Bishop Hill Greens turn violent
Apr 19, 2014 Energy: gas Greens It was really just a matter of time before the violence that has always been latent in the environmentalist movement spilled out into open view. Last night it seems that one of the "usual suspects" at the anti-fracking protests could no longer maintain the pretence of "peaceful protest". The following press release was issued on behalf of Dart Energy a couple of hours ago.
PRESS RELEASE
19 April 2014
Violent protest at Daneshill Road drill site Nottinghamshire
Dart Energy's site manager was this morning assaulted by a protestor as he attempted to gain access to the site. This violent act followed a night of masked protestors circling the drilling site screaming and shouting abuse, throwing objects at Security Personnel and causing criminal damage.
The police were not in attendance at the time but have been advised of the incident. The assailant who is not from the area is well known to the company and a statement will be given to the police with a view to charges been laid. Dart Energy will not tolerate violence or abuse towards any of its employees or contractors.
While there are some local protestors the vast majority are from outwith the area most having been seen at Barton Moss and Dart Energy's previous drilling site in Cheshire.
John McGoldrick, Dart Energy's CEO said:
"Since the aggravated trespass of the site earlier this week, as a result of which a contractor required hospital treatment, we have witnessed an escalation in non peaceful protest. Site personnel have been threatened with violence (death in one case), verbal abuse, racial abuse and now physical abuse. There is no way that the protest movement can claim it is making a peaceful protest. These abuses are despicable and cowardly.
We expect the police to take the appropriate action to protect our site and personnel from such violence and abuse and will insist that the fullest charges are laid against those who do not abide by the law."
Notes to Editors:
In April 2014, Dart Energy commenced drilling a coalbed methane (CBM) exploration well called Lound 1 at a site near Sutton Cum Lound to the west of the A638 in Nottinghamshire.
The Lound 1 well aims to confirm coal continuity and properties for the primary target coal seams. The well will be similar to a CBM well previously drilled at Everton, a site which has been reinstated and returned to the landowner.
Some key facts about our work in Lound 1:
- We are drilling a vertical CBM exploration well to collect samples of coal for analysis
- The site operations will take 8-12 weeks from start to finish
- 24 hour drilling operations are expected to last 3-4 weeks in total
- The site is approximately the size of half a football pitch and the rig is the same height as a set of standard rugby posts
- The well will be cased with steel and cement to a depth of 350 metres to protect aquifers in the Sherwood Sandstone
- The well will be drilled using water based drilling fluid
- The well will be drilled using a mobile drilling rig that will be removed from site once we are finished
- On completion the well will be cemented up in line with relevant regulations and industry best practice
- The site will be fully restored to its former use as soon as practicable following completion of the drilling activities
- We are not hydraulically fracturing (fracking), nor are we removing water. There will be no methane flowing during the drilling operations.
- Dart will carry out a program of post cementation and restoration monitoring
Reader Comments (82)
Everything they've been taught tends towards violence against their opponents. We need the courts to make a really strong statement.
Hmmm - think the tone of this piece is a bit sweeping.
No Pressure....
not banned yet, out of Andrew's three sentences I can only think you mean the phrase "the violence that has always been latent in the environmentalist movement". I wouldn't call that sweeping but accurate. If you believe there's no violence latent in environmentalism you're in a much safer world than some of us. But it would be helpful if you quoted the offending phrase or phrases.
That's the phrase. Similar to "the alcholism that's always been latent in the Scottish" - if I see a drunk in a Glaswegian underpass does that count as it "spilling into open view"? There are plenty of very committed and ethical people in the "environmental movement" and I don't accept that violence is any more or less of a characteristic there than in other walks of life. Perhaps one could argue that violence is generally latent in "protest" but that IMO is a different issue.
I note that Caroline Lucas was found not guilty by Brighton magistrates over her obstruction at Little Stumble. An encouragement to lawbreakers that they will get away with it. Instead, it provided a platform for another Green PPB, duly bigged up by the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27069345
and Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/17/caroline-lucas-cleared-anti-fracking-protest-charges
nby: I don't consider it at all similar to "the alcholism that's always been latent in the Scottish" - a phrase I would repudiate if I ever heard it, with or without a Glaswegian worse for wear before my eyes. The difference is surely that one chooses to become an environmentalist by buying into a worldview. For many being part of the resulting community includes stigmatising and dehumanising their opponents. 'Denier' is just the most concise and obvious example. And that's latent violence, pure and simple. It doesn't of course mean that all environmentalists will end up committing violent acts. But too many are encouraging it in others with their violent words.
But it would be helpful if you quoted the offending phrase or phrases.
It's not so much offending as frivoluous. To say ". . . the violence that has always been latent in the environmentalist movement spilled out into open view" entirely and only on the basis of a press release by a vested interest that makes allegations but provides no detail is not, to put it politely, serious reporting. To extrapolate from one possibly unfounded and almost certainly exaggerated allegation to the conclusion that violence is inherent in environmentalism is to parody a complex phenomenon. Andrew's critics could, with some justification, label him as a shill for Dart Energy, a company (how should I put this?) not entirely free of controversy.
Don't get me wrong here - I think that there is a violent streak in significant strands of the environmental movement but I'm not convinced that shrill denunciations of what seems, by any reckoning, to have been a trivial incident is the most convincing way of either understanding or demonstrating it. After all, no-one seems as yet to have been charged, let alone convicted, of anything.
Ok - how about "the child abuse that has always been latent in Catholics"?
DaveB:
Sure. And if it turns out there wasn't any violence in this instance then I would agree it will have been a misjudgment to use the phrase Andrew did, with the benefit of significant hindsight. But I judge it very unlikely that there was no violence in this case and I appreciate his robust commentary, which I hope is matched by decisive sentencing in the courts, as I've already said. But then I've always liked the phrase 'nip it in the bud'.
nby: No. All the words from within the community, including from Pope Francis recently, are that this is a terrible evil. Where is the equivalent of calling the victims 'denier'? Your analogies are far-fetched and that speaks to me that your judgment on what Andrew wrote is wrong.
Are the Scots alocholocs?
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2009/02/20161722
Maybe they're becoming more sober now their referendum beckons.
The thing that strikes an observer is the striking lack of any correspondence between supposed ends and means.
The protesters, like the commenters on the Guardian pages, are supposedly devoted to taking effective measures to save the planet, and to do this they supposedly think it essential for the world to stop emitting CO2 now.
The world is emitting some 35 billion tonnes, and China is apparently emitting 10 billion of these right now.
So you would expect the protesters to be demonstratiing outside the Chinese embassy perhaps? Or, if they were choosing to try to reduce the relatively small UK emissions, perhaps outside DECC? Or maybe they would be picketing BP, or perhaps one of the electricity generating companies, or a power station?
No, instead they have picked a site where drilliing is going on that is going to have no effect at all on emissions. Why?
The people on the pages of the Guardian also seem to be preoccupied at the moment with stopping people they call 'climate change deniers' from talking. Or at least from being heard. Or at least being heard on the BBC. The fulminations are strikingly violent and personal. But the problem of course is not the people or how they are being reported, if the concerns are really what they are represented to be. The problem is the actual physical emissions.
In the same spirit, one notices that the 10 billion tonnes of Chinese emissions are supposed not to really be a problem, and it is terribly bad form to draw attention to them, because these are only for export, and also they are smaller than ours per capita. Or because, the supreme irrelevancy, we emitted a lot in the past.
When, according to the theory, its not emissions per capita that counts, still less the past, its simply the tonnes going up to the heavens right now that, according to 'terrified of the Guardian' is going to end civilisation.
After racking my brains about this for some time I come to the conclusion that what is really going on is that no-one actually believes in the apocalypse. No-one is behaving as if they do. Not the Chinese, not our own Government, not the protesters either. No-one is seriously advocating any definite specific measures which will reduce global emissions.
What they are doing is express a truly pathological degree of rage and resentment against anyone who they think disagrees with them. Now the Bish is right to remark that no-one ever says what science it is that is supposed to be settled, or exactly what it is that the deniers are supposed to be denying. This too is evidence of the diagnosis. It should be simpe to do, and it should be the first thing one would do if trying to get assent to some particular proposition.
I think this is not the object at all, at least not of most of those contributing to the Guardian. The object seems to be the expression of bile.
Another thing that leads to this conclusion is the reaction when someone draws attention to what is happening. The immediate reaction is to ridicule the commenter for his supposed hurt feelings. Of course, the usual comment has nothing to do with the commenters personal feelings. Usually what he's doing is draw attention to the deranged behaviour of the people he is addressing. But this they can never see - and I suspect its because the reason they are there is to express rage. They simply cannot see that this is not helping. Because it feels so good. And if someone objects to it, this must be because its working.
Yes, but is it saving the planet? No, but its smiting the unbeliever, and its expressing my rage, so it must be right.
i don't alas see this ending well. We are talking a real fundamentalist movement on a level with the animal rights lot. The deterioration into borderline terrorism is not far away. Surely with attitudes like these it can only be a question of time before real sabotage of the 'death trains', or the death plants which generate eletricity, starts to be proposed? If it has not been already.
The crunch is going to be with the Climate Change Act. No government is going to propose any effective measures to implement its targets. So what will all the fanatics do when they see there is no prospect whatever for any democratic persuasion of the country to carry out their agenda?
We shall see, but I admit to feeling distinctly nervous, and getting more so the more of this stuff I read.
As I have said before, in the dying days of prophecy, we will find belief becoming more certain and more strident, and we will find rage against anyone who doubts becoming stronger and stronger. This is true. It is happening right now in front of our eyes.
"No. All the words from within the community, including from Pope Francis recently, are that this is a terrible evil"
Actions speak louder than words:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10407559
http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/
NBY:
And the point you are making with this link is?...
http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/
We have seen this in Canada one dead consultant (shot) and bombings of wellheads and sat sites nip it in the bud indeed.
michel:
This is a crucial insight in my view. Thank you for your many such contributions on Bishop Hill. And, if you will permit me, here's a phrase I love from Easter Week: "be of good cheer".
Tim - it is support of my view that this post is sweeping in tone. I do not see violence as latent in environmentalism and I think to trivially assert it as the Bish does here is silly. I was responding to RD's selective prejudice and I gave the wildlife trust link as an example of a group who broadly fit under the umbrella of "environmentalism". Afaik they do not call for violence but busy themselves working on tangible projects. If you can find calls for violence made by them please flag them up.
What about the vile, benefit stopping, austerity tendencies latent in the GWPF ? Who can freeze the poor first, the Greens or the Tories ?
Russia's oil and gas monopoly Gazprom has disclosed the brand name by which crude oil, produced at the Prirazlomnaya rig inside the Arctic circle, will be known in the world markets. The announcement came shortly after the first tanker with ARCO (Arctic Oil) left the platform carrying an oil load purchased by one of Europe's major energy companies.
The marketing of the new brand was held among downstream companies in Northwestern Europe in the first quarter of 2014. As production at Prirazlomnaya grows, part of the crude will begin to be provided on the basis of long-term contracts.
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_19/First-tanker-with-Arctic-crude-oil-leaves-Prirazlomnaya-platform-9211/
Michel,
A most excellent comment. Thank you.
Andy
The search for energy sources is inherent in global economy. And every country is looking for greater energy independence and fracking has become proverbial salvation.
The US has embraced hydraulic fracturing and the shale gas revolution has swept the country by storm.
Natural gas in America is now a third of the price in Europe, and this inspires European countries to follow the example. The technology has the potential to reshape the global energy market as well as drive energy bills down.
And it looks like the UK for instance is dismissing all the environmental repercussions, while seeking greater economic benefit.
http://voiceofrussia.com/radio_broadcast/no_program/269977512/
nby, I do see violences as endemic within the anti fracking community. You just have to watch their videos on YouTube and Bambuser to see the latent violence. Filming worker's cars and loudly noting down number plates as they leave to go home to their families late at night is intimidation. Violently resisting arrest to make themselves martyrs, but only when cameras are around, to then highlight the resultant scratches as police overusing force. Criminally damaging other people's property. None of that is a sign of peaceful protest.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with environmentalism, Catholicism, animal rights or (esmiff) capitalism. Things go wrong when any of those preferences put the policies ahead of basic right and wrong. When defending the principle means committing a crime or hurting people or achieving the goal by deception, things have gone too far. Environmentalism and specifically warmism has been working itself up towards the excesses of animal rights groups. If a professor will commit identity fraud or another will ditch science ethics in favour of a juicy headline, what will an uninhibited person with less to lose do? Name calling (denier) is part of the process where some will psyche themselves up to more than verbal abuse. Despite a lack of support from the wider public, people like the anti frackers often feel they have a mandate to escalate their futile protests.
nby
"I do not see violence as latent in environmentalism "
Not even their Malthusian streak..?
SadButMadLad - the post doesn't say "violence is endemic in the anti cracking community". Read it and the follow up comments if you want to get my point.
nby, I did read the post and your comments. I disagree with you. Anti frackers are part of the environmental groups. They are more upfront with their violence, but the other environmentalists are just as bad. Greenpeace are violent. FoE are violent. They all commit criminal acts because they believe the ends justify the means.
The form of "protesting" in vogue by the environmentalists has little to do with informing the public - it is about physically obstructing people engaged in legal activities.
In British Columbia protesters "spiked" trees with nails and other metal objects. The effect of this was to put at great risk the lumberjacks and sawmill workers who had to cope with shrapnel from chains and saws.
michel
A fair number of the protesters are "the animal rights lot".
Your analysis of the situation is accurate; this is very little if anything to do with CO2 or global warming. This is professional protest. As Dart point out in their release the protestor who carried out the alleged assault is not a local concerned with this site; he (I assume it is male but who knows these days) is a serial troublemaker along with a raft of other serial troublemakers whose aim is to prevent any development they personally happen to disapprove of.
This week it's energy; last week and/or next week it might be global finance. Come the autumn it'll be back to foxhunting for a bit unless there is a higher priority. The objective is disruption pure and simple.
NBY
If you are not aware of the latent violence in the modern environmental movement then all I can say is "lucky you!". Some of us have experienced it first hand. It's the result of obsession combined with the frustration of knowing that better than 95% of the population do not support the green fanaticism. They are so convinced of their own rightness that they see anything other than obsequious agreement as a personal affront to their egos.
I know whereof I speak, believe me.
As for your analogies I find them personally offensive and out of keeping with the normally civilised tone of this blog.
Enviros want a grand realignment of the world to a nice Disney-esque world of friendly animals and strong but politically correct characters united to fight the evil businessman.
They are pastoralists more similar to Pol Pot's type of societal realignment than to the friendly image of people enjoying the great outdoors.
In Houston anti-fracking thugs dress up as neo-KKKers and seek to intimidate people involved with Kestone XL.
They only have violence left: There is no evidence to support their whole sale lies and ignorance and loathing that fuels their dysfunction.
The person who assaulted the Dart site manager is a 58yr old woman from Buxton. http://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/blog/2014-04-19/arrest-made-following-assault-lound
Political Junkie, the lock the gate protesters in Australia are violent as well, placing dangerous obstacles on private roads in attempts to cause land owners to have nasty accidents.
Are the Scots alocholocs?
Scotland's pure alcohol per capita figure is 11.8 litres
"Scotland's figure is higher than nearly every other country in Western Europe, including Spain (11.7 litres), France (11.4 litres) and Italy (8.0 litres).". ----- That is is only 0.1 litre per capita more than Spain and 0.4 litres more than France!
" behind only Luxembourg (15.6 litres per capita); Ireland (13.7 litres); Hungary (13.6 litres); Moldova (13.2 litres); Czech Republic (13.0 litres), Croatia (12.3 litres) and Germany (12.0 litres)." ---- I thought Ireland, Luxembourg, and Germany were in Western Europeand have higher figures!
Aren't Hungary and the Czech republic in the EU and wouldn't comparison with the EU be better?
Are the Scots alocholocs? Not when you compare it with the rest of the EU!
Michel
A very perceptive post.
In particular this part:
"After racking my brains about this for some time I come to the conclusion that what is really going on is that no-one actually believes in the apocalypse. No-one is behaving as if they do. Not the Chinese, not our own Government, not the protesters either. No-one is seriously advocating any definite specific measures which will reduce global emissions."
I think that there may be some of the 'gullibles' that believe all they are told. However, it is definitely the case that the governments and UN do not believe that there will be some kind of thermogeddon that will lead to the end of civilisation. If a group of people were experimenting with some kind of genetic modification of plants that would result in the end of humanity, would the politicians raise their taxes?? These politicians and the UN and the climate scientists obviously do not believe that there is a real existential threat. They are just using the apocalypse bogeyman to achieve their aims.
Ian W:
Yes, I think michel overstates the case here - but it was well worth it, because there's much truth in what he writes. And it raises the interesting question whether to be gripped by a fear is the same as believing a proposition. I don't think that's an easy one. But some do still believe - or at least are gripped - in my view. The rest is conspiracy - in the rather loose sense in which I use that term. :)
As Dodgy Geezer alludes to, above, the 350.org 10-10 video revealed AGW "latent" violence in its glory. If those images of deliberately blowing up the children of "deniers" and splattering their blood on other children don't unmask subconscious delight in violence, what would? Not only was this terrorist video admittedly regarded as a bit of whimsy by its makers, not one of the dozens of activists involved objected to it. Not one. What does that say about the minds of AGW activists?
In any other context, nby's pathetic straw men, false analogies, and red herrings might be amusing. Here, however, they form a too-transparent apologia for violence.
Google "violence at soccer matches" and it brings up 1,470,000 hits.
Google "violent environmental protests" and it brings up 139,000,000 hits.
Michel,
Thank you for your wonderful post. It clarifies so much which is fundamental to the activities of "true believers."
It matters not what I believe, only that I believe and act upon that belief.
I applaud the paragraph quoted by Richard Drake as one of the most insightful observations I've ever read on the subject. de Toqueville could have written it. Bravo!
The poor practices and bad behaviour endemic in climate science tarnish the reputation of science as a whole (to be fair not just in climate science), the failure of scientists in other fields to condemn vocally makes them complicit by their silence.
The failure of environmentalists to condemn vocally violence by anti-fracking protesters leaves them tarred.
+1000 to michel
I often ponder what the global response to a real problem would be - maybe to an asteroid or a new virus.
I don't think it would involve annual conferences in exotic locations or new taxes or sanctimonious scolding of disbelievers or nasty videos of disbelievers being blown up.
Micheal Gove worried about a new generation of bored disaffected youth turning to Islamic Extremism take note also about breeding a new generation of Eco Extremists.
Jorge - I'm not apologising for violence. I'm objecting to sweeping caricature - an objection readily voiced by those on the sceptical side of the debate when we are presented as "denying science" or whatever the implicit slur is in any particular incident.
Michael - why are you personally offended by my arguments? Some scots are drunks, some Catholics are child abusers, some protesters are violent. None of which I support.
nby,
Clean your own house, then we can consider addressing your points.
Right now greens are becoming more and more misanthropic and violent.
Do something besides give us a hard time for pointing it out.
There is an eloquence in your words Michel and in drawing your conclusion, that dread, runs an skeletal ice cold finger down my spine. Desperate, driven men, come from zealotry descend to corrupt malignancy and then, resort to desperate measures and strategem, that - is a given.
michel wrote, " ... no-one actually believes in the apocalypse. No-one is behaving as if they do."
Evidence for this is the lack of a comprehensive plan for abatement or mitigation from any major "green" organization. Lots of smoke and noise around the edges but nothing broad, wide-ranging and all-inclusive.
Have I missed Zed's contribution?
hunter - you have lost me. What is it that you want me to do by way of "cleaning my own house"? To recap: I don't agree with the Bishop's expressed viewpoint that violence is latent in the environmental movement. Perhaps violence is latent in protest but that is a different argument.
I think the disagreement between nby and other commenters stems from differing definitions of "the environmental movement".
Nby can give examples of people like the wildlife trusts who do excellent work to protect the environment and are clearly not powder-kegs of latent violence, but most people here would view the environmental movement as being led and represented by its two largest and best-funded organisations, Greenpeace ("we know where you live") and the avowedly Malthusian WWF. They and thousands of their fellow-travellers routinely defame climate sceptics as deniers, a term deliberately chosen for its Holocaust associations, and there are countless examples of their associates demanding criminal trials for what they call ecocide, some even advocating the death sentence. Actual violence as perpetrated by the rent-a-mob at Barton Moss and Daneshill Road is not a big step from there.
Far too few people on their side of the argument take the trouble to distance themselves from this overt hostility and from the implied threat in materials such as the 10:10 video, directed by national treasure Richard Curtis and funded by numerous charities including ActionAid. So it is not unreasonable or hyterical to see latent violence across a broad swathe of the environmental movement.
@Michel..3:54pm
You took the words straight out of my mouth. I have lived with them I know them the violence lurks just beneath the surface....dont fry bacon at the crusty fire.
What they are doing is express a truly pathological degree of rage and resentment against anyone who they think disagrees with them.
Apr 19, 2014 at 3:54 PM michel
The BH commenter Zed has stated that her reason for posting here is her hatred of BH commenters.