{"id":32655,"date":"2018-03-22T09:08:55","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T14:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32655"},"modified":"2018-03-22T09:09:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T14:09:09","slug":"environmental-extremism-or-necessary-response-to-climate-emergency-pipeline-shutdown-trials-pit-activists-against-the-oil-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32655","title":{"rendered":"“Environmental Extremism” or Necessary Response to Climate Emergency? Pipeline Shutdown Trials Pit Activists Against the Oil Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Still: Steve Liptay<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISM\u201d OR NECESSARY RESPONSE TO CLIMATE EMERGENCY? PIPELINE SHUTDOWN TRIALS PIT ACTIVISTS AGAINST THE OIL INDUSTRY<\/a><\/h3>\n
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AN ACTIVIST IN<\/u> Montana was sentenced on Tuesday in a case that has become both a touchstone for industry-friendly legislators pushing to increase penalties for pipeline protest and a measure of the U.S. legal system\u2019s ability to recognize the emergency presented by climate change.<\/p>\n

On October 11, 2016,\u00a0while the Dakota Access pipeline protests were in full force, climate activists approached above-ground valve sites on five tar sands pipelines in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington state. After calling the pipeline companies to give warning, they turned the valve wheels in a coordinated attempt to stop the flow of tar sands oil.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s\u00a0sentencing hearing tested a Montana court\u2019s willingness to apply the severe penalties already available for use against pipeline protesters. For halting the flow of oil through Enbridge\u2019s Express pipeline for several hours, Leonard Higgins, a 66-year-old retired information technology manager for the state of Oregon, faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for charges of misdemeanor trespass and felony criminal mischief. Higgins was sentenced to three years\u2019 probation and $3,755 in restitution to the pipeline company.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m relieved and actually a bit bewildered. It\u2019s unexpected to me. I came very much prepared and expecting to do some jail time at least,\u201d Higgins told The Intercept. \u201cThis is a case where both in terms of the severity of the charges and the large amount of claimed damages, I think they were using it to chill the possibility that others might do similar protest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enbridge had initially claimed more than $200,000 in losses, a figure later reduced to $25,630, including $16,000 worth of replacement chains to secure valves along the pipeline against future tampering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts and the juries are not hammering individuals in the way these corporations would like to see, so they attempt to use the restitution process to grossly inflate their damage numbers with hope that threatening the citizen with $200,000 might chill others from committing similar acts,\u201d said Lauren Regan, Higgins\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Still: Steve Liptay \u201cENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISM\u201d OR NECESSARY RESPONSE TO CLIMATE EMERGENCY? PIPELINE SHUTDOWN TRIALS PIT ACTIVISTS AGAINST THE OIL INDUSTRY AN ACTIVIST IN Montana was sentenced on Tuesday in a case that has become both a touchstone for industry-friendly legislators pushing to increase penalties for pipeline protest and a measure of the U.S. legal system\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[14,15271,141,14232,1283,2747,657,5567],"class_list":["post-32655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-activism","tag-alleen-brown","tag-climate-change","tag-dakota-access-pipeline","tag-enbridge","tag-montana","tag-protests","tag-the-intercept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32656,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32655\/revisions\/32656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}