It was reported that Briana Waters wept when a federal jury found her guilty of two counts of arson on Thursday. What a surprisingly rational reaction from a person who was on trial in the first place for incredibly irrational behavior.

Waters is a 32-year-old violin teacher, but she was a member of the ecoterrorist organization Earth Liberation Front in 2001 when she acted as a lookout while the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture was set on fire. Now she’ll spend between five and 20 years in prison.

ELF was in the news again recently because it is thought to be responsible for the torching of five luxury homes this week in Woodinville, Wash. Three of the houses were destroyed and two heavily damaged, all to the tune of an estimated $7 million. The justification? The pricey, spacious homes and the development were not green, according to a crudely worded sheet that was found at the scene and included the initials ELF.

In 2001, when ELF claimed responsibility for the $3 million UW fire, plus a simultaneous one at an Oregon tree farm, the rationalization was that researchers were allegedly working on genetically engineered trees that might be released into the environment.

To call ELF’s actions extremism would be unfair to self-respecting extremists. These are radicals. Or, as UW researcher Toby Bradshaw put it when his office and work were singled out for the 2001 attack, “These people are maliciously ignorant.”

Ignorant and active. Since the late ‘90s, numerous incidents of arson and sabotage have been attributed to ELF against a range of targets frequently including timber businesses, luxury homes and sport utility vehicles.

At the same time this anarchist delinquency is going on, causing more environmental damage than it discourages, legitimate environmentalists are using more traditional methods to promote green building practices and ecologically sound public policy.

In Olympia this year, a coalition of environmental interests have worked within the system, building legislative support for a package of measures meant to promote green building and establish other practices that will reduce greenhouse gases. In a short session crimped by troubling economic news, they didn’t get all the funding they were hoping for, but they won enough philosophical buy-in to pass important legislation.

“We made great strides, and we’ll definitely be regrouping next year,” said Kitty Klitzke, Eastern Washington field coordinator for Futurewise.

That is the way progress is made when support is needed for important public policy initiatives.

Thuggery is not. It does more to set a cause back than to advance it. It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye. Ask Briana Waters.