On March 19, a jury in the fossil fuel–producing state of North Dakota ordered the environmental group Greenpeace to pay a staggering $660 million for allegedly defaming Energy Transfer, the company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline — a decision that threatens to bankrupt one of the most prominent activist groups in the world. “In my six decades of legal practice, I have never witnessed a trial as unfair as the one that just ended in the courts of North Dakota,” said attorney Martin Garbus, an acclaimed free speech defender whose previous clients include Nelson Mandela, Daniel Ellsberg, and Vaclav Havel. Garbus was one of nine lawyers who monitored the trial in person after Judge James Gion refused a request from multiple news organizations to livestream the proceedings as a matter of public interest.
The ruling’s chilling effect will go well beyond Greenpeace, making the case a top-drawer concern for all of civil society — and for the media. The free speech angle remains ripe for continuing coverage, as do the case’s implications for other activist groups in the US and around the world. The ruling came amid a broader assault on freedom of expression driven by US president Donald Trump, who has sued and threatened news organizations, universities, law firms, and other civic institutions whose speech or actions he dislikes.
Garbus and the rest of the monitoring team called the trial a “deeply flawed” process studded with “multiple due process violations” that give Greenpeace a good chance of winning on appeal. “This was an illegitimate, corporate-funded SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation] harassment case … that tried to criminalize Greenpeace and by extension the entire climate movement by attacking constitutionally-protected advocacy,” the monitors added.
In September 2024, Energy Transfer denied that it aimed to stifle free speech, arguing that the case “is about [Greenpeace] not following the law.” At trial, the company claimed that Greenpeace led “a vast, malicious publicity campaign” that delayed construction of the pipeline and cost the company nearly $350 million. The company’s acrimony toward Greenpeace apparently came from the top. Its CEO, Kelcy Warren, a billionaire and Trump mega-donor, has said environmental activists should be “removed from the gene pool.”
Greenpeace testified that it played only a minor, supporting role in the protests against the pipeline, which it pointed out was led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Tribal chairwoman Janet Alkire confirmed that contention, saying her people “were heartened when many non-indigenous allies came to join us in opposing” the pipeline.
The Standing Rock protests, which began in 2016, attracted intense media coverage and launched a new era of climate activism led by Indigenous peoples and emphasizing social justice. US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that joining the protests inspired her to run for Congress in 2018, where she co-sponsored Green New Deal legislation calling for a just transition away from fossil fuels.
Journalists have abundant opportunities to cover the fallout from the Greenpeace verdict. What does this case mean for other activist groups and protest movements at a time when opposition to Trump and his agenda is growing — and when climate driven extreme weather is intensifying? Could the verdict affect journalists who simply cover protests? What are SLAPP suits, and why do most US states prohibit them?
Greenpeace promises to appeal the verdict to the North Dakota Supreme Court and, if necessary, the US Supreme Court. The campaign to silence dissent continues as well, and not only in the US. “Over the past five years, 81 countries have proposed at least 315 legislative initiatives that impact civil society,” reports the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law. “Of these initiatives, 85 percent have been restrictive….”
Meanwhile, the pipeline the Standing Rock Sioux disparage as “the black snake” continues to transport roughly 5% of the US’s daily oil production, worsening what scientists recently termed “a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence.”
From Us
The 89 Percent Project. On April 21, CCNow is launching a year-long initiative to shine light on the fact that a huge majority of the global population want governments to “do more” to fix climate change, which all too often is missing from the public climate discourse. We’ll kick off with a CCNow Joint Coverage Week, inviting newsrooms and journalists everywhere to join us. Learn more.
Webinar: Climate opinion maps. Join the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and CCNow on April 8 for a one-hour webinar on how journalists can use the Yale Climate Opinion Maps. Panelists will include Yale’s Jennifer Marlon, CBS News’s Tracy Wholf, NBC News’s Chase Cain, and CCNow’s Mark Hertsgaard. Anthony Leiserowitz, founder and director of YPCCC, will moderate. Learn more and register.
Charla CCNow: el cambio climático en América Latina. América Latina es responsable de menos del 10% de las emisiones globales de gases de efecto invernadero y, sin embargo, sus 660 millones de habitantes — más del 80% en zonas urbanas — están en la primera línea de los impactos del cambio climático. En una charla de CCNow, tres periodistas latinoamericanos conversaron sobre cómo cubrir el cambio climático en América Latina y en Estados Unidos para audiencias hispanohablantes. Puedes ver la grabación aquí.
Locally Sourced newsletter. The latest edition of our biweekly newsletter for local journalists looks into climate migration, including the many factors causing people in communities worldwide to ask, “Should I pack up and leave?” Check out the Locally Sourced archive and sign up to get it every other Tuesday.
Noteworthy Stories
One in four days. There were 90 “major disaster” declarations in the US in 2024, nearly double the yearly average over the past three decades of 55, according to new research that comes at a time when the Trump administration is taking a sledgehammer to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The disasters occurred in locations affecting 41% of the country’s population, about 137 million people. By Lauren Kent and Ella Nilsen for CNN…
Rainforest frontier. The Amazon has emerged as a “new frontier” for the fossil fuel industry, containing one-fifth of recent oil and natural gas discoveries worldwide — never mind that five decades of exploitation by the industry have already brought rampant deforestation, pollution, economic inequality, and more. An extensive multimedia package explores the cumulative impacts of fossil fuel exploration on the Amazon and the enormous capacity for damage yet to be inflected. By Flávia Milhorance and Renata Hirota for InfoAmazonia…
The “rights of nature.” In most countries, legal rights are the highest protection governments afford to any entity, human or non-human. A growing international movement, known as “rights of nature,” is seeking to “[advance] the understanding that ecosystems, wildlife and the Earth are living beings with inherent rights to exist, evolve, and regenerate.” By Katie Surma for Inside Climate News…
The cold truth. As far as Wall Street is concerned, the Paris Agreement is “effectively dead,” and investors should act accordingly. Indeed, recent reports from top banks anticipate the US will fail to meet its climate goals — making some green investments risky bets, while also, grimly, indicating a promising future for the air conditioning industry, which could grow 41% by the end of this decade. “We now expect a 3 [degrees Celsius] world,” read a March analysis from Morgan Stanley. By Oliver Milman for The Guardian…
East Asia ablaze. Analysis shows climate change helped fuel wildfires that broke out last week in parts of southern Japan and southeastern South Korea. In Japan’s Iwate Prefecture, one such wildfire — the country’s worst in half a century — broke out immediately on the heels of record snowfall in the prefecture that same month. One expert said, “Climate change isn’t just warming the planet, it is amplifying extremes of different nature, fueling disasters from both fire and ice in the region.” By Tomoko Otake for The Japan Times…
Quote of the Week
“I began to see journalism as a public good, like national defense or clean air.”
– John Thornton, founder of The Texas Tribune and co-founder of the American Journalism Project, who died this week at 59
Resources, Events, Etc.
Atlas of Accountability. “Between 2011 and 2024, 99.5% of [US] congressional districts experienced at least one federally declared major disaster due to extreme weather,” according to the New York University–affiliated group Rebuild by Design. Rebuild is out with a new tool that “maps federal major disaster declarations and federal post-disaster assistance obligations for every county in the US.”
Extreme weather risk tool. A tool developed by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency to chart local climate impacts and risk nationwide — deployed in the twilight days of the Biden administration — was deleted in February by the Trump administration. The Guardian has helped rebuild the tool, complete with “county-by-county information on projected annual losses this century from threats including extreme heat, coastal flooding, wildfires, hurricanes and drought,” as well as “an overall risk rating [for each county], which ranked how vulnerable its particular population is to climate shocks.” Story on the tool’s rebuild by Oliver Milman and Andrew Witherspoon.
The ‘My Climate Story’ project. On April 10, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication; the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media; and the High Meadows Environmental Institute will host “20 of the best climate storytellers from around the world,” sharing “climate stories and reflections on the practice of climate storytelling by presenters of all ages and stages.” Learn more and register.
Jobs, Opportunities, Etc.
National & large outlets. Columbia Journalism Review is hiring a senior editor (New York). Gizmodo is hiring a science reporter (hybrid, New York).
Local & smaller outlets. The Raleigh News & Observer is hiring a climate and environment reporter. The Virginia Mercury, part of States Newsroom, is hiring an energy and environment reporter (Richmond). InvestigateWest is hiring an investigations editor (Washington, Oregon, or Idaho; apply by April 22). The Cleveland Plain Dealer is hiring a weather reporter. The Fresno Bee is hiring a Latino communities reporter and a city/county government reporter. Wisconsin Watch is hiring a “pathways to success” reporter, to cover postsecondary education and workforce training (northeast Wisconsin).
Applications are open for the NYU Stern Climate Economics Journalism Fellowship, which, for two days in September, “will bring a group of journalists to NYU Stern’s Greenwich Village campus to learn from globally recognized experts in the emerging field of climate economics … [and] discuss the fundamental factors and latest trends in climate economics and finance.” Apply by April 20. Learn more.
Apartment Therapy is accepting pitches for an upcoming series on “how homeownership and renting have changed in a world more prone to extreme, deadly, and damaging climate events.” The call is for “personal, but data-driven, stories from people who live in an area, or have bought a home, that’s been affected by climate change.” The deadline is April 11, but act fast, as Apartment Therapy is only accepting 100 pitches. Learn more.
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