Who threatens us most – peaceful campaigners or a private militia run by police chiefs? This is what the head of a police unit set up to monitor domestic extremism said in 2009. “I’ve never said – and we don’t see – that any environmentalist is going to or has committed any violent acts.” That chimes with my experience. Two years ago I searched all the literature I could lay hands on, and couldn’t find a single proven instance of a planned attempt in the UK to harm people in the cause of defending the environment. (That’s in sharp contrast to animal rights campaigning, where there has been plenty of violence). No one has yet produced a factual challenge to that conclusion. Yet every year a shadowy body spends most of its £5m budget on countering a non-existent threat that officers call eco-terrorism.
See http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2011/01/17/the-real-domestic-extremists/.