas Long, “Ecoterrorism,” Library in a book, (New York: Facts on File Inc., 2004).
[xiv] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xv] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xvi]Christopher Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization. (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1990).
[xvii] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[xviii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xix] Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella III, ed., Terrorists or freedom fighters?. (New York: Lantern Books, 2004).
[xx] Ingrid Newkirk, Free the Animals!: The Untold Story of the U.S. Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, “Valerie”, (Chicago: The Noble Press, Inc, 1992).
[xxi] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxii] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[xxiii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxiv] Greenpeace, “our mission,” (May 2006).
[xxv]Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxvi] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxvii] Ron Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber. (Bellevue, Washington: The Free Enterprise Press, 1995).
[xxviii] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[xxix] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxx] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxxi] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[xxxii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xxxiii] All information in this section was taken from: Long, “Ecoterrorism.” unless noted otherwise.
[xxxiv] Ronald Gottesman ed., “Violence in America,” (New York: The Gale Group 1999).
[xxxv] Aaron Garrett, “Animal Rights and Souls in the Eighteenth Century,” The History of Ideas, 2000, (May 2006).
[xxxvi] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Greenpeace,”
[xxxvii] Lawrence Finsen and Susan Finsen, “The Creation of a Mass Movement,” The Animal Rights Movement. (San Diego: Thomson, 2003).
[xxxviii] Earth Liberation Front, “main,” (May 2006).
[xxxix] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xl] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xli] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[xlii] Arissa media group, “news,” 14 February 2006, (May 2006).
[xliii] “US charges 4 in ‘ecoterror’ arson attack,” United Press International, 7 April 2006,
[xliv]“Rendell signs ‘ecoterror’ bill increasing penalties,” The Philidalphia Inquirer, 20 April 2006,
[xlv]Marc Morano, “New Movie Called ‘Soft-core Eco-terrorism’ for Kids,” CNSNEWS.com, 1 May 2006,
[xlvi]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[xlvii] Emily Kumpel, “Ecoterrorism is Justified,” Extreme groups, ed. Karen F. Balkin (Detroit: Greehaven Press, 2005).
[xlviii]Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[xlix] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[l] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[li] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[lii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[liii] Dave Foreman, A Field Guide to Monkey Wrenching, 3rd ed. (Chico, California: Abbzug Press, 1993).
[liv] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[lv] O’Connor, Ecoterrorism.
[lvi] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lvii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lviii] United States Survey, “’Dam Hetch Hetchy!’: John Muir contests the Hetch-Hetchy Dam,” history matters, (May 2006).
[lix] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lx] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxi] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxii] The Sierra Club, “Environmental Law,” (May 2006).
[lxiii] Forest History Society, “Gifford Pinchot,” 13 October 2005, (May 2006).
[lxiv] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxv] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxvi] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxvii] J. R. White, Terrorism and Homeland Security. 5 ed. (New York: Wadsworth Publishing 2005).
[lxviii] Julia Butterfly Hill, Legacy of Luna: the story of a tree, a woman, and the struggle to save the Redwoods. (SanFrancisco: Harper, 2001).
[lxix] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxx] Finsen and Finsen, “The Creation of a Mass Movement.”
[lxxi] Newkirk, Free the Animals-The Untold Story of the US Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, “Valerie”.
[lxxii] Newkirk, Free the Animals-The Untold Story of the US Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, “Valerie.”.
[lxxiii] Newkirk, Free the Animals-The Untold Story of the US Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, “Valerie.”
[lxxiv] James Hibberd, “Trumped-Up Eco-Terrorism: An Arsonist’s Tale,” Phoenix New Times, 12 February 2002.
[lxxv] Hibberd, “Trumped-Up Eco-Terrorism: An Arsonist’s Tale.”
[lxxvi] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxxvii] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxxviii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxxix] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxxx] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxxxi]Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxxxii] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxxxiii] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[lxxxiv] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxxxv] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[lxxxvi] Earth Liberation Front, “opinions,” (May 2006).
[lxxxvii] Craig Rosebraugh, “Craig Rosebraugh on Ecoterrorism,” 7 February 2002, (May 2006).
[lxxxviii] Earth Liberation Front, “opinions.”
[lxxxix] “What is the Earth Liberation Front?,” Satya, March 2004,
[xc] Karen F. Balkin ed., “Radical Environmentalists Are Terrorists,” Extremist Groups, (Detroit: Greenhaven Press. 2005).
[xci] Balkin ed., “Radical Environmentalists Are Terrorists.”
[xcii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xciii] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xciv] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[xcv]“Thousands of foxes are living in London and making a mess,” Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), 26 April 2006, A1.
[xcvi] Best and Nocella, ed., Terrorists or freedom fighters?.
[xcvii] O’Connor, Ecoterrorism.
[xcviii] Newkirk, Free the Animals-The Untold Story of the US Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, "Valerie".
[xcix] Newkirk, Free the Animals-The Untold Story of the US Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, "Valerie".
[c] “What is the Earth Liberation Front?,” Satya.
[ci] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Animal Liberation Front,”
[cii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Animal Liberation Front.”
[ciii] Best and Nocella, ed., Terrorists or freedom fighters?.
[civ] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Stop Huntington_Animal_cruelty,”
[cv] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Animal Liberation Front.”
[cvi] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cvii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Theodore Kaczynski,”
[cviii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Theodore Kaczynski.”
[cix] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cx] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxi] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxii] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxiii] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxiv] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxv] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxvi] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxvii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Theodore Kaczynski.”
[cxviii] Best and Nocella, ed., Terrorists or freedom fighters?.
[cxix] “Times ready to dump ecoterrorists label?,” Seattlest, 8 May 2006, (May 2006).
[cxx] U.S. Congress, “Report to congress on the extent and effects of domestic and international terrorism on animal enterprises,” (Washington, D.C.: DOJ, 1993),
[cxxi] Kumpel, “Ecoterrorism is Justified.”
[cxxii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Real Irish Republican Army,”
[cxxiii] Best and Nocella, ed., Terrorists or freedom fighters?.
[cxxiv] P.L. Curtis, “Moral and Physical Force: The Language of Violence in Irish Nationalism,” The Journal of British Studies. 27:2 (April 1988).
[cxxv] “Understanding the conflict: terrorism,” The Seattle Times, (May 2006).
[cxxvi] H. B. Milward, “Dark Networks: The Structure, Operation, and Performance of International Drug, Terror, and Arms Trafficking Networks,” International Conference on the Empirical Study of Governance, Management, and Performance, (Barcelona, Spain, 4-5 October 2002).
[cxxvii] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxxviii] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxxix] Long, “Ecoterrorism.”
[cxxx] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxxxi] Arnold, Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
[cxxxii] Hibberd, “Trumped-Up Eco-Terrorism: An Arsonist’s Tale.”
[cxxxiii] S. Bloomfield, “Animal rights extremists force firms to cut all links with lab,” The Independent, 2 October 2005.
[cxxxiv] Archival Interview with “Insight,” an Australian program. 12 October 2004, (May 2006).
[cxxxv] Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, “FAQ: Do you think marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations helped or hurt the movement?,” 2005, (May 2006).
[cxxxvi] Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, “FAQ: Do you think marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations helped or hurt the movement?.”
[cxxxvii] Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the unmaking of civilization.
[cxxxviii] William Miller PhD, meeting, 24 May 2006.
[cxxxix] William Miller PhD, meeting, 24 May 2006.
[cxl] Gottesman ed., “Violence in America.”
[cxli] U.S. Congress, “Report to congress on the extent and effects of domestic and international terrorism on animal enterprises.”
[cxlii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Black Panther Party,”
[cxliii] William Miller PhD, meeting, 24 May 2006.
[cxliv] Public Broadcasting Service, “The Weather Underground,” Independent Lens, 2006, (May 2006).
[cxlv] Public Broadcasting Service, “The Weather Underground.”
[cxlvi] Gottesman ed., “Violence in America.”
[cxlvii] Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, “FAQ: Do you think marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations helped or hurt the movement?.”
[cxlviii] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Indian independence movement,”
[cxlix] Reference.com, Encyclopedia, s.v. “Non-resistance,”
[cl] C. Kytle, Gandhi, Soldier of Nonviolence: His Effect on India and the World Today, (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1969).
~ Works Cited ~
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Arissa media group. “news.” 14 February 2006. (May 2006).
Arnold, Ron. Ecoterror-the violent agenda to save nature, the world of the Unabomber.
Bellevue, Washington: The Free Enterprise Press, 1995.
Balkin, Karen F. ed., “Radical Environmentalists Are Terrorists.” Extremist Groups. Detroit: Greenhaven Press 2005.
Best, Steven, and Anthony J. Nocella III, ed. Terrorists or freedom fighters?. New York: Lantern Books, 2004.
Bloomfield, S. “Animal rights extremists force firms to cut all links with lab.” The Independent. 2 October 2005.
Curtis, P.L. “Moral and Physical Force: The Language of Violence in Irish Nationalism.” The Journal of British Studies. 27:2 (April 1988).
Earth Liberation Front. “main.” (May 2006).
Earth Liberation Front. “opinions.” (May 2006).
Finsen, Lawrence and Susan Finsen. “The Creation of a Mass Movement.” The Animal Rights Movement. (San Diego: Thomson, 2003).
Foreman, Dave. A Field Guide to Monkey Wrenching. 3rd ed. Chico, California: Abbzug Press, 1993.
Forest History Society. “Gifford Pinchot.” 13 October 2005. (May 2006).
Garrett, Aaron. “Animal Rights and Souls in the Eighteenth Century.” The History of Ideas. 2000. (May 2006).
Gottesman, Ronald ed. “Violence in America.” New York: The Gale Group 1999.
Greenpeace, “our mission.” (May 2006).
Hibberd, James. “Trumped-Up Eco-Terrorism: An Arsonist’s Tale.” Phoenix New Times. 12 February 2002.
Hill, Julia Butterfly. Legacy of Luna: the story of a tree, a woman, and the struggle to save the Redwoods. San Francisco: Harper, 2001.
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Kytle, C. Gandhi, Soldier of Nonviolence: His Effect on India and the World Today. New York: Grosset & Dunlap 1969.
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Morano, Marc. “New Movie Called ‘Soft-core Eco-terrorism’ for Kids.” CNSNEWS.com. 1 May 2006. (May 2006).
Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. Yale University Press; 2001.
Newkirk, Ingrid. Free the Animals!: The Untold Story of the U.S. Animal Liberation Front & Its Founder, “Valerie”. Chicago: The Noble Press, Inc, 1992.
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The Sierra Club. “Environmental Law.” (May 2006).
“Thousands of foxes are living in London and making a mess.” Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition). 26 April 2006, A1.
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“Understanding the conflict: terrorism.” The Seattle Times. (May 2006).
“U.S. charges 4 in ‘ecoterror’ arson attack.” United Press International. 7 April 2006. (May 2006).
U.S. Congress. “Report to congress on the extent and effects of domestic and international terrorism on animal enterprises.” Washington, D.C.: DOJ, 1993. (May 2006).
United States Survey. “’Dam Hetch Hetchy!’: John Muir contests the Hetch-Hetchy Dam.” history matters. (May 2006).
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. “FAQ: Do you think marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations helped or hurt the movement?.” 2005.
(May 2006).
“What is the Earth Liberation Front?.” Satya. March 2004. (May 2006).
White, J. R. Terrorism and Homeland Security. 5 ed. New York: Wadsworth Publishing 2005.
