Peaceful actions also harm people. Any transition to clean energy harms at least some people (for example executives and share holders of oil companies). The more important question is if the benefit outweighs the harm, and if the harm stays below some threshold of "unjustifiable harm".
I don't see how infrastructure is somehow special in this.
To that end, the obvious answer to the person in that opening ceremony is "if people had further picture of the impact" [1].
Justice is in the eye of the beholder. The way they can make people sympathize with their intents of sabotage is by providing a justification, and enabling people to provide themselves one of their own. Otherwise, people will work with what they have, and what they have is mostly just their moral standards.
Evidently, the thread starter's moral standards do not condone this. Mine don't either. The way one can change this is by providing more information that would enable us to change our minds. This isn't really what's happening so far (although neither sides are communicating in a way that would make an open ended discussion of this super viable).
[1] and have that picture be such that it supports their conclusion. Note how this doesn't mean that picture must be:
- truthful
- balanced
- reasonable
And provided all parties are aware of this, they'll be more critical and suspecting of the other. For good reasons, I'd say.
It is a bit reductionist, but so is "don't harm infrastructure". Infrastructure can be harmful, just like anything else.
And in the end most criticisms about consequentialism are either about how to retroactively declare something moral or immoral (which is irrelevant for deciding the best path now without future knowledge) or are qualms with one particular way of weighing harm vs benefit. I'm perfectly fine with considering third order effects in the calculation, and an action that saves a life but errodes society is not necessarily "good" since the ultimate harm may outweigh the benefit. In fact it's this very kind of reasoning about higher-order-effects that would lead you to the conclusion that sabotage could be justified in some cases
I don't see how infrastructure is somehow special in this.