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April 12, 2008Mother Jones: Greenpeace and Black Ops
"Meet the private security firm that spied on Greenpeace and other environmental outfits for corporate clients. A tale of intrigue, infiltration, and dumpster-diving."
Just published on the Mother Jones website, an intriguing article by James Ridgeway about private espionage by an American security company called Beckett Brown International (later called S2i) against the likes of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Along with this excellent four-page article is a raft of support pdf documents for download.
Hans Monker
You would never pick out Hans in a bar as a hero. He just didn't have the look. But he went places most people wouldn't dare go, to do work beyond most of us - for Greenpeace, Médecins Sans Frontières and other groups.
He was born in the Netherlands, traveled most of the world (from the Amazon to Antarctica) and died in Vietnam - where he lived with his wife.
Recently, Hans checked into the hospital with pneumonia. He responded well to treatment, and checked out several days later - eager to get back to work on a Greenpeace project. Today, he collapsed and passed away at a hotel breakfast table.
Hans was a behind the scenes person. Not one for the spotlight. He had strong convictions though, and when pressed would talk about them. Here's his crew profile from our first ship tour together - a voyage to defend whales in the Southern Ocean:
It is important for me to participate in this campaign - for a long time millions of people all over the world have been united in voicing that whaling is just not on - we have a responsibility to make sure that we preserve whales, not kill them.One of mankind's greatest gifts is the one of creation - we have the ability to create both beautiful as well as destructive things.
Another gift given to mankind is freedom. We are capable of choosing to destroy or protect the earth.
Creativity and freedom are not for free - we also have the responsibility to use our gifts in a good way, that is: to make things beautiful, then we can enjoy them together, in freedom.
My personal goal to be with Greenpeace is to be part of a group of people that gives others food for thought.
-- Hans
I was lucky to know Hans, but I know a lot of you knew him better than I did. Please leave messages in the comments. We'll pass them on to his family.
Farewell, Mr. Bates
New comes today of the passing of A.E. Griffith Bates, Jr. You won't recognise the name. You won't have seen pictures of him chained to anything. He's probably never appeared in any of the many books about Greenpeace. But he was an extraordinary example of the many ordinary people around the world who make Greenpeace work.
Mr. Bates was a volunteer.
What does a Greenpeace Christmas party look like?
How do a bunch of hardcore activists take a break from saving the planet, kick back, and relax? They take a few Santa outfits, hitch themselves into their climbing gear, and perform a ballet on the climbing wall in the Greenpeace Action Warehouse in Hamburg, Germany for the amusement of their colleagues. The Action Warehouse is a big space that's a bit of a cross between Q's Laboratory, a banner factory, mountain climbing base station, a non-violent version of Langley's CIA training campus, and the Tracy Island headquarters of the amphibious Thunderbird crew from International Rescue. Please remember, these are trained professionals: don't try this at home.
Congrats Paulo!
Greenpeace Brazil campaigner Paulo Adário has been named one of the country's 100 most influential people by Globo's magazine Epoca. Paulo's been using that influence for years to help protect the Amazon. You can read stories about his work: in English, in Portuguese.
Time magazine special highlights enviro heros
Times mag has presented a list of environmental heroes, including Al Gore, Wanhari Mathaai, Chip Giller, Frederic Hauge, and our very own Von! I met Von some years ago in the US, and I've always been impressed by his willingness to get his hands dirty working at the community (and garbage dump) level. In 1999, the Philippines became the first country in the world to ban waste incineration nationwide, and in 2003 he won the Goldman Environmental Prize (his acceptance speech is here).
From the Time magazine feature:
The West likes to outsource to Asia: countless low-cost factories and call centers have been relocated to the world's most populous continent. But Von Hernandez, a former literature professor from the Philippines, drew the line at another lucrative export from the developed world: mountains of trash. Across Asia, waste incinerators pump out clouds of dioxin and other harmful chemicals that come from processing imported garbage. It's a highly profitable business for waste companies, but the onslaught of pollutants can wreak havoc on local health.
Greenpeace finally arrives at Amchitka
Kieran Mulvaney, sailing aboard the Esperanza, wrote the following for Undercurrents, the crew blog for our Bering Sea voyage.
Thirty-five years, eleven months, and eighteen days later, we finally made it.On September 15, 1971, a crew of twelve set out from Vancouver Island in an eighty-foot halibut seiner called the Phyllis Cormack on a daring, even foolhardy, mission: to steam to the Aleutian island of Amchitka and protest, or even prevent, the detonation of an underground nuclear test. When the plan was first hatched, the group that organized the mission went by the name of the Don't Make a Wave Committee. By the time the Cormack set out to sea, they were calling themselves Greenpeace.
The Cormack didn't make it to Amchitka. President Nixon delayed the test, the crew put into the Aleutian port of Akutan to figure out next steps, and the US Coastguard arrested them on a technicality. But the mission was a success: although the explosion, dubbed Cannikin, went ahead, it would be the last on the island: a further four tests were scheduled but canceled in the face of the enormous protests that found a voice in the Greenpeace voyage.
And yet, ever since, a circle has remained broken, a path unfinished. Almost thirty-six years have passed, the island has become a wildlife sanctuary, and a kind of calm has returned in this most remote of realms, and yet, no Greenpeace ship had completed the Phyllis Cormack's journey and reached the shores of Amchitka.
Until today.
Greenpeace scientist more important than Buddha!
It's official. Our scientist Paul Johnston, or PJ as he's affectionately called around here, is more important than Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and more weirdly, Jamie Oliver and Father Christmas. Today the Guardian names the Environment Agency's Top 100 green campaigners of all time, and PJ has come in at a respectable number 40. Nice one PJ!
Ozone healing nicely, thank you
Ah the ozone hole. I remember years ago when, going door to door for Greenpeace USA, I could barely find anyone except NASA scientists who even believed the thing existed.
Yet, just last Wednesday, the Antarctic ozone hole reached an all time big. But not to worry say scientists. This year's unusually large hole was due mostly to an extended South Pole cold spell. As the San Francisco Gate reports, the overall situation is looking good:
In fact, separate measurements show the amount of ozone-depleting bromine and chlorine gases at the surface peaked around 1995, and has been declining since then, mainly because of international restrictions adopted under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
1985: Rainbow Warrior Sinking - French agents finally on TV!
I've just been watching online footage from New Zealand TV station TVNZ. They claimed legal history this week, after footage was shown in France of two French agents pleading guilty to manslaughter in 1985, following the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior.
"Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, who admitted killing Greenpeace photographer Fernando Periera, failed to stop TVNZ broadcasting their courtroom confessions and viewers have finally been shown the French spies admitting their guilt. The trial was covered by closed circuit cameras, but the visual record of the proceedings had remained under wraps as the pair fought for their guilty pleas never to be shown on television."
Happy Birthday, Greenpeace
Rex Weyler writes: "[September 15th] is the 35th birthday of Greenpeace. Some of the founders have passed on: Irving Stowe, Ben Metcalf, Davie Gibbons, John Cormack, and Bob Hunter. A new generation of environmentalists face challenges that we did not imagine thirty-five years ago when a little fishboat departed from Vancouver, Canada to sail into a nuclear test zone. The following accounts of that voyage are from my book: Greenpeace (Raincoast Books, Rodale Press): As May Sarton says: “One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.”
Read the rest at Common Dreams...
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