Radical environmentalism in an age of antiterrorism Steve Vanderheiden* Department of Political Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA This paper examines how antiterrorist laws and rhetoric have targeted the radical environmentalist tactic of ecotage, directing the increased law enforcement powers of the US ‘war on terror’ against this form of resistance and conflating in the public mind a tactic that inflicts only property damage with one that aims its violence against innocent persons. Despite significant differences between ‘eco-terrorism’ and genuine terror- ism, this association threatens to undermine the public case for environ- mental protection upon which direct action tactics rely, creating a strategic dilemma for radical environmentalists. Should they continue to endorse ecotage as a viable tactic in defence of nature? Might they face a backlash if attacks upon property engender violence against persons? Can radical environmentalism dissociate itself from terrorism without diminishing the movement’s appeal or compromising its radicalism? On the other hand, is ecotage publicly defensible, can the principled distinction between harm to property and harm to persons be maintained in practice, and should radical environmentalists concern themselves with making such a defence? This chapter considers that strategic dilemma along with the underlying normative issues that it involves, ultimately arguing for the importance of principles in theory and practice while acknowledging various difficulties in maintaining them. The term ‘eco-terrorism’ has entered the public lexicon at a convenient time for those brandishing it as a legal and rhetorical weapon against their adversaries, but at a most inconvenient one for those against whom it is used. Coined and championed by anti-environmental activists with a keen sense for the propagandistic power of language and fervently received by legislators sympathetic to their deregulatory agenda, the term invites an association between terrorism and radical environmentalism, planting the spectre of another group of fanatics and mass murderers out to destroy ‘our’ way of life in the public mind. In obscuring the moral distinctions between ecologically *Email: steven.vanderheiden@colorado.edu Environmental Politics Vol. 17, No. 2, April 2008, 299–318 ISSN 0964-4016 print/ISSN 1743-8934 online Ó 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09644010801936248 http://www.informaworld.com Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 12:33 25 May 2012