Has Greenpeace had its day? That seems to be the unequivocal view of MP Ed Vaizey who believes their recent storming and occupation of Didcot power 
station was “so last century”.
Ed makes several valid points, how coal power is to stop being used there in less than a decade and how the plant has invested millions of pounds in renewable energy. So I’m not entirely sure why Greenpeace felt this drastic action was necessary.
And, most importantly, I cannot understand why power stations do not have adequate security to prevent being taken over, that should surely be a priority, imagine if it had been terrorists who had gained entry instead, the widescale devastation this could have caused.
Greenpeace believes its occupation made a contribution towards reducing carbon emissions, this seems to have been very much a knee-jerk reaction following the publication of the Stern report into climate change.
Greenpeace has had several headline hitting successes over the years, and are described in almost heroic terms by the BBC’s online learning site.
Nuclear power and climate change, subjects close to the heart of Greenpeace, are very much at the top of today’s public agenda, the issues are now being recognised and dealt with at the highest level. So do you agree with Ed that Greenpeace has had its day?
Or, like me, do you have a sneaking admiration for the high-profile tactics they devise to gain attention to serious global issues, though I admit they don’t get it right all the time, and the storming of Didcot was unnecessary, but then who is right all the time?
Ellee, yes, I believe it has probably served it’s purpose. As you know I am a passionate conservationist. You will have seen comments form others to previous postings referring to “environmentalists” in very derogatory tones. I believe it maybe Swampey and the “rentamob” culture that appears to want to stand in the way of “progress”, spurning Chelsea Tractors, boys with their guzzling cars, Ryanair, garden peat and everything else that smacks of “fun”.
There was certainly a need to raise the profile of environmental awareness and Greenpeace, Rachel Carson and others certainly achieved that marvellously. But I’m afraid the legacy might be the “bloody environmentalist spoil-sports” attitude. I think there has been some overeaction which has given environmentalism a bad name, and certainly recruitment to Environmental-type degree courses plummeted after their hay-day in the 80s.
The time has come, I think, for more reasoned, assertive, evidence-based persuasion and enlightenment.
Greenpeace has had its day. I was never a big fan myself, a short example below:
I once marketed a product that would harmlessly break down plastic bags in landfill. They were not interested, it was after all a cure. No, they wanted to stop people using plastic bags altogether and thoughy my product would not do this.
My interaction with them at this time demonstrated how political their motives were; they could not even support an enviromentally enhancing product if it did not meet their ideological criteria.
As with the power station stunt you mention, their ideology gets in the way in all their actions; hence so many seem to be illogical and counter to common sense.
Raising awareness about the enviroment and our impact of it is great; basing this on a marxist dialectical ideology makes it a waste of time.
While on the environment, I wondered what your views are Ellee on the straw burning plant near you. A good green idea or an unsightly mess?
Jim, I think the issues they campaigned against have successfully been taken on board, so there isn’t the need to use aggressive tactics, though that seems to be their trademark.
Cityunslicker, Greenpeace needs to listen too and be realistic. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Did you target local authorities to use your product on landfill sites? Don’t they take 200 years to biodegrade? This is a favourite subject of mine too.
Regarding the straw burning, I believe it is the biggest in Europe and straw is delivered there all over the country, the power it produces is used to feed the local grid. I have had the exact data on how much this is, but it is probably out of date now.
There was widespread opposition towards it from nearby residents because the operators were very secretive about it. New leadership took over which embraced openness and the difference was amazing, they even hold an annual open day for residents. They regulalarly check the chemicals emitted and all seems to be ok. The only problem raised was transport issues, the number of lorries visiting and the debris from the straw which sometimes fell on to the road.
That wasn’t your question though, which I have just checked. It is not a very attractive plant, but it is off the beaten track, you don’t drive by it on the main road. So on balanace, I am in favour. Unless you have evidence to the contrary, and I do always have an open mind.
I’ve never been a big fan of Greenpeace really. The green agenda has served its purpose though; its got the ear of the bigwigs and become a central issue. Mission accomplished.
I would agree that they have served their pupose. But I doubt they will ever see that. In fact, expect more and more stunts in the future as they need to work much harder to be heard when there is already a general consensus in their favour.
I think that, with new technology being available to most people [in the west, at least] such stunts as this one by Grrenpeace have had their day, yes. But I do still have a sort of admiration for them.
Hello there
My name is Ben, I was on top of the chimney for 2 days as part of the Greenpeace action.
Have we had our day? Hmmm… certainly doesn’t feel that way from here. We stopped tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere and used our platform to talk about decentralised energy – one of the solutions to climate change we are pushing for. To the guy who says we’re not interested in a product that would break down plastic bags in a landfill site I would say, good luck to you, is your product getting picked up? I hope so. However we have 4 or 5 inventors and marketers phoning us every day telling us about their perpetual motion machines and so on, and we can’t check them all out. If a product works and is affordable and if we have time, we’ll get behind it, but we’re not advertisers for products or a capital investment bank. We exist to raise awareness and promote proven solutions.
Anyway, have we had our day? Well I got to broadcast a question on decentralised energy to Blair from a chimney stack and he was forced to answer it (poorly) live on ITV. That’s probably one more question to the PM than Ed Vaizy asked this week.
Look, it boils down to this. People love us, people hate us, but we were banging on about climate change years before Ed Vaizy got interested. We were called loons then, now many think we don’t go far enough. In 30 years time, if we all don’t act and the effects of climate change are really kicking in, who will be able to say they did all they could – Ed, or Greenpeace?
We are, after all, talking about our ability as a species to continue to live on this planet. I’m sorry if we offended your sensibilities but we think that’s something worth fighting for.
Greenpeace is a radical activist group, high on image and low on policy. To them its either their way or the highway. Back in 2001, Patrick Moore, a co-founder of the radical environmental group Greenpeace, said he laments that the movement he helped launch now has no room for people of all political persuasions and has “taken a sharp turn to the ultra-left, ushering in a mood of extremism and intolerance.”
I tend to agree.
Source:http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_36_17/ai_78790477
Greenpeace has done a lot of good things, and highlighted problems. Perhaps, though, they are stuck in the 20th Century and need to modernise themselves to today’s society.
Ellee, this seems very much a woman’s comment:
…a sneaking admiration for the high-profile tactics they devise…
The bad boy, his heart essentially in the right place, breaking the rules and taking it up to authority. Marlon Brando, all his later manifestations and Greenpeace. No? Do you perhaps have just the teensiest little bit of affection for the type? Tell the truth now.
James, What I mean is that I admire people who push the boundaries for their beliefs in order to be heard, like Fathers4Justice, who would ever have heard of them if they hadn’t broken the law so many times with their high-profile tactics (not that I condone breaking the law), but I can understand why some feel they have to go to such extremes for their message to get across.
Ellee, just interested re the straw burner as I was involved with the project at the beginning. Nice to see you approve; I always thought I was working on a ‘good’ project, the locals all hated it to start with which was very disconcerting and took a lot of hard workt to change.
Made me learn the rights and wrongs of NIMBYISM though.
Ben, Thank you for your expansive comment, I have also read the one you posted on Ed Vaizey’s site. Do you feel it would make any difference if the biofuel was sourced from local sugar beet instead of palm oil from Indonesian rainforests? Besides saving the rainforest, it would save on transport fuel. Could that be a solution?
Ben, I’m sure everyone wishes that action had been taken all those years ago about climate change. So many experts were talking about it then, yourselves included, even Margaret Thatcher was pleading for the world’s leaders to tackle this, she saw it as being worst than any future a terrorist threat. I have the source for this if we wish me to prove it, I can dig it out.
We all do ultimately want the same, a greener, cleaner, safer environment. Do you feel this is now the right time to change your tactics so they engage more with the public rather than being so confrontational?
Cityunslicker, Yes, the locals are happy with it because of the way management now treats them as adults and converses in an open and honest way. They did not do this at the beginning, it was shrouded in secrecy and whispers and this created fear, misinformation and mistrust- so let that be your lesson.
I think there will always be a place for greenpeace. They are high profile “target” Greeenies
Have Greenpeace had their day? I think Ellee, you’ll find that they’ve only just started. Indeed, my view is that Greenpeace are in fact the ‘Swampey’ wing of New Labour – after all, they are only militantly doing what New Labour, and the Conservative’s have been advocating – returning to a ‘low-carbon economy’.
I notice that Greenpeace were highly selective in their lists of ‘sucesses’ over the years. Nothing was said about the millions of African children (some 25 million) who have needlessly died as a result of contracting malaria, all because groups like Greenpeace got what they wanted – the banning of the miracle lifesaving pesticide known as DDT – not one word.
This alone is enough to make me violently (I’m sorry to say) opposed to Greenpeace. I notice they have nothing either to say about the Brent Spar fiasco – dragging that oil rig inland was a ecological disaster – it would have been far better if Shell had just dumped it on the sea bed and let the continental crust deal with it.
As for that eco-worrier Ben Stewart, he has no viable alternative to shutting down all of Britain’s coal-fired power stations – as far as he’s concern, we will all just have to make do with lot less energy, and damn the consequences.
Read on:
Death by Environmentalism
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=835&h=53
Africans need DDT, not ‘blah, blah, blah’
http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CABF5.htm
Brent Spar Revisited, 10 Years On
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1621883,00.html
Ben thanks for putting the Greenpeace pov . My impression is that biofuels and ethanol production are a bit of a non starter due to the high energy fertilisers required in their growth. The real future I thought was in blue green algae that doesnt require the nitrogen input.
“Green on the ouside, blood red on the inside”
Capiche!
I apologies if I sounded too angry Ellee – but my blood really boils at the very mention of Greenpeace and some of their highly dubious activities.
Courtney, I’m not sure what you are referring to. But please, never feel you have to apologise for speaking your mind.
Ellee, I think it was the fact that one of my comments is still ‘awaiting moderation’ for some reason unknown to me.
However your right, I normally would never apologise if what I said causes offence – it was an apology in the same way you’d say sorry to a friend for accidently spilling drink over them.
Courtney, Yes, you are quite right, I’m not sure why it needed moderation. You have raised some interesting points and I will check out those links. I would prefer you to be controversial, to say your piece. Thanks again.
I’m actually “studying” with Greenpeace; I took a semester off normal schooling to learn about how GP does what it does. Nonetheless, I, too, am torn between hating an loving Greenpeace, sometimes on a daily basis.
They/we do pursue radical activities that can serve to bring attention to certain issues, but at the same time can also alienate certain specific populations of people.
Many times I think that Greenpeace is, maybe, no longer at it’s prime. Many times it seems sort of hypocritical to denounce certain things (i.e. greenhoues gases) but at the same time engage in activities that promote them. I guess, as far as this goes, I’m speaking from my own perspective not that of GP, because I sometimes feel like this has been a radicalizing process for me. (Thinking, how could I ever be a part of creating garbage dumps if there are so many viable alternatives.)
I’ve been keeping a blog of my opinions since the beginning of this endeavour, so if you’re interested, visit http://arilikeairygot.blogspot.com/.
Please, let’s keep talking about this.
Ari, Thanks for your personal insights, I think your observations are spot on. I shall now visit your blog, hope others will too.
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