Monday, July 03, 2006

not so green peace

A while ago I wrote an article on the massive dams planned for new smelters in Iceland, the largest assault on wild nature in all of Europe.

In researching that, I came across evidence of astonishing complicity in the matter by Greenpeace, and wrote an article about that.

In researching that piece, I found out a lot about Greenpeace that didn't tally with the image I - and it seems most others - have of them.

Whilst Greenpeace trade on an image of daring direct action to confront governments and corporations that despoil the environment, much of what they do has the opposite effect. I readily admit and indeed admire the vast amount of great work they have done and continue to do, but there is also a seriously counterproductive corporate side to them.

Run by directors whose career paths move from Greenpeace to senior positions as PR consultants for the very industries they opposed, Greenpeace strikes deals agreeing not to obstruct oil companies' property, and instead to strengthen the hand of Europe’s largest industrial CO2 emitter.

That stuff has been spliced with some writing from a recent blog post and turned into a great big newly published article called Not So Green Peace.

1 comment:

rhythmicginger said...

Sweet jiminy Jesus!

Who woulda thunk it? Greenpeace taken over by corporate scumfucks. It seems to be that that in any situation where some folks are "the bosses" and other folks are "underneath" them, there's bound to be trouble.

Liked your nail on the head description of contemporary capitalism by the way. Economic growth equals accelerated consumption of resources. Resources are finite. Therefore capitalism doesn't work. Pretty simple when it's spelled out for ya, huh?

Adam