After the gathering at Standing Rock, legislators across the United States passed laws in the name of “protecting critical infrastructure,” especially pipelines. 

At the same time, attacks on the electrical grid have increased almost 300%. But that threat isn’t coming from environmental activists. 

It’s coming from neo-Nazis. 

This is the second episode in our series examining the landscape of environmental protest in the United States, from Standing Rock to Cop City and beyond. Listen to the first episode here.

As the space for protest in the United States shrinks, this year marked a major escalation: the first police killing of an environmental protestor in the United States, plus the arrests of dozens of people at protests under the charge of domestic terrorism. 

Featuring Naomi Dix, Lauren Mathers, Jon Wellinghoff, Will Potter, Hannah Gais, Alex Amend, Aurielle Marie, and Madeline Thigpen.

Special thanks to Micah Herskind, Mike German, Yessenia Funes, Clark White. 

SUPPORT

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Submit a question to the Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

LINKS

Further reading on the ideology of far-right accelerationism by Alex Amend 

Hannah Gais’ reporting on Atomwaffen and the planned Baltimore grid attack 

Check out this excellent explainer on Cop City in Scalawag Magazine, written by Micah Herskind.

Read “The Forest for the Trees” in The Bitter Southerner, a profile of life in the “forest defender” camp in the Weelaunee Forest. It includes a conversation with the late Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, better known at Tortuguita.

More than 60 human rights and environmental organizations signed this letter condemning the domestic terrorism charges in Atlanta, Georgia.

Unicorn Riot’s livestream of the police action at the concert.

Two activists face felony charges for distributing flyers which identified a police officer linked to Tortuguita’s killing.

Plus, leaders of a bail fund were arrested on charges of charity fraud for their support of the people recently charged with domestic terrorism – as the Atlanta Press Collective reports, the history of bail funds in the United States goes back to the Civil Rights movement.

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Justine Paradis 

Mixed by Justine Paradis and Taylor Quimby

Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Jack Rodolico, Rebecca Lavoie, Felix Poon, Jessica Hunt, Jeongyoon Han, and Nate Hegyi

Executive producer: Rebecca Lavoie

Music came from Blue Dot Sessions, Autohacker, Blacksona, The Big Let Down, and Hatamitsunami. 

Audio of the events after the concert in the South River Forest was recorded in a livestream by Unicorn Riot and shared under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.