Conference season is winding down as the holidays begin, and I have had the pleasure of attending several industry meetings this fall, including our own Midstream Texas conference in San Antonio and DUG Midcontinent session in Oklahoma City. All occurred while the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline continued—sometimes violently with flying bullets, torched cars and tear gas. The latest news is the Army Corps of Engineers will remove the camp of the protesters—but not by force.

I heard a common question among industry leaders: What on earth is happening?

Midstream executives show real concern over Dakota Access, which on its merits is a very worthy project. All this follows the Keystone XL fiasco and continuing protests, sit-ins, lawsuits and delays connected to several East Coast projects that would serve Marcellus and Utica producers and benefit regional consumers.

Here’s what’s happening: The extreme environmental movement has figured out the best way to break the oil and gas value chain—from seismic acquisition to gas pump and burner tip— is to disrupt the link between that chain’s two ends. That is the midstream. You are the target. If producers can’t move production— and refiners, petrochemical producers and local distribution companies can’t get supply—everything in the entire industry stops.

Finding and breaking your opponent’s weakest link is a common strategy. The Allies bombed Nazi ball bearing plants in the 1940s. The English burned Spain’s barrel makers before the Spanish Armada sailed in the 1580s. It works.

A frequent response I heard in conference discussions was that, well, we just need to tell the public the facts, and then we will have the support we need. No, you won’t. The radical environmental movement uses fear, and it progresses by emotion—not well-reasoned facts. The industry needs to show some emotion of its own if it wants to win. That may be tough for an industry led by well-reasoned engineers, lawyers and accountants who by their nature think logically.

So what kind of emotion should we stoke? Show the public how important oil and gas are to everyday life. A Midstream PA conference attendee relayed one of the best examples I have heard, an anecdote from when he confronted a protester bitterly opposed to Sunoco’s Mariner East project, which moves ethane and other NGL. The opponent’s arguments were all about fear: Ethane is dangerous! Pipelines blow up and kill people! We can’t risk it!

Noticing the protestor’s polyester jump suit, the midstream executive replied: “Do you know you are wearing ethane?”

Do what?

Yes, ethane is a feedstock for polyethylene terephthalate, used to make the fabric you’re wearing. From there, the brief educational session went on to outline how gas liquids provide all kinds of plastics and synthetic materials, from shoes to shampoo bottles. Hydrocarbons are not just fuels. Without oil and gas, there is no way we could sustain our lifestyle, no matter how many windmills or solar panels we make. Society would fundamentally change.

That argument converted at least one protestor, and there are other sound, but emotional, topics to cover: economic growth, jobs, lifestyle, etc. We need to think like the emotional opposition if we want to defeat them.

Protests and how to respond to them will be a topic once again at Hart Energy’s upcoming Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conference and Exhibition, set for January 24-26, 2017, at Pittsburgh’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center. I hope you will have the opportunity to join me there.

Meanwhile, please note that our annual NGL rankings feature in the September/October issue of Midstream Business inadvertently was provided with some incorrect data for the gas processor section. After corrections, DCP Midstream retained its top ranking for 2015. We regret the error.