Originally posted by GlassJunkie Have you ever seen an eco advocate/terrorist maim someone? I have, saw the injuries, treated the victims, and have no respect for trespassers and criminal extortionists. Ignorance is playing the "progressive arrogance" you displayed in your above comment and attack on me you just laid out, without knowing anything about why I have my view... Criminals are criminals, elegant simplicity.
References?
What I have seen is widespread condemnation of environmentalists based on an incident in California, where the environmental activists were blamed, but in the end it turned out that the forestry company was cutting on private land, the man involved was not an environmentalist but the land owner, and he'd spiked his own trees, which the forestry company had illegally cut, and the only one charged in the incident, was the forestry company, for not having proper safety equipment on their saw. So examining the actual incident in question, it went from being eco-terrorist spiking trees, to a completely irresponsible forestry company passing on the blame.
SO, yes, I definitely need a reference. I've too often before dug in to these kinds of statements, and found the case against the environmentalists has been blown way out of whack, or that they didn't even do what the popular wisdom has them doing. I once actually had a logger call my friends down at Earth Roots in Toronto environmental terrorists, people I know well, and who I have co-operated with on more than a few environmental challenges, and who haven't been involved in anything but petitions and court challenges for over 30 years.
Most of the time, if you know what you're talking about, this stuff is nonsense, no matter which side proposes it. Wild unsubstantiated allegations are just that.
By the way, some of the loggers who told me about this California case, changed the location to BC and assured me they knew the man who was injured. So, I been down this road before. Pardon my skepticism.
My advice for this kind of examination is, stay on good terms with everyone, find out what everyone has to say, make up your own mind.
If you haven't done part "A", stay on good terms with everyone and hear what everyone has to say, you're simply not credible. You're a propagandist for one side or the other.
IN every given incident, the environmentalists may be wrong, or the corporations may be wrong, but in the end, these incidents in no way affect the validity of the arguments proposed. Even if environmentalists attack and injure some people, fracking may still pollute water reserves, and just because environmentalists say fracking pollutes water reserves doesn't mean it does. But, I fail to see how restricting and punishing those trying to collect data is good policy.
The simple fact is, air and water pollution are not restricted to the property of the resource extractors, and while people may record the differences in water quality from nearby wells, and air quality, it is extremely difficult to prove where the source of the pollution is. Wyoming just made it even more difficult than it already is. I am reminded of the family in Alberta who went around blowing up oil wells. They were all dead of cancer before the government even started investigating. Sadly, for some companies, that's part of corporate strategy.