Bishop Hill Green, peaceful?
I have an article up at the Spectator Coffee House blog about Greenpeace and its recent travails:
For the best part of half a century Greenpeace’s constant campaigning on environmental issues has been an almost unmitigated success. Its effectiveness has brought it both astonishing wealth and almost unimpeded access to decision-makers. During this time, it has had what amounts to a free pass from the media, its claims and methods rarely questioned by credulous environmental correspondents.
But are the wheels finally coming off? Looking back over the last few years it’s easy to get that impression: an organisation that once seemed untouchable has found itself having to answer some very sharp questions about the way it behaves and operates.
Reader Comments (36)
Gene 'We know where you live' didn't exactly help himself, when his twitter feed said he carried a knife...
(Greenpeace Gene was a communications director for Greenpeace , last seen jetting off to a beach in Thailand)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/apr/06/greenpeace-gene-hashmi-climate-sceptics
"Threatening climate sceptics and warning Twitter followers you are armed with a knife are not smart moves from Greenpeace India's communications director, Gene Hashmi" - Leo Hickman
Perhaps a mention of the views of Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore would be beneficial.
"Are the wheels coming off"? Well, even the BBC ran a program last night on R4 about Mark Lynas, once a trasher of GM food trials, now a "supporter" of GM. Of course, the Beeb only allowed him to speak because he is still a Planet Saving Climate Change Zombie.
Greenpeace are terrorists and should be treated as such by the establishment, India has the right idea!
Another fine article Bish to go with your excellent piece for the GWPF.
Well our PM's wife is a member of Greenpeace they say or is that just a rumour?
Well her daddy is still getting his reputed £1k per day off his windmills.
We truly are stuffed. Cheer me up someone - please.
"Andrew Montford writes extensively on global warming at Bishop Hill ..."
... or the absence thereof.
Excellent article. There is lots more you could have written concerning their illegal, terrorist-type actions. See 150 Greenpeace volunteers occupy Sizewell B nuclear power station and Sizewell B - terrorism and risks
They bully, cajole, shout down, intimidate, instil fear, all the great traits of the National Socialists, & Communists. As said the other day, can't wait to hear about some poor sod being dragged around the back alley for a good kic....... err sorry I meant some re-education & enlightenment!
You may need to wait a while. At the moment they are focused on rolling back the industrial revolution to the time before fossil fuels were first employed. Banning the wheel will take a bit longer and is probably further down their list.
Re: Phillip Bratby
They reward those who get convicted for the cause with directorships and by making them trustees.
In Andrew McParland's case they rewarded him with directorships of Greenpeace UK Ltd and Greenpeace Ltd just nine months after this conviction. In December last year they made him a trustee of Greenpeace Environmental Trust
What role would they have if they found the scare wasn't scary? Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. They need to be credulous.
Greenpeace know that and so use environmental correspondents.
They never speak through science correspondents or economic correspondents
And these mutually self-serving deceptions started long before Brent Spar.
Acid Rain was their first apocalypse away from the sea. Saving the Seas was the original point of Greenpeace - it's why they built a navy.
Remember they were "Save the Whales" and "Stop Nuclear Testing".
Both got international treaties (Success) so they should have wound up then.
But they had got to like the cash by then..
I maintain that the name Greenpiss is much more appropriate for what they stand for....
GP has slick PR : Does the powerful multinational multimillion-dollar eco-lobbying org have any connection with the BigGreen PR agency ? co-founded by Solitaire Townsend
On Google there are 155,000 results for the search term : Greenpeace FuterraAs Eric Hoffer once said "“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket”.
And this is why donor lists must remain secret!
Mailman
Societal guilt teams up with our utopian fantasies way too often. The environmental movement is a fine example. For some reason, as a nation we are racked with guilt for past crimes and it’s a disease we’ve exported. From the slave trade to pollution, we wallow in the mea culpas, even though many of the mistakes that happened in the past were just the growing pains of emergent cultures. We dream of unspoilt nature but in reality we seek the man made environments we're familiar with. We like our green spaces manicured but feel shame about it in moments of nostalgia.
Greenpeace et al play on that ambivalence. They use collective guilt to blackmail us, supposedly to save what's left of the natural world but in reality they use it to interfere in all walks of life. But what exactly have they achieved that growing enlightenment couldn’t have spawned anyway?
Why do government ministers feel the need for Greenpeace to advise them? Don’t those ministers feel strongly enough about those issues already that they need a booster from a clearly biased and increasingly radical organisation? If (as some feel) it’s necessary for the planet to have a voice at policy meetings then why not someone representing the balance – no not fossil fuel companies, consumers. Us plebs, who want such hideous things as food, heating, homes, possessions and some financial comfort?
Who speaks for those who don’t wish the world any harm but don’t want to be phased out either? Other than very good people like the Bish, of course.
Dellers gives the excellent article good coverage Greenpeace has jumped the whale
What a lot of people don't know is that in 2013 Greenpeace Donations amounted to approximately £52 Million, the Conservative Party meanwhile received £16 million, Labour not far behind and the totals received by all political parties amounted to £44 million?
Greenpeace use most of its funds for campaigning i.e they do very little to benefit anyone or anything. Campaigning by them is just another euphemism for urinating it all up against the wall.
My view for what its worth is that Greenpeace and the rest of the scals are vulnerable when their accounts and salaries are scrutinised.
Hey I never noticed the spell checker berofe :-) However it's american english :-( Cant have everything?
Greenpeace being held to account. Sorry Bish, but can't agree.
Their taxpayer funding has not stopped
They still get an almost Free Pass from politicians and the media
They extort money from business, by threatening adverse publicity
They get access to government ministers and civil servants
They subvert democratic processes, when they deem it necessary
They subvert legal processes, when they deem it necessary
They are quick to squeal "fascist" etc if anyone else deems their behaviour unneccessary
If UK and other Governments declared themselves "Greenpeace Free Zones", free from funding them, and free of their influence, the world would become a better place.
Greenpeace are just one of dozens if not hundreds of interfering, bossy-boots, vested-interest promoting NGO's. They are a collective scourge of UK government, stuffed full of left-leaning types all too willing to subvert democracy and exert influence on delivering their preferred world view.
That bonfire of the quangos Dave promised is badly needed.
Good article, I thought. Rational and restrained, unlike its subject. I found Greenpeace inspiring when they started and I was an idealistic youngster, but they have no real purpose any more, so they have become more and more extreme, trying to justify their existence, and intolerant as well. Any intelligent government wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.
Don't forget that Greenpeace leaped on the documents stolen by Peter Gleick from the Heartland institute and used them to try and get University employees, paid paltry sums (on contract) to write summaries of peer-reviewed science for the NIPCC document, fired for "conflict of interest."
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/mar/05/professor-details-role-as-climate-consultant/
It didn't work, but not for lack of trying. And rather backfired, I think, for it must have left at least some university upper management folks wide-eyed that Greenpeace would do such a thing.
Anne Glover wasn't so lucky but probably because she was a bigger fish and warranted a better, bigger effort.
cheshirered
I hadn't looked for a while and well... what my least favorite (eco) quango has been getting up to is simply amazing.
When austerity bites whaddya do? have a good splurge and help yourself....
As for Green Peas and their ilk: when they start doing something constructive, for the benefit of humans as well as “the environment” (though quite what they mean by that has to be left open to question), rather than just disrupting and damaging other peoples’ businesses, pleasures and concerns for their own, personal guilt-trip and kudos, then – and only then – they might be worth a thought.
Well said. Hope this gets broader media coverage.
Good work, as ever!
I've just come across this bunch of nutters: http://www.capefarewell.com/ - partly funded by Greenpeice, along with many more of the usual suspects: http://www.capefarewell.com/who-we-are/partners-and-sponsors.html
Can anyone tell me what a "marine social ecologist" does? http://www.capefarewell.com/2011expedition/crew/ruth-brennan/
steveta, I think marine social ecologists, are like marine ecologists, who are social with each, and cross pollinate ideas and other stuff, because no one else is interested. This is also of benefit, for those not sure where Marine is, as it is not on the London Underground Map.
Radical Rodent:
In yankinese, it's "burglarized" - like Liza, with a "zee". In fact, it's probably burgerlerized with a Big Mac.
When they misbehave, we criticize them for it. It doesn't need to be easy. It just needs to be possible and it is, so I accept the situation as fair enough.
I remember being taken aback* when the French Secret Service were fingered for sinking the 'Rainbow Warrior' in Auckland Harbour 30 years ago. I never thought then that I would end up applauding them!
*Forgive me - I believed their propaganda in those days.
Why not call them what they are? Gang Green.
Good article, Bish. Well done.
They have really got it sussed with the media.
Any issue that involves hydrocarbons, the BBC et al give some garbled misinterpretation then go straight to some Green know-nothing for an extended comment. Independent media do it too: last night STV managed to squeeze ("controversial") Brent Spar into a report about decommissioning of the Brent platforms without mentioning Greenpeace's dishonesty and the negative environmental outcome they forced. Then they went to a WWF representative for a comment. WWF? - I was shouting WTF? Wife told me to calm down.
It doesn’t add up…: okay. But it still irritates me; burglars burgle. Do their teachers “teacherize”, their swimmers “swimmerize” and their builders “builderize”? This is one problem with abandoning teaching the classics (i.e. Latin and Greek); the roots of the words get lost, so the meanings of the words get lost, too.
@3:28 Susan Crockford
Thanks for the link. I had missed that story.