Last week, I attended Marshall Curry’s screening of “If a Tree Falls” at the Cornell Cinema. I had not been to the cinema before and this was a great first experience. The documentary asked more questions than it answered about whether eco-terrorism fulfills a need in our apathetic society. The film focused on the ELF, Earth Liberation Front, which recognized that peaceful protests about the environment were not effective or getting the recognition that they deserved so began to engage in eco-terrorism, burning wood companies, greenhouses believed to hold genetically modified plants, and many more.

The documentary shows the audience how the EFL was born out of desperation and also police brutality. Peaceful protesters sitting in tress to prevent them from being cut down would be violently harmed by the police to get them down. Police would cut their pants and pepper spray them, they would put pepper spray on q-tips and stick them in their eyes, they would violently beat peaceful protestors. This created a convincing argument for ELF’s inception.

Although there were times that the ELF seemed justified because they did not directly hurt any people, they still wreaked havoc and made countless people feel unsafe. The owner of a tree cutting company talked of the fear he felt after their plant was destroyed, about the alarm systems he and his sons installed in their homes. Terrorism can occur even if people are not hurt. Eco-terrorism, although it does not inculcate the same fear and repulsion in us as domestic terrorism, is just as costly. Additionally, the audience was made to question if ELF was always justified in what they destroyed.  The tree cutting company would plant six trees for every one that they cut.  Curry left it to the audience to decide if that justifies the destruction of forests.

Many of the past Becker-Rose cafés that I have attended have focused on the environment and what we as individuals and as a society should do to help save it, how we can get people to care, and what options there are. This film further complicated the issue, asking if any means are justified in creating the awareness that is so critical to the campaign against global warming.