This is a short word document which gives an explanation of Greenpeace and its' aims as an organisation. it then Goes into detail of some positives and negatives about Greenpeace, relating to facts and real world examples throughout the document.
Founded in Canada by immigrant environmental activists Dorothy Stowe and Irving Stowe in 1971,
Greenpeace is a global campaigning network which has headquarters based in Washington D.C.. The
slogan for Greenpeace is to “ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity.” The
organisation has spanned over 55 countries, with a coordinating body in Amsterdam. Greenpeace’s
funding comes solely from individuals that choose to donate and foundation grants, meaning it is
independent from any government, corporation, or other organisation.
Positives:
Greenpeace has had a range of positive outcomes from the organisations campaigning and activism.
The organisation’s current goals are to prevent the planet warming the planet above 1.5 degrees, to
protect biodiversity, to slow the rate of consumerism within developed nations, to promote
renewable energy, and to nurture peace, global disarmament, and non-violence. Their go beyond oil
campaign successfully focused on protecting areas affected by the deepwater horizon disaster. In
1992, Greenpeace was donated the pans to an ozone safe hydrocarbon refrigeration alternative for
aerosols, Greenpeace then made this patent open source so that more companies could use the
technology in their own products. In 2018, Greenpeace held an investigation that a palm oil trader
(Wilmar International) was still linked to the forest destruction in the Indonesian province of Papua,
where it was not supposed to act within. In 2012, Greenpeace staged protests against the first
offshore oil platform in the arctic, owned by Gazprom; protestors attempted to board the platform
from a Greenpeace owned vessel..
Negatives:
There are a variety of criticisms towards Greenpeace. Firstly, it was criticised by 158 Nobel laureates
for its’ campaign against GMO’s. Greenpeace had claimed GMO’s were unsafe against the scientific
research which stated that they were actually potentially safer than any other method of production
fit for consumption. There is not any evidence to support that GMO’s have had a negative impact on
any organism or that they are worse for the environment. Greenpeace is run undemocratically in a
bureaucratic manner. Members have little control over any campaigns that the organisation
embanks upon and activists who act under it often pay the price. For example, those who destroyed
a test plot of genetically modified wheat under the instructions of Greenpeace in 2011 received fines
and suspended sentences. Greenpeace has been known to release inadequate statistics in the past.
In 1995, it falsely claimed that 5000 tonnes of toxic waste was on board the brent spar storage buoy.
In 2006, Greenpeace released a guide to greener electronics which misleadingly misrepresented
Rory Viggers
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