The "ecoterrorist" option is just ridiculous, the methane leak is disaster for the climate.
It means that they want to terrorize polluters, regardless of the consequences.
Ecology activist organizations are funded by donations, which would dry up completely at the instant they are proven to be involved in such a disastrous leak.
And in all honesty, between renewables and nuclear (fission), renewables are clearly a better investment.
Or do you have examples of what you call "eco-terrorist" organisations?
A quick skim of the wikipedia article on eco-terrorism shows this is false.
"Arson is a tactic most associated with recent activity in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). The ELF has been attributed with arsons of sites such as housing developments, SUV dealerships, and chain stores."
Looking at the the wikipedia page for ELF, it doesn't look like they're the type of organization that's a registered charity and runs donation drives
Further down the article also mentions
"Organizations accused of eco-terrorism are generally grassroots organizations, do not have a hierarchal structure, and typically favor direct action approaches to their goals"
which seems consistent with the characterization that they're not the types of organizations that are registered charities and rely on their national reputation to get funding.
A car dealer can be set on fire by a single individual, and even one in a situation of extreme poverty.
> A quick skim of the wikipedia article on eco-terrorism shows this is false.
False yourself. Have you skipped the word CURRENTLY?
Moreover, about
> grassroots organisations
Do you intend to mean that such grassroots orgs would not need PR nor donations?
Then no because grassroots organisations that would not raise donations do not have enough funds to blow a deepsea pipeline.
> The ELF has been attributed with arsons of sites such as housing developments, SUV dealerships, and chain stores.
Yeah right, you see the difference between chain store arson and blowing a deep-sea pipeline now that I'm pointing it to you?
We're not saying that this was ecoterrorism. We're just pointing out that "it's bad for the environment" isn't an argument wherever this was done by eco terrorists.
It remains unlikely, mainly for the original point given. Regardless wherever it's bad for the environment or not, they would've claimed responsibility by now.
In short, rich people and large team = impossible to sustain such a cognitive dissonance.
>Yeah right, you see the difference between chain store arson and blowing a deep-sea pipeline now that I'm pointing it to you?
The reasonable conclusion to draw from that would be "this pipeline explosion wasn't caused by eco-terrorists because eco-terrorists aren't radical enough to bomb gas pipelines", not "it wasn't caused by eco-terrorists can only be funded by public donations and they don't want to piss off their donor base".
>Do you intend to mean that such grassroots orgs would not need PR nor donations?
1. Al-Qaeda has PR (think grainy videos, not slick NY PR firm) and received donations[1], but I wouldn't characterize them as the same type of organization as greenpeace or whatever.
2. during ELF's existence, do you think they operated like a regular charity?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#Financing
>Then no because grassroots organisations that would not raise donations do not have enough funds to blow a deepsea pipeline.
The wikipedia article also mentions someone being able to procure a RPG-7 from some sort of terrorist organization to launch at a nuclear power plant. Given that it doesn't seem too implausible that a group can acquire a boat and some depth charges without having to run a nationwide fundraising campaign.
Moreover they would need a large team to prepare and execute the op.
No-one on the team would say like "hu? isn't it a bit destroying that what we are fighting for?". Don't you think at least a dozen of potential whistleblowers would pop up into existence and the whole project aborted?
So, no, my verdict is that all of that is so unlikely. I'm trying very hard to not say ridiculous but... oops.
I'm sure the Russian population does not think like that, but it's not as if they had their say...
edit: That wasn't meant to be derogatory. AFAIK large parts of that land will be swamp and mud if the permafrost thaws up. Even now there are large parts with no streets or railways, reachable only by treks over frozen rivers during winter, by sea if coastal, or air. And the infrastructures built on permafrost will suffer too, if it thaws up.
The same way as large parts of Alaska and Canada are.
No, because if the pipeline is not used, there is an incentive to slow down methane extraction and transport on the Russian side.
But if they can send it in the pipe and make it leak to piss the EU countries off, on the other hand...
> If anything, methane is a bit better than CO2 in the long run.
Hmm... I wonder where you read that because actually it's the contrary: https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane
After degradation, the methane is transformed in the exact same CO2 it would have become if someone had burnt it, thus it still the same long term pita in addition to the short term headache it creates.