Half a century after a small group of radicals created Greenpeace, the head of the environmental organization warned that it still has far to go on the climate crisis before it can truly celebrate.
Created on Sept. 15, 1971, when a ship of the same name tried to stop a US nuclear test, Greenpeace has become one of the world’s best known action groups with its headline-grabbing stunts, but the organization’s 50th anniversary is expected to be a subdued affair, Greenpeace International executive director Jennifer Morgan said.
“There is not a lot to celebrate right now. We are in a climate emergency,” Morgan said in an interview at the group’s headquarters in a modest office block on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
Photo: AFP
Morgan said that she was “deeply worried” that the world’s response would fall short at the crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
“Everything that we’ve done over those 50 years, we have to pull together now, and deploy it into creating absolutely radical and deep change. Time is running out,” she said.
Greenpeace’s journey began idealistically, if unsuccessfully, with that first sailing from the Canadian port of Vancouver. The bid by the boat Greenpeace to halt a nuclear test off the Alaskan coast was cut short when the police intervened.
Since then, the organization’s achievements include helping to stop commercial whaling, targeting fossil fuel companies, working to stop toxic dumping and protecting Antarctica, Morgan said.
Surrounded by memorabilia from Greenpeace’s history, including colorful campaign posters and a ship’s door kicked in by Russian officials in 2013, Morgan said the organization’s core principles remain the same today.
“Greenpeace started as an idea that individuals could change the world with an idea and a bit of hope,” said Morgan, who took the helm of the group in 2016. “I think over 50 years Greenpeace has achieved really miraculous things.”
There has also been tragedy among the triumphs.
In 1985, the French secret service bombed Greenpeace’s flagship vessel the Rainbow Warrior while it was docked in Auckland, New Zealand, killing Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira.
Greenpeace members “mark that date every year” and the organization remains wary of governments, with members in Brazil, Indonesia and China in particular facing personal risk, Morgan said.
Greenpeace has vastly expanded since the early days and now has more than 3,500 staff operating in about 55 nations — almost as big as some of the multinational firms it targets — but Morgan said that the group was still “radical,” despite the emergence of younger rivals such as Extinction Rebellion.
Known in the past for its own stunts, Greenpeace is now increasingly embracing other strategies, including climate-based legal action against governments and polluters.
Morgan said Greenpeace was also cooperating more with other environmental groups and with indigenous people — things she said the group should have done more often.
It would also be involved with the COP 26 summit, a “fundamental moment for the planet” that she feared nations might not seize.
“I’m deeply worried, what I see right now is governments that are almost acting as if we’re back in the 1980s” in terms of their levels of urgency on climate change, she said.
For its anniversary, Greenpeace has planned small-scale events in offices around the world.
At a celebratory event last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the group as “persistent, combative, steadfast and persuasive.”
So what lies ahead for Greenpeace over the next 50 years?
“I guess the goal would be that Greenpeace doesn’t exist anymore,” Morgan said.
Assuming the environmental campaign faces more battles ahead, Morgan said that she hoped Greenpeace could help create a “tipping point where there was a movement into hope.”
With YouTube videos “debunking” allegations of human rights abuses and diatribes on Western “conspiracies” against China, an unlikely set of foreigners is loudly defending Beijing against international critics. They are teachers and business owners from the UK, Colombia and Singapore, a collage of YouTubers garnering fame for their video takedowns of what they say are unfair accusations against Beijing. Videos alternate between praise of China’s rapid development and rebuttals of negative foreign reports about the country. Experts say they are being deployed as a weapon in the information war against China’s critics, with hundreds of videos reaching millions of viewers. “I am trying to
Hospitals are overwhelmed, ventilators are difficult to find and there is no longer enough space at the main cemetery for COVID-19 victims in Mauritius. Barely three weeks before it fully opens its doors to international travelers at the start of the peak tourist season, the island nation is struggling with an alarming explosion in COVID-19 infections and deaths. In just two months, cases have jumped more than fivefold to more than 12,600 as of Friday, by far the largest increase across Africa during this period, data compiled by Agence France-Presse showed. Since the pandemic started, Mauritius has recorded 1,005 cases of COVID-19 per
ELEVATED PARTNERSHIP: The agreement enables Japan to share its equipment and technology, as the countries deepen defense ties amid China worries Japan is to give defense equipment and technology to Vietnam under an agreement signed on Saturday, as the two countries step up their military cooperation amid worries about China’s growing military influence. Japanese Minister of Defense Nobuo Kishi said the deal elevates the countries’ defense partnership “to a new level,” and that Japan and Vietnam plan to deepen defense ties through multinational joint exercises and other means. Details about the transfer of specific equipment, including naval vessels, is to be worked out in subsequent talks, the ministry said. Kishi’s meeting with Vietnamese Minister of Defense Phan Van Giang in Hanoi
A city in southern China that is trying to contain a COVID-19 outbreak told the public on Sunday not to leave, suspended bus and train services, and closed cinemas, bars and other facilities. Anyone needing to leave Putian, a city of 2.9 million people in China’s Fujian Province, for an essential trip must have proof of a negative coronavirus test within the past 48 hours, the city government said. China declared the virus under control early last year, but has suffered outbreaks of the more contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2. Authorities say that most cases have been traced to travelers arriving from
RSS