"Civil disobedience has an honorable history,
and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold,
then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable,
and it has a role to play.” -Al Gore
On a brisk March morning in early 2014, nine Greenpeace protesters made their way up the P&G towers where they hung two massive 60 foot banners protesting P&G’s use of palm oil. The group of activists miraculously made it past security with their ziplining equipment and up to the 12th floor. Then they broke the locks on several windows to get out onto the side of the building. Once outside, the protesters unveiled two 60 foot banners that read “Head & Shoulders, Stop Putting Tiger Survival on the Line” and “Head & Shoulders, Wipes out Dandruff & Rainforests.” One of the activists even wore a tiger suit and ziplined between the two towers while holding a sign that read “P&G, Protect My Home.” The protest lasted a couple of hours. The banners were removed within an hour of the protest ending.
The protesters were angry with how P&G gets the palm oil for their products. It is believed that the company’s use of palm oil in their Head and Shoulders and Oil of Olay products is causing rainforest destruction in Indonesia. Palm oil is the single biggest contributor to the deforestation of Indonesian rainforests. About nine million hectares have already been lost to palm oil plantations; that is about the size of Indiana. It is predicted that 26 million hectares will be lost by 2025 to palm oil production, if something doesn’t change. The rainforests they are destroying are home to many animals including the Bornean orangutan and the critically endangered Sumatran tiger. There are thought to be less than 400 Sumatran tigers in the wild today.
“Rainforests contain the biggest variety of life in the world. There is so much we don't know about these ecosystems, and we have a lot more to learn.” -Sean O’Brien (P&G protester)
The activists were arrested by the police and spent the night in jail before being released on bail the next day. The nine of them were charged with burglary and vandalism. Between both felonies they each can be sentenced to a maximum of nine and a half years and a $20,000 fine. Their trial is set to be held later this month.
One of the activists plead guilty to a lesser charge of breaking and entering. He can receive a maximum of 1 year and a $2,500 fine; however, the defense is predicting that he will only be required to do community service. The attorneys are predicting that the other activists will be sentenced to community service as well, but the activist who plead guilty felt that he couldn’t take the risk of a harsher sentence.
Is what the activists did wrong? Shortly after the event occurred P&G announced plans to change their palm oil procurement policy. It is unlikely they would have done this without all the negative attention they received after the protesters’ actions.
These people protested knowing they would be arrested. Often laws have to be broken in order for change to occur. In the same week as the P&G protest, 398 people were arrested for “blocking the sidewalk” during a Keystone XL oil pipeline protest. In both cases the protesters went into it knowing what they were about to do was illegal, but morally right. Sometimes sacrifice is necessary in order to have a better tomorrow.
Henry David Thoreau once said in regards to civil disobedience “Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them?”
Thoreau makes some excellent points in his quote and throughout all his work. What are we to do about unjust laws? Sitting and obeying the unfair laws will not make things better. Sometimes illegal action is the only way to make necessary change. Especially with environmental issues where we only have so much time, and the longer we wait the harder it will be to correct the damage already done.
You would hope that our lawmakers wouldn’t create a society where civil disobedience is necessary for change, but some of our lawmakers lack the intelligence required to make good decisions. Many more are motivated by the money in politics.
Representative Paul Broun, R-Ga. recently said “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell and it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.” I should specify that Broun said this at a Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet. He is a member of the House Committee on Science and Technology.
The former chairman of the Committee once said “I’m really more fearful of freezing. And I don’t have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they’re not basing it on real scientific facts.”
Dana Rohrabacher another member of the House Committee on Science and Technology and climate skeptic once said regarding 55 million years ago when there was similar climate change, “We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?”
These people are our lawmakers in charge of creating a better society for Americans, yet they choose to deny science. Margaret Mead once said, “We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.” Whether or not these people believe what they are saying, if they do not start acting in the best interest of our world we will not have a society for these people to govern. The Greenpeace protesters knew this and decided to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes a sacrifice is necessary to spark positive change in the world.
From a very young age we are taught to follow the rules; that they are there to help us and protect us. However, we are also taught about heroes that have made the world a better place by breaking the rules. Rosa Parks helped spark change in the civil rights movement by staying in her seat; not by obeying the racist laws. Mahatma Gandhi helped India to gain their independence through nonviolent civil disobedience. Laws are there to keep us safe and enforce a just society, but they need to be questioned too.
“So often it feels like the problems are too large or that there is no possible way to change the things that are wrong. I was relieved to learn that through sacrifice and tough choices, that individual people could have an impact.” -Jesse Coleman (P&G protester)
Works Cited
"9 Greenpeace Protesters Arrested after Banners Hung from P&G Towers." WLWT.com. N.p., 5 Mar. 2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Blades, Meteor. "The 398 Arrests for Civil Disobedience in Sunday's Anti-Keystone XL Protest Are Just the Beginning." Daily Kos. N.p., 3 Mar. 4014. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
"Civil Disobedience and Other Essays Quotes." Good Reads. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Deike, John. "Breaking: 9 Arrested After Death-Defying Protest of P&G’s Use of Palm Oil." Greenpeace Blogs RSS. N.p., 4 Mar. 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
Facts about Palm Oil and Rainforests." Rainforest Rescue. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2014.
"Protest at P&G Headquarters." Greenpeace Blogs RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Rayfeild, Jillian. "Least Scientific Members of the House Science Committee." Salon.com RSS. Salon Media Group, 8 Oct. 2012. Web. 19 Oct. 2014.
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