Environmental activists engaged in illegal behavior such as blocking trains lost an argument in Washington Superior Court that such actions are justified as necessary to prevent the greater harm of climate change. ( A Washington District Court had granted this motion.)

The Superior court revised the earlier decision saying the defendant had failed to meet the burden of establishing the lack of reasonable alternative to the charged criminal acts. A number of environmental activists had hoped to use this defense in other cases of train obstructions, "valve turnings" at pipelines, etc.

Below is a link to the activists' website including photos of trains being delayed.
Defendant George Taylor had been arrested in Spokane County on September 23, 2016, for trespassing on property owned by BNSF Railway and for obstructing operation of a BNSF train.
- Taylor is a member of the Spokane chapter of the activist group, Veterans for Peace.
- On its public website, the group maintains an article stating that Taylor and two others – Rusty Nelson and Maevea Aeolus – “occupied the tracks in the name of climate change and the burning of fossil fuels as the main accelerant of climate change.”

Naturally we can expect this decision to be appealed.

Veterans for Peace