Greenpeace

Greenpeace

This article is about the international environmental organization. For other uses, see Greenpeace (disambiguation).

Greenpeace is a non-governmental[2] environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.[3] Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity"[4] and focuses its campaigning on world wide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, lobbying and research to achieve its goals. The global organization does not accept funding from governments, corporations or political parties, relying on 2.9 million individual supporters and foundation grants.[5][6] Greenpeace has a general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council[7]and is a founding member[8] of the INGO Accountability Charter; an international non-governmental organization that intends to foster accountability and transparency of non-governmental organizations.

Greenpeace is known for its direct actions[9][10] and has been described as the most visible environmental organization in the world.[11][12] Greenpeace has raised environmental issues to public knowledge,[13][14][15] and influenced both the private and the public sector.[16][17] Greenpeace has also been a source of controversy;[18] its motives and methods have received criticism[19][20]and the organization's direct actions have sparked legal actions against Greenpeace activists,[21][22] such as fines and suspended sentences for destroying a test plot of GMO wheat.

History

Origins

In the late 1960s, the U.S. had plans for an underground nuclear weapon test in the tectonically unstable island of Amchitka in Alaska. Because of the 1964 Alaska earthquake, the plans raised some concerns of the test triggering earthquakes and causing a tsunami. A 1969 demonstration of 7,000[26] people blocked a major U.S.-Canadian border crossing in British Columbia, carrying signs reading "Don't Make A Wave. It's Your Fault If Our Fault Goes".[27] The protests did not stop the U.S. from detonating the bomb.[27]

While no earthquake or tsunami followed the test, the opposition grew when the U.S. announced they would detonate a bomb five times more powerful than the first one. Among the opposers were Jim Bohlen, a veteran who had served the U.S. Navy, Irving Stowe andDorothy Stowe, who had recently become Quakers. As members of the Sierra Club Canada, they were frustrated by the lack of action by the organization.[27] From Irving Stowe, Jim Bohlen learned of a form of passive resistance, "bearing witness", where objectionable activity is protested simply by mere presence.[27] Jim Bohlen's wife Marie came up with the idea to sail to Amchitka, inspired by the anti-nuclear voyages of Albert Bigelow in 1958. The idea ended up in the press and was linked to The Sierra Club.[27] The Sierra Club did not like this connection and in 1970 The Don't Make a Wave Committee was established for the protest. Early meetings were held in the Shaughnessy home of Robert Hunter and his wife Bobbi Hunter. Subsequently the Stowe home at 2775 Courtenay St. became the HQ.[28] As Rex Weyler put it in his chronology, Greenpeace, in 1969, Irving and Dorothy Stowe's "quiet home on Courtenay Street would soon become a hub of monumental, global significance". Some of the first Greenpeace meetings were held there, and it served as the first office of the Greenpeace Foundation.[citation needed] The first office was opened in a backroom, storefront on Cypress and West Broadway SE corner in Kitsilano, Vancouver.[29]

Irving Stowe arranged a benefit concert (supported by Joan Baez) that took place on October 16, 1970 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. The concert created the financial basis for the first Greenpeace campaign.[30] Amchitka, the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace has been published by Greenpeace in November 2009 on CD and is also available as mp3 download via the Amchitka concert website. Using the money raised with the concert, the Don't Make a Wave Committee chartered a ship, the Phyllis Cormackowned and sailed by John Cormack. The ship was renamed Greenpeace for the protest after a term coined by activist Bill Darnell.[27]

In the fall of 1971 the ship sailed towards Amchitka and faced the U.S. Coast Guard ship Confidence[27] which forced the activists to turn back. Because of this and the increasingly bad weather the crew decided to return to Canada only to find out that the news about their journey and reported support from the crew of the Confidence had generated sympathy for their protest.[27] After this Greenpeace tried to navigate to the test site with other vessels, until the U.S. detonated the bomb.[27] The nuclear test was criticized and the U.S. decided not to continue with their test plans at Amchitka.

Founders and founding time of Greenpeace[edit]

Environmental historian Frank Zelko dates the formation of the "Don't Make a Wave Committee" to 1969 and according to Jim Bohlen the group adopted the name "Don't Make a Wave Committee" on 29 November 1969.[31] According to the Greenpeace web site, The Don't Make a Wave Committee was established in 1970.[32] Certificate of incorporation of The Don't Make a Wave Committee dates the incorporation to the fifth of October, 1970.[33] Researcher Vanessa Timmer dates the official incorporation to 1971.[34]Greenpeace itself calls the protest voyage of 1971 as "the beginning".[35] According to Patrick Moore, who was an early member but has since distanced himself from Greenpeace, and Rex Weyler, the name of "The Don’t Make a Wave Committee" was officially changed to Greenpeace Foundation in 1972.[33][36] Because of the early phases spanning several years, there are differing views on who can be called the founders of Greenpeace.

Vanessa Timmer has referred the early members as "an unlikely group of loosely organized protestors".[34] Frank Zelko has commented that "unlike Friends of the Earth, for example, which sprung fully formed from the forehead of David Brower, Greenpeace developed in a more evolutionary manner. There was no single founder".[37] Greenpeace itself says on its web page that "there's a joke that in any bar in Vancouver, Canada, you can sit down next to someone who claims to have founded Greenpeace. In fact, there was no single founder: name, idea, spirit and tactics can all be said to have separate lineages".[32] Patrick Moore has said that "the truth is that Greenpeace was always a work in progress, not something definitively founded like a country or a company. Therefore there are a few shades of gray about who might lay claim to being a founder of Greenpeace."[33] Early Greenpeace director Rex Weyler says on his homepage that the insiders of Greenpeace have debated about the founders since mid-1970's.[38]

The current Greenpeace web site lists the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee as Dorothy and Irving Stowe, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, and Robert Hunter.[32] According to both Patrick Moore and an interview with Dorothy Stowe, Dorothy Metcalfe, Jim Bohlen and Robert Hunter, the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee were Paul Cote, Irving and Dorothy Stowe and Jim and Marie Bohlen.[33][39]

Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society maintains that he also was one of the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee and Greenpeace.[40]Media sources concerning Watson report him being one of the founders of Greenpeace,[41][42] with many articles reporting him being a founder in 1972.[43][44][45][46] Patrick Moore has denied Watson being one of the founders of The Don't Make a Wave Committee, and Greenpeace in 1972. According to Moore the already campaigning organization was "simply changing the name" in 1972.[33] Greenpeace has stated that Watson was an influential early member, but not one of the founders of Greenpeace.[47] Watson has since criticized Greenpeace of rewriting their history.[40]

Because Patrick Moore was among the crew of the first protest voyage and the beginning of the journey is often referred as the birthday of Greenpeace, Moore also considers himself one of the founders.[33] Greenpeace used to list Moore among "founders and first members" of but has later stated that while Moore was a significant early member, he was not among the founders of Greenpeace in 1970.[39][48]

After Amchitka[edit]

After the office in the Stowe home, (and after the first concert fund-raiser) Greenpeace functions moved to other private homes and held public meetings weekly on Wednesday nights at the Kitsilano Neighborhood House before settling, in the fall of 1974, in a small office shared with the SPEC environmental group on West 4th at Maple.[citation needed]When the nuclear tests at Amchitka were over, Greenpeace moved its focus to the French atmospheric nuclear weapons testing at the Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia. The young organization needed help for their protests and were contacted by David McTaggart, a former businessman living in New Zealand. In 1972 the yacht Vega, a 12.5-metre (41 ft) ketch owned by David McTaggart, was renamed Greenpeace III and sailed in an anti-nuclear protest into the exclusion zone at Moruroa to attempt to disrupt French nuclear testing. This voyage was sponsored and organized by the New Zealand branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.[49] The French Navy tried to stop the protest in several ways, including assaulting David McTaggart.

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