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Record number of environmental activists murdered

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#71

Post by yunohn »

Paianni wrote: post #67
yunohn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the corporations named, none of them are owned by locals. They’re all global mega corps, owned and operated through Western parents. They exploit the local chaotic governance to their advantage - and evade prosecution in their home countries by virtue of it being conducted on “foreign soil”.

Not always... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens#2005_and_continuing:_w...

It’s good to see that (occasionally) international megacorps can be prosecuted for international crimes - I’d argue that a fine is more of a slap on the wrist, but it’s better than nothing.

I’d really like to see oil/wood/mining megacorps be brought to justice as well.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#72

Post by markenqualitaet »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #61
adham01 wrote: post #12

The year is 2087, the remaining scientists that weren't hunted down in the previous year, have issued a dire warning that time is running out for action on climate change. The claim is rebuked again by a conglomerate consisting of Breathing apparatus manufacturers, Sunblock body-paint makers, Subterranean city developers, Biohazard swimsuit makers, Soylent green icecream industries, Nestlé, FEMA holiday camps, and th…

Not entirely about environment issues, but there's a TV show with something similar as a premise - Continuum . A crime solving drama/sci-fi, where the protagonist is a time traveler coming to our times from year 2070-ish, time when the world is ruled by a Corporate Congress, consisting of thinly veiled allusions to well-known corporations of today. In between all the action and emotional drama, it also delivers some…

Do you recommend it? It's one of the few scifi shows I haven't seen but stumble upon from time to time. It seems a bit low-budget and oldschool TV (pre-breaking bad quality of TV).

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#73

Post by inglor_cz »

andriesm wrote: post #50
yunohn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite this weird sub-thread, the article isn’t talking about “dangerosity”. They’re reporting on the increase in evil activities by anti-environmental mega corps, who are also murdering opposing activists.

What indication do we have that environmentalally unfriendly companies are murdering activists? I cannot imagine that being their best PR strategy, not to mention the fact that murdering your opposition attracts a lot of scrutiny, investigation, and which corp exec would want to risk going to jail for ordering a hit on an activist. Far more practical to lobby or spread counter marketing spin.

Not everywhere is the First World. In many places of the world, you can buy protection from scrutiny and investigation of the local authorities, and remote authorities in London or New York won't likely give a damn about what happened somewhere in eastern Indonesia, for lack of jurisdiction.

Plus, given how dangerous some places are even for locals, you can always plausibly deny your involvement: oh, it was the bandits, they are awful to everyone.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#74

Post by oefrha »

I skimmed the report.[1] Very few corporation names can be found, unless I missed them. I found some attributions in highlight stories, e.g. Tate & Lyle Sugars in a Thailand case of sugar plantation taking land by force; but those are few and isolated.

IMO a list of names of people murdered means almost nothing to any reader beyond the symbolic value. Now, if you also attach the names of responsible/beneficiary corporations in each case, especially the multinationals, it would be a lot more powerful.

[1] https://www.globalwitness.org/documents/20190/Last_line_of_d... (warning: it has `content-disposition: attachment` so it will be downloaded rather than opened by your browser)

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#75

Post by pastage »

yunohn wrote: post #45
zohch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The police are in on it, the government is in on it, the corporation is responsible. Then why does it not stop? If you look at the countries where this problem is occuring, they don't really have highly effective governments, they have lots of corruption, and generally high crime rates. If the governments do not prosecute those responsible and hold corporations to account, this won't stop, and if the people in thos…

If you look at the corporations named, none of them are owned by locals. They’re all global mega corps, owned and operated through Western parents. They exploit the local chaotic governance to their advantage - and evade prosecution in their home countries by virtue of it being conducted on “foreign soil”.

The US seems to be very trigger happy wrt foreign companies giving bribes on forgein soil, if they have a presence in the US. I think FCAP has been modified to be more efficient in this respect.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#76

Post by strken »

yunohn wrote: post #23
ArchieMaclean wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we should be doing all we can to prevent murder! It is just always hard to tell with statistics and having a more honest statistic (that, say, shows that murder rates have doubled while number of activists have increased 30%) would be preferable.

I’m not sure what kind of number you’re looking for. There’s no global registry tracking the population of environmental activists - just that when people are murdered by anti-green corporations, we can figure out that the person’s activism is what caused it.

Quoting from the methodology section of the report:

> To meet our criteria, a case must be supported by the following available information:

> Credible, published and current online sources of information.

> Details about the type of act and method of violence, including the date and location.

> Name and biographical information about the victim.

> Clear, proximate and documented connections to an environmental or land issue.

When people are murdered, we can't be sure who did it unless there's evidence. The methodology doesn't seem to include gathering evidence of who the murderer was, only that the murder happened to an activist. Saying "when people are murdered by anti-green corporations" is begging the question, because the report doesn't pass on any evidence that they were murdered by anyone in particular.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#77

Post by cornel_io »

playpause wrote: post #56
TeMPOraL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, seriously. Number one failure in sensationalized reporting is base rate fallacy: they point out a high absolute number, implying something strange is going on, whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there. I don't mean this is the case here (I'm yet to read the article itself) - but this failure mode in reporting is so common…

These are murders of people. The pertinent comparison (for those interested in the whole "murders" thing) is with how many murders there were in previous years, whether it's gone up, etc, information which is covered in the article. To say there's nothing newsworthy about these murders, just because you were personally interested in a number you couldn't find in the article, is crass.

No. These are murders of "people who do XYZ". If we looked at murders of people who play Fortnite from 5 years ago until now, we'd see a clear trend, for no reason other than the fact that the number of people who play Fortnite has ebbed and flowed.

I don't know anything about this particular situation, but your callous dismissal of this indisputably correct warning is wrong.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#78

Post by parsimo2010 »

anticodon wrote: post #36
adham01 wrote: post #12

The year is 2087, the remaining scientists that weren't hunted down in the previous year, have issued a dire warning that time is running out for action on climate change. The claim is rebuked again by a conglomerate consisting of Breathing apparatus manufacturers, Sunblock body-paint makers, Subterranean city developers, Biohazard swimsuit makers, Soylent green icecream industries, Nestlé, FEMA holiday camps, and th…

But also remember the hysteria about ozone depletion, which served the interest of DuPont. It's a mystery how heavy halocarbon could reach stratosphere. Nevertheless, thanks to "environmental" activists, DuPont had become richer.

Ozone isn’t a halocarbon and it doesn’t “reach” the stratosphere, it’s formed there. It’s also not a mystery; the upper ozone layer is formed from atmospheric oxygen and radiation from the sun. Since your predicating information is false then whatever conspiracy theory you’re implying probably isn’t true.

And while I’m sure some companies profited from prohibiting CFCs, stopping ozone depletion is one of the few things humanity has done with measurable effects. If a few companies made money from it that’s fine. It would be great if we could tie a profit motive to fixing climate change.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#79

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #5
ArchieMaclean wrote: post #3

How does this compare to the growth in the number of environmental activists overall? Edit: it was pointed out below that it's probably more influenced by an increase in environmentally damaging activities such as logging. Edit 2: Yes, I think that murdering peaceful, innocent protestors is a disgusting act. I'm just questioning the article's use of statistics

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#80

Post by ArchieMaclean »

zimbatm wrote: post #54
ArchieMaclean wrote: post #3

How does this compare to the growth in the number of environmental activists overall? Edit: it was pointed out below that it's probably more influenced by an increase in environmentally damaging activities such as logging. Edit 2: Yes, I think that murdering peaceful, innocent protestors is a disgusting act. I'm just questioning the article's use of statistics

Wouldn't you expect the number of murders to go down if there are more activists united in one region? To paint a clearer picture you would have to look at the distribution of both murders and new activists. I bet there are more online activists now, but it doesn't necessarily translate to having more helpers in poor areas. Which are where the natural resources are.

That's a good point. I'm not sure about murders going down with united activists - it seems the people targeted are generally the ones organising activists into groups, so if there were more they might be of greater focus. It's complicated though.
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