The 12 leverage points were proposed by Donella Meadows, a scientist and system analyst focused on environmental limits to economic growth. The leverage points, first published in 1997, were inspired by her attendance at a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) meeting in the early 1990s where she realized that a very large new system was being proposed but the mechanisms to manage it were ineffective.
Environmentalists have ramped up their sometimes brazen acts of civil disobedience meant to halt the practice of blowing tops off mountains to reach coal. Miners have answered with threats.