Listener supported WNYC Studios.

WNYC, as we continue with our Health and Climate Tuesday section of the show,

which will keep up at least through the first 100 days of the Trump administration,

so those issues don't get lost in the crush of other headlines.

We turn now to a court ruling last week against the Environmental Group Greenpeace over a climate-related protest.

It's a ginormous damage award that could possibly force Greenpeace to fold.

What are the implications for climate and other kinds of protest if the ruling stands?

With me for this is Michael Gerard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia University Law School.

Professor Gerard, thanks for coming on for this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Good to be with you. This was a defamation case. Can you explain the basics of what Greenpeace was protesting when and who sued them over it?

In 2016 and 2017, a company called Energy Transfer was building an oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota

and passing under a lake that was their drinking water supply.

The members of the tribe and many others were protesting.

Greenpeace played some role. They were training the protesters.

But the energy transfer company sued Greenpeace and a couple of others, saying that they had disrupted

the construction of the pipeline, that there had been vandalism, other things had happened.

And so they sued them in federal court.

That case was dismissed.

They then brought a new lawsuit in state court in North Dakota.

There was a trial, and last week, the jury awarded

$660 million against Greenpeace to energy transfer. How did the jury arrive at or approve that number?

That is not at all clear. They gave the number, but it was reputational damage to the company, delays in the construction.

...