COMMENTARY: Greenpeace brand takes big hit in N.D. pipeline case

Before the turn of the century, Greenpeace occupied the cultural space somewhere between a pirate crew and a rock band. The environmental group’s members zipped around in Zodiac boats confronting whaling ships, scaled smokestacks for banner drops, and sailed directly into nuclear test zones as celebrities, college students and documentary filmmakers cheered them on.

Then, Greenpeace was the cool kids’ table of protest politics. Today, however, the once-swaggering “good guy” rebels of environmentalism find their reputation sullied by their actions. A recent court ruling limiting Greenpeace’s attempt to get a European Union court to intervene on its behalf against the American justice system is one more bad look.

Last year, a jury in Morton County, N.D., unanimously concluded that Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Fund supported efforts to sabotage construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and damage pipeline owner Energy Transfer’s reputation through what the company argued were misleading and defamatory claims. The jury originally awarded Energy Transfer $667 million, which the judge later reduced to $345 million.

On the eve of the North Dakota trial, Greenpeace International filed related legal action in the District Court of Amsterdam, an effort under a European Union law designed to protect people and entities facing lawsuits over protest speech. Energy Transfer characterized the suit as an attempt to sidestep the looming U.S. judgment and asked the North Dakota courts to act.

On May 7, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled in part in favor of Energy Transfer. The decision blocked Greenpeace International from using the EU suit to undermine the issues already decided by the North Dakota jury, though it did not end all related litigation in the Netherlands. Greenpeace has said it will appeal the jury’s verdict.

In a statement after the ruling, Trey Cox, lead counsel for Energy Transfer, praised the court’s decision.

“Energy Transfer appreciates the North Dakota Supreme Court’s careful decision,” Cox said. “We have always believed that North Dakota’s courts, laws and juries cannot be collaterally attacked in a foreign forum. Today’s ruling protects the authority of the North Dakota judicial system and the jury’s unanimous verdict from an improper end-run abroad. Energy Transfer looks forward to bringing this legal process to a close and holding Greenpeace accountable for the harm it caused.”

It could be argued that hubris powered Greenpeace’s journey from global do-gooder to jury-affirmed saboteur and defamer.

Greenpeace’s rise in the 1970s and 1980s coincided perfectly with the age of television spectacle. Founded in 1971 by war protesters and environmentalists protesting U.S. nuclear testing near Alaska’s Amchitka Island, Greenpeace pioneered the art of “bearing witness” — placing members directly into confrontations designed for maximum public visibility. The images were irresistible television: inflatable Zodiac boats weaving around Soviet whalers, activists dangling from industrial structures and crews aboard the famous Rainbow Warrior dodging foreign navies.

With the confidence and cash generated by its success on such black-and-white issues as whaling and no nukes, Greenpeace began to wade into more complex and nuanced debates, across and beyond environmentalism. A partial list of its current agenda includes climate policy, agriculture, plastics, Indigenous rights, corporate accountability, Arctic drilling, global supply chains, consumerism, genetically modified crops and “defending democracy.”

Greenpeace’s self-righteousness and 20th-century tactics have not always served the group well in its multi-front war. For example, scientists and policymakers criticized Greenpeace’s unyielding opposition to genetically modified crops such as Golden Rice, which many experts believe could help end vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. In 2016, more than 100 Nobel laureates publicly rebuked the organization for its stand. Similarly, climate scientists and other environmental groups have said Greenpeace’s rigid opposition to nuclear power is out of date and unhelpful.

Even Greenpeace’s signature direct-action events have come under fire as stunts that draw momentary attention but don’t contribute to resolving complex issues. In a particularly embarrassing episode, Greenpeace drew harsh global criticism after activists entered Peru’s ancient Nazca Lines during a climate protest and left footprints on the UNESCO-protected site.

Greenpeace’s involvement with the Dakota Access Pipeline took things to a new level. Demonstrators initially drew national sympathy amid concerns about environmental risks and tribal sovereignty. As the protests escalated, reports of vandalism, property destruction and aggressive blockades began to overshadow the movement’s earlier moral clarity.

For Greenpeace, the jury verdict and North Dakota Supreme Court ruling represent more than a financial and legal headache. They are the culmination of a decades-long transformation from outsider provocateurs into an institutional entity increasingly vulnerable to the same legal, political and reputational consequences that Greenpeace once excelled at inflicting on its opponents.

Zodiac boats, we hardly knew ye.

Randall Bloomquist is the head of Bloomquist Media. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.