Why Greenpeace Might Have Just Imploded

Matt Vespa | March 20, 2025 6:50 AM

Remember the Dakota Access Pipeline protest in 2016-2017? It caused a ruckus and created a mess, thanks to the heaps of trash left behind by global warming activists. Well, there was a lawsuit over the damages, and a jury found that Greenpeace was liable. They got slapped with a $667 million judgment. The group plans to appeal, but if they have to pay the full fine, this organization is history (via NYT):

A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded damages totaling more than $660 million to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The verdict was a major blow to the environmental organization. Greenpeace had said that Energy Transfer’s claimed damages, in the range of $300 million, would be enough to put the group out of business in the United States. The jury on Wednesday awarded far more than that.
Greenpeace said it would appeal. The group has maintained that it played only a minor part in demonstrations led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It has portrayed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle oil-industry critics.
The nine-person jury in the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, N.D., about 45 minutes north of where the protests took place, returned the verdict after roughly two days of deliberations.
[…]
The demonstrators gathered on and around the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, arguing that the pipeline cut through sacred land and could endanger the local water supply. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued to stop the project, and members of other tribes, environmentalists and celebrities were among the many who flocked to the rural area, including two figures who are now members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
But the protests erupted into acts of vandalism and violence at times, alienating people in the surrounding community in the Bismarck-Mandan area.
Greenpeace has long argued that the lawsuit was a threat to First Amendment rights, brought by a deep-pocketed plaintiff and carrying dangerous implications for organizations that speak out about a broad range of issues.
[…]
The 1,172-mile underground pipeline has been operating since 2017 but is awaiting final permits for a small section where it crosses federal territory underneath Lake Oahe on the Missouri River, near Standing Rock. The tribe is still trying to shut down the pipeline in a different lawsuit.