Greenpeace facing existential threat in lawsuit over its anti-pipeline radicalism
Greenpeace is one of most visible environmental groups in the world.
It was launched more than 50 years ago in Canada and has been active in its chosen wars against global warming, deforestation, fishing, whaling and more.
But its American division now it is facing an existential threat in the form of a lawsuit over its work with others, including Indian tribes, to attack the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,200-mile pipeline project to move crude oil from the Bakken Shale field to Illinois.
The Wall Street Journal, in fact, said it appears fossil-fuel billionaire Kelcy Warren is about to land “a knockout punch” on the organization.
His company, Energy Transfer, was behind the pipeline, and his lawsuit is over the Greenpeace group’s obstruction.
He’s seeking $300 million in damages over the project that eventually was completed.
The confrontations developed starting in 2016 when Greenpeace, Indian tribes and others literally camped out in North Dakota to impede the work on the project.
”Warren sees green activists, who he once said should be ‘removed from the gene pool,’ as a serious threat to the industry. Starting with protests of Keystone XL, which successfully derailed that project, activists have targeted pipelines across the country,” the report explained.
He said, in a previous interview, “Everybody is afraid of these environmental groups and the fear that it may look wrong if you fight back with these people. But what they did to us is wrong, and they’re gonna pay for it.”
He’s worth an estimated $7 billion, and his lawsuit charges that Greenpeace groups incited the Dakota Access protests, “funded attacks to damage the pipeline, and spread misinformation about the company and its project,” the report said.
It is going to trial in February in the fossil fuel-friendly North Dakota.
Greenpeace has claimed it played a limited role in the protests, but leaders acknowledge that the threat of massive damages makes the case an existential threat.
”Greenpeace says losing its affiliate—and influence—in the U.S. would have a profound impact on the group’s ability to address climate change,” the report said.
Indian tribes claimed the pipeline threatened sacred sites and drinking water.
The report noted, “In Warren’s view, Greenpeace was largely to blame for a construction delay he said cost the company millions of dollars, and Energy Transfer sued the group for $300 million under a law created to prosecute the mafia that could allow the company to claim triple that amount. When a federal judge dismissed the suit, the company filed a new one in a North Dakota state court.”
A Greenpeace official said a negative outcome for the environmental group would set a “really dangerous precedent.”
Greenpeace, which has admitted it could lose the case, has prepared contingencies, including bankruptcy.