It is observed that the carotid artery is a very small object. If you could pinch it closed with just a thought, you could shut down the blood en route to the brain. Laurel used this to kill terrorists and other undesireables, but she didn't think that what she did made any overall difference towards the goal of peace. She planned to destroy major religious sites in the Middle East so that there would be nothing left there to fight over. John Simon convinced her to instead generate an earthquake that brought fertile soil to the surface of the area, which truely took away the need to fight over scarce resources.