I had a conversation a couple of months ago with the principal of an engineering firm that does lots of work in the Haynesville Shale in NW Louisiana. His crew also doing some work in Pennsylvania in the Marcellus Shale. I asked him about the tree huggers, etc. and how much of a problem they really were.
His comment was that once the royalty checks began to flow to landowners and local governments, that the racket from the enviros tended to abate.
Capitalism is the only thing to silence the muggers.