Greenpeace

Green Peace is an environmental organization that addresses environmental concerns such as energy, protection of oceans and forests and pollution. Green Peace is the fragile environment's voice to humanity, pleading out for change, action, solutions, and mercy. It is a self-funded, independent global campaigning organization, acting for the good of nature and on the whole, the Earth. Green Peace has expanded much since its founding in 1970, and spans over 40 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific, with millions of supporters. Clearly, more and more people are adopting Green Peace's views and want to join in to save the environment.

In 1971, a small, pioneering group of activists set sail from Canada in a small fishing boat. With visions of a clean and green Earth, they formed the environmental organization Green Peace and wanted to change the mind-set of the world. They were on a mission to bear witness to a US underground testing at Amchitka, a tiny island off the West coast of Alaska, one of the most earthquake-prone regions in the world, and home to some 3000 endangered sea otters, a species of bald eagles, and peregrine falcons. Their boat was intercepted just before the bomb was dropped. However, later that year, nuclear testing stopped in the area and it became a bird sanctuary. Though they did not bear witness to the event, the attempt sparked public interest and it gave Green Peace their first big jump into the spotlight, as their message was heard by many.

Today, Green Peace is an international environmental organization that holds many campaigns and relies on contributions from individual supporters and foundation grants. Green Peace aims to protect, preserve the environment, and also to uphold peace. They achieve this goal by engaging in tasks such as the catalyzing of an energy revolution to solve world climate change, to prevent dumping of wastes into our precious oceans and create a global network of marine reserves for times of need, to protect the flora and fauna of the Earth, creating a toxic free future by preventing the use of hazardous chemicals, and campaigning for non-genetically-modified food. Green Peace refuses to resort to violence and brute force to settle its disagreements but instead wishes people to see the light and realize their own mistakes, and witnessing incidents.

Pioneering people

Green Peace is a complex, well connected environmental organization, consisting of many members; all devoted to one goal-saving the environment. However, such a complicated and large organization needs leaders and people who can influence and persuade. This group of people may consist of the founders themselves, devoted members, and volunteers.

Bill Darnell-Bill Darnell combined the words green and peace and gave the organization its famous name.
Irving Stowe- Irving Stowe was a member of Society of Friends. He is considered the father of Green Peace. He tackles issues with the concepts of bearing witness and non-violence.
Robert Hunter- Robert Hunter is a media guru, spiritual and organizational leader of Green Peace.
Ben Metcalfe- As the first chairman of the Green Peace establishment, he managed the media with his wife, Dorothy, for the few initial years.
Dr. Patrick Moore “ He is an widely recognised ecologist and served a term of nine years as the President of Greenpeace Canada. He also was the Director of Greenpeace International for seven years.
Rod Marining's- One of his campaigns saved the entrance to Vancouver's Stanley Park. He was on the first voyage to Amchitka and was a board member during the 1970's.
Captain Paul Watson- He was occupied in the early days of Greenpeace as a 1st director, and led the Harp Seal Campaigns but later founded Sea Shepherd and sank an illegal whaler. He went on to lead multiple direct-action campaigns saving endangered marine animals all over the world.
Lyle Thurston- He was a medical doctor on the first voyage and served on the board in the 1970's.

Slogans, campaigns, and ways of delivering messages

Green Peace ozone campaign

The depletion of the Earth's ozone layer over and beyond natural fluctuations, caused by certain chemicals that are elevated into the atmosphere by wastes and compounds like CFCs, HCFCs, and methyl bromide is one of the issues that Green Peace would like to resolve. The only effective way of preventing further depletion of the Earth's ozone layer is to reduce the amount of such chemicals being used or produced. Thus, in this campaign, Green Peace is campaigning for the complete, immediate ban of usage of such substances globally. Green Peace believes that such effects are hazardous to the present and future generations of life, and are bagging on the fact that environmentally safer and alternative sources of energy are available for virtually all existing applications of ozone depleting chemicals. It is also true that unlike CFCs and HCFCs, these greener chemicals do not contribute significantly to global warming.

Green Peace's anti-whaling campaign

Our oceans make up about 70% of the Earth's surface. They are vast, provide food for us, but ultimately, are not infinitely inexhaustible. Greed, poaching, overexploitation; these are just some factors driving the whaling industry, and eventually, depletion and extinction of the whale populations. It is also thought that the populations of affected species of whales will most likely be unable to recover their original abundance. Marine biologist Steve Palumbi of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in California, USA, argues through DNA samples, that prior to the booming of the whaling industry, humpback whales numbered 1.5 million, while now, only a handful of 20,000 survive. From the statistics, we know that there has been a sudden sharp drop in the number of whales living in the ocean. Green Peace believes that except for whaling, a safe, secure environment for the whales exists and the organization is thus campaigning to eliminate whaling on the whole.

Green Peace's anti-GM food campaign

Green Peace has been campaigning against the production, distribution, and consumption of genetically-modified food. It is stated that the purpose of GM food will be to produce a larger amount of food to feed the world and solve world food problems. However, according to the United Nations, the world already produces sufficient food to satisfy everyone's hunger. Thus, Green Peace believes that the purpose of GM food is to increase the stranglehold and control that these huge multinational biotech corporations have over food production. Green Peace also thinks that the government supporting their activities is trying to force their genetically-modified seeds and crops produced onto the people for commercial gain. GM food's possible long term effects have not been thoroughly researched and by cross pollination of GM food crops and non-GM food crops, these mutant crops replicate themselves and genetically pollute the environment, which is difficult, if not impossible to clean up. Through their campaigns against GM food, Green Peace hopes to encourage sustainable, environmentally clean, and organic farming methods to prevent the damage caused by industrial farming, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and other harmful chemicals, and in the process, completely wipe out the practice of GM food from the agricultural industry.

Criticism

Green Peace has been criticized for being too radical at times, committing acts of eco-terrorism. They have sometimes gone against their beliefs and blatantly cause some environmental and economical damage in their activities. Some of their aims are also not that realistic, such as wanting to stop the whole world from using CFCs and HCFCs. Contrary to Green Peace's non-aggressive approach policy; some of its members have been arrested for vandalism and trespassing. Critics also feel that Green Peace does not take into consideration all of the factors contributing to the issue. An example is the destruction of wild life habitats; in this issue, loggers are not the only ones at fault. Instead the population increase also causes this to happen.