Live data from Hacker News

Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

northdakotamonitor.com

1–10 of 245 posts

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#3
> Greenpeace maintains it only had six employees visit the protest camps, and that all worked for Greenpeace USA, not Greenpeace Fund or Greenpeace International.

> The jury found Greenpeace USA liable for almost all claims.

how does this happen? did greenepeace just run a bad trial? or lose all public trust?

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#4

> Greenpeace maintains it only had six employees visit the protest camps, and that all worked for Greenpeace USA, not Greenpeace Fund or Greenpeace International. > The jury found Greenpeace USA liable for almost all claims. how does this happen? did greenepeace just run a bad trial? or lose all public trust?

They specifically weren't found liable for on the ground activity, so the fact that only six employees were on the ground seems like a bit of a red herring.

> how does this happen? did greenepeace just run a bad trial? or lose all public trust?

Alternative possibility: they were actually guilty. Seems likely. The idea that Greenpeace was intentionally spreading misinformation doesn't require a big leap of faith.

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#5

> Greenpeace maintains it only had six employees visit the protest camps, and that all worked for Greenpeace USA, not Greenpeace Fund or Greenpeace International. > The jury found Greenpeace USA liable for almost all claims. how does this happen? did greenepeace just run a bad trial? or lose all public trust?

Or maybe, just maybe, they actually did unreasonably damage the pipeline company's reputation, in a way that is outside the legally-recognized bounds of free speech. Maybe justice actually was done.

(Note well: I haven't been following this case closely enough to say. But you should at least consider that as a possibility.)

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#7

> Greenpeace maintains it only had six employees visit the protest camps, and that all worked for Greenpeace USA, not Greenpeace Fund or Greenpeace International. > The jury found Greenpeace USA liable for almost all claims. how does this happen? did greenepeace just run a bad trial? or lose all public trust?

I'm not a lawyer.

I believe it's a question of "who is found liable" and then "what is the damages" and then the damages are split between those who are found liable.

If it was Greenpeace and {Some Org} that were both found liable, then that could be split 90% {Some Org} and 10% Greenpeace.

However, if only Greenpeace was found liable it would be 100% Greenpeace despite how little interaction they had.

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#8
I think climate change is a massive and real problem. And that we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels quickly. But I would actually be very happy to see Greenpeace fold as a result of this. I think they’ve been on the wrong side of many important issues, including this one.

I think Greenpeace did as much as anybody to turn the world against nuclear power in the late 20th century. And this clearly set us in the wrong direction as far as reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

Also for the ND pipeline, I think it does relatively little to change the economics of fossil fuels. And thus does relatively little to change our path to sustainable energy. But it does a lot geopolitically. Having more local oil means the trigger-happy US government is less likely to start wars to ensure access to oil. Heck even the Iran conflict this week stems back to the 1953 CIA-instituted coup which was half motivated by protecting access to oil.

Hot take: decarbonization is a policy issue that should be pursued primarily through incentives to increase production and quality of clean alternatives. Not by throttling supply of oil. Look at the electrical grid. Solar and wind are just cheaper than fossil fuels now which means the decarbonization is economically inevitable.

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#9

> Greenpeace maintains it only had six employees visit the protest camps, and that all worked for Greenpeace USA, not Greenpeace Fund or Greenpeace International. > The jury found Greenpeace USA liable for almost all claims. how does this happen? did greenepeace just run a bad trial? or lose all public trust?

Or maybe, just maybe, they actually did unreasonably damage the pipeline company's reputation, in a way that is outside the legally-recognized bounds of free speech. Maybe justice actually was done. (Note well: I haven't been following this case closely enough to say. But you should at least consider that as a possibility.)

[deleted]

Re: Judge finalizes order for Greenpeace to pay $345M in ND oil pipeline case

#10
If you are going to break the law under capitalism, you must do it sustainably. Facebook, Apple, et al have shown that the latency of judicial pipeline usually means a billion dollar in fines comes after several billion in profits. You profit from the lag between the crime and the consequence.

I don't think social justice has that same profit pipeline, but I am not sure. There is an asymmetry in the type of evil our society allows.

Post reply on HN