THREAT ASSESSMENTS AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

Recent claims that Radical Environmentalists are becoming increasingly likely to deploy weapons of mass death are characterized by a selective reading of the facts, a failure to apprehend significant differences among radical groups, and injudicious speculation. A more careful analysis of the likelihood of violence emerging from radical environmentalist, animal rights, and green anarchist groups requires an analysis of the differences that characterize these groups as well as their intersections. Such an analysis suggests that among these three groups, only green anarchism can provide a possible ideological rationale for the use of weapons of mass death, but even in this case, there are many reasons to doubt they will utilize such tactics.