Sneezing on Greenpeace

United Kingdom, Greenpeace self-professed "spin doctor" Ben Stewart did not like Canada Free Press’ take on a recent Greenpeace protest gone wrong.

Thirty-five Greenpeace activists, likely expected no trouble when they decided to storm the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London last week.

With long ago studied stealth, they slipped into a closing door and then charged onto the trading floor, blowing ear-piercing whistles and sounding doleful foghorns.

Rudely disturbed from their daily work and initially taken by surprise, traders, most of them below 25 years old, decided to rush the loud and boisterous protesters. Using anything close at hand, they piled turned over filing cabinets on top of the Greenpeacers, kicking and pummeling them before finally forcing them into retreat.

When it was all over, the traders had put up such a passionate resistance that two Greenpeacers actually had to be hospitalized, one with a broken jaw, the other with concussion.

"The vision of young co-ed types taking on aging Greenpeace activists with graying ponytails is something the environmental lobby’s spin doctors will have to work at," wrote CFP in a last week cover story.

Noting that Greenpeace has become increasingly corporate, CFP suggested that the world’s largest environmental lobby group should change its ways and get back to saving the whales.

But broken jaws and concussion won’t stop Greenpeace, which we hear does not insure its activists in the event of physical injury.

"Why change our ways?" wrote Stewart in a CFP letter to the editor. "We stopped global oil trading for an hour, got our message out that Kyoto doesn’t go far enough, got tonnes (sic) of free media, in which we called on companies like Exxon to stop blocking action. . . . .

Here's an interesting website by one of the original founders of Greenpeace who came to the realization that the politics of blame and shame must be replaced with the politics of working together and win-win.

PROFILE: Patrick Moore, Ph.D.
Dr. Patrick Moore has been a leader in the international environmental field for over 30 years. He is a founding member of Greenpeace and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International. As the leader of many campaigns Dr. Moore was a driving force shaping policy and direction while Greenpeace became the world's largest environmental activist organization.

-snip-
It was during my university years that I suddenly realized there was more to life than logic and materialism. I discovered ecology and realized this branch of science was unique. Through ecology it was possible to link rational thought with spiritual wonder, to consider the infinite webs and cycles of life with new eyes. Ecology is holistic as in holy yet it is rooted in objective science and observation. I decided it was a good idea to "save" the earth from nuclear war and pollution. I was reborn as a radical environmental activist. Greenpeace began and I began with it.

We sailed the seas saving whales, protesting nuclear testing and nuclear dumping, halting supertankers, saving baby seals, preventing toxic waste discharge and interfering with drift-nets. They were heady times with countless moments of excitement, danger, frustration and victory. Looking back it is hard to believe we accomplished so much, as we raised public awareness about all things environmental. They were the best years of my life (except for all the others).

Fifteen years of Greenpeace campaigns later I had some new insights. It was time to switch from confrontation to consensus, time to stop fighting and start talking with the people in charge. I became a convert to the idea of sustainable development and the need to consider social and economic issues along with my environmental values. I adopted the round table, consensus approach as the logical next step in the evolution of the movement for sustainability.

Little did I realize at the time how this would bring me into open and direct conflict with the movement I had helped bring into the world. I now find that many environmental groups have drifted into self-serving cliques with narrow vision and rigid ideology. At the same time that business and government are embracing public participation and inclusiveness, many environmentalists are showing signs of elitism, left-wingism, and downright eco-fascism. The once politically centrist, science-based vision of environmentalism has been largely replaced with extremist rhetoric. Science and logic have been abandoned and the movement is often used to promote other causes such as class struggle and anti-corporatism. The public is left trying to figure out what is reasonable and what is not.

For more detail see: Hard Choices for the Environmental Movement http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues/the_log.cfm?booknum=12

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.