Should Protesters Compensate UBS? And Who Should UBS Compensate For Mountaintop Removal?

This is a little follow-up story on a protest that some folks concerned about mountaintop mining performed in Stamford, Connecticut a while back. During the protest some protesters commandeered a construction crane and unfurled a large banner that voiced the demand that UBS, a Swiss-based financial company that has financed a great deal of mountaintop removal, stop its unsavory business practice.

            Now get this. Prosecutors are continuing the cases of some of the protesters, 14 in all, for another three weeks so that the prosecutors have the time to tally how much the protest may have cost local businesses.

            Yes, I imagine that the disruption from the protest may have inconvenienced a number of folks and their businesses. Shoppers may have been kept out of stores; diners may have avoided restaurants; and offices of other businesses may have had trouble keeping their workers on task.

            But isn’t there a little bit of bizarro world going on here? The prosecutors are tallying up the dollars lost to business so as to figure out how much the protesters might be charged with restitution, to pay the businesses for their lost business. In a larger sense, however, shouldn’t UBS be required to pay restitution? Shouldn’t this huge company that makes millions off of financing mountaintop removal be required to offer restitution to Appalachian residents for spoiled wells? Shouldn’t the bank be required to compensate the miners who have lost their jobs to the heavy machinery and high explosives that have taken their jobs away? Shouldn’t UBS be required to pay the medical bills of the West Virginians and Kentuckians who have developed kidney disease and cancers from living in the presence of a mountaintop mine? How about the lives that have been burdened by the depression that comes from living close to a mountaintop mining operation, shouldn’t UBS be required to pay for these folks’ antidepressants and medical bills? And what about the lives cut short? Shouldn’t UBS compensate the families of the deceased?

            As I said, bizarro world.

Should UBS be responsible for this?