Climate Protestors Are Under Systematic and Violent Attack – Including in the USA
The Georgia police killing of climate activist and "Cop City" protestor Manuel Teran is another telltale sign that the battle to save the planet is taking a dangerous turn.
Peaceful protest is under systematic and even violent attack in the United States and around the world – particularly when it comes to the climate movement’s challenge of the fossil fuel industry. The highly respected civil society group Global Witness estimates almost 2,000 climate activists have been assassinated across the globe in the last ten years. Tens of thousands more have been jailed without trial or due process of law.
As many know, I have had my own modest brush with this danger as a lawyer in the United States. So have dozens of other US citizens.
If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the the GPS monitoring device that a US federal court forced me to wear on my lower left leg after I helped Amazon Indigenous peoples in Ecuador win a historic pollution judgment in 2013 against Chevron. In an act of gross injustice, I was prosecuted and detained directly by a Chevron law firm after the federal prosecutor appropriately refused to pursue contempt charges filed by a judge who had financial ties to Chevron. I am the only person in the US ever prosecuted directly by a private corporation. My entire case was declared illegal by a team of prominent international trial monitors headed by former US Ambassador for War Crimes Stephen A. Rapp.
The judge who locked me up – Lewis A. Kaplan – charged me with contempt of court after I appealed his unprecedented order that I turn over my computer and confidential case file to my adversary counsel at Chevron. The Chevron prosecutor then had me detained for 993 days total on a misdemeanor charge where the maximum sentence was 180 days; 45 of those days I was locked down in a federal prison. Two Supreme Court justices — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – condemned my private prosecution as unconstitutional. Five international jurists from the United Nations also determined my detention violated multiple provisions of international law guaranteeing an impartial judiciary and due process of law.
For others, the situation is far worse. Jessica Reznicek (below left) is a climate hero labeled a "terrorist" by a federal judge after she vandalized the Dakota Access pipeline in an act of mercy for the planet. The maximum sentence for her property crime was three years in prison. Despite that, the judge determined she was worthy of a “terrorist” enhancement and gave her a draconian 8-year sentence which she is currently serving in federal prison. Jessica’s actions did not cause harm to a single person; they clearly did not constitute terrorism. I consider Jessica a political prisoner of the fossil fuel industry and its allies in the federal courts as a result of the additional five years imposed as a result of her designation.
Manuel Teran (above right) is the first-ever climate activist killed in the United States. Last January 18, six police agencies in the state of Georgia put a fusillade of bullets into Manuel as they sat with hands raised in protest of the misguided “Cop City” police academy. An autopsy of Manuel’s body found 57 gunshot wounds; Manuel appears to have been the target of a police execution. Over 40 other Cop City protesters in Georgia have been charged with "domestic terrorism" in one of the greatest abuses of police power in recent history. Each faces 35 years in prison. No independent investigation of the killing has taken place.
This is the disturbing big picture: 42 laws restricting the right to peaceful protest in the US have passed state legislatures just in the past few years. Dozens more have been proposed and are pending. Most of these are “model” bills written by corporate front groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and then pushed to states where Republicans have the majority in the state legislature. ALEC is a one of the mechanisms used by the fossil fuel industry to silence the climate movement. It's also how police plan to maintain a power structure based on extreme inequality. The goal is to intimidate those of us who care enough to act in defense of the planet and our rights. Below is a great website that provides background on the legal efforts around the US to thwart peaceful protest.
US Protest Law Tracker — International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.
Greta Thunberg arrested.
In another disturbing example of a law enforcement attack on the climate movement, none other than international climate leader Greta Thunberg faces six months in prison after being charged by Sweden with blocking oil tankers in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. Her rationale for engaging in civil disobedience is simple and unassailable: "The climate crisis is a matter of life and death for countless people. We choose to physically stop fossil fuel infrastructure. We are reclaiming the future."
I greatly admire the courage. I condemn the cowardice of the Swedish authorities. And I am astounded at the stupidity of those who did this to Greta. And I thank Greta for calling attention to my unjust detention when I was locked up with an ankle bracelet.
Greta Thunberg charged with disobeying police order at climate protest — Reuters, July 5, 2023.
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Steven, why do you think "climate change" even exists, never mind that it has to be "solved"? The UN is plainly lying to us.
The hockey stick graph (fully factchecked!) shows that the temperature of the world never did anything strange until the Industrial Revolution. Just a steady decline until then. So it follows that any increase since then must indeed be down to us.
But this is the ACTUAL graph showing the changes in the world's temperature since 900 AD:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8364a449-efa6-48c2-b63d-1f84ee53d690_360x179.png
Notice the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ace Age.
If their most important "proof" is a blatant lie, then why believe anything they say about "climate change" at all?
I read the above, have tried to reshare, find I am blocked from doing so. It seems Steven Donzinger's writings are considered a threat?