Criticism of Greenpeace

During its history, Greenpeace has been criticized by a number of groups. These include governments, industry and political lobbyists and some environmental groups.

The organization's use of nonviolent direct action has also caused controversy.

Criticisms

Some critics have said the organisation is too mainstream. Paul Watson, who left Greenpeace to found Sea Shepherd, once called Greenpeace "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement," because of their door-to-door fund-raising that relies on the media exposure of deliberately orchestrated and highly publicized actions to keep the name of Greenpeace on the front pages. Bradley Angel, who organized communities in California and Arizona for Greenpeace, split to found Greenaction in 1997. Greenpeace had summarily shut down its community-building operations, terminating more than 300 employees in the US alone, in what Mr Angel called "a betrayal".

A prominent critic of Greenpeace is Icelandic filmmaker Magnus Gudmundsson, director of a documentary Survival in the High North. Gudmundsson's criticisms have focused largely on the social impacts of anti-whaling and anti-sealing campaigns, while Gudmundsson's documentary was judged libellous by a Norwegian court in 1992 and he was ordered to pay damages to Greenpeace. Similarly, a Danish tribunal held that the allegations against Greenpeace about faking video materials were unfounded. Many media that published Gudmundsson's allegations have subsequently retracted and apologized (e.g. the Irish Sunday Business Post and TVNZ).

A former Greenpeace founding member is also a critic Patrick Moore. Moore's main criticisms have been leveled at the campaign to protect the forests of British Columbia.

The factual basis of particular campaigns has been criticized, for example over the Brent Spar oil platform affair in 1995, in which Greenpeace mounted a successful campaign (including occupation of the platform and a public boycott) to force one of the platform's co-owners, Royal Dutch/Shell, to dismantle the platform on land instead of scuttling it. A moratorium on the dumping of offshore installations was almost immediately adopted in Europe, and three years later the Environment Ministers of the countries bordering the North East Atlantic agreed with Greenpeace, and adopted a permanent ban on the dumping of offshore installations at sea (PDF). After the occupation of the Brent Spar it became known that Shell had not misled the public as to the amount of toxic wastes on board the installation. Greenpeace admitted that its claims that the Spar contained 5000 tons of oil were inaccurate and apologized to Shell on September 5. However Greenpeace also dismissed the issue that it was one of wider industrial responsibility, and as the first offshore installation to be dumped in the North East Atlantic, the Brent Spar would have been followed by dozens or hundreds more, thereby setting what Greenpeace considers to be a dangerous precedent. It also pointed out that the decision by Shell to scrap the Brent Spar had been taken before the incorrect amount of toxic waste was published by Greenpeace, and therefore that its mistake could not have influenced Shell's decision.

Some of its high ranking members have been arrested for offenses including vandalism and trespassing such as Mike Roselle, Paul Watson and John Sellers.

In September 2003 the Public Interest Watch (PIW) complained to the Internal Revenue Service claiming that Greenpeace tax returns were inaccurate and a violation of the law.[27] PIW charged that Greenpeace was using non-profit donations for advocacy instead of charity and educational purposes. PIW asked the IRS to investigate the complaint. Greenpeace rejected the accusations and challenged PIW to disclose its funders, a request rejected by the then PIW Executive Director, Mike Hardiman, because PIW does not have 501c3 tax exempt status like Greenpeace does in the U.S.[28] The IRS conducted an extensive review and concluded in December 2005 that Greenpeace USA continued to qualify for its tax-exempt status. In March 2006 the Wall Street Journal reported that PIW had been funded by ExxonMobil prior to PIW's request to investigate Greenpeace [29]. Exxon has been labeled 'No.1 Climate Criminal' by Greenpeace for its role in denying climate change. The charitable status of Greenpeace has been revoked in Canada (since 1989).

Anti-DDT Campaign and Resurgence of Malaria

Along with the Environmental Defense Fund and the WWF, Greenpeace has long supported the ban of DDT, even though much of the Third World depended on DDT to control Malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Since 1955 the World Health Organization widely used DDT to control lice-carried Typhus and malaria mosquitoes. In Europe, North America, Northern Asia parts of South America DDT use was widely credited with nearly eradicating Malaria. DDT furthermore is widely held by the medical and chemical community as safe for even prolonged use on humans. Allegations that DDT is a carcinogen and can cause reproductive harm, were the subject of conflicting clinical studies that have yet to strongly prove either allegation but turned western public opinion against the chemical. By 1973 growing concerns over DDT's effect on wildlife and especially birds lead to a full ban on the use of DDT in America. Pressure worldwide to stop DDT usage grew in the 1970s, with Greenpeace one of the most passionate advocates of a worldwide ban.

From 1973 onwards US and the UN mounted incredible pressure on Foreign Aid recipients to reduce or eliminate DDT spraying or risk reduced aid. The suspension of the use of DDT to control mosquito populations resulted in explosions of malaria victims in the Africa and South Asia. Some estimates place the death toll for malaria since the first bans against DDT in 1973 as high as 50 million. in 1996 South Africa banned DDT spraying and saw a 1000% increase in malaria cases with deaths climbing from 20 a year to over 240 until DDT spraying was resumed in 2000.

"Since the early 1970s, DDT has been banned in industrialised countries and the interdiction was gradually extended to malarious countries...because of environmental concerns... Despite objections by notable malariologists...the move away from spraying houses was progressively strengthened by WHO's malaria control strategies of 1969, 1979, and 1992...were adopted even though published WHO documents and committee reports have consistently and accurately characterised DDT-sprayed houses as the most cost effective and safe approach to malaria control...assistance from industrialised countries was often specifically contingent on not using DDT" Dr. D.R. Roberts in the 2000 The Lancet

Currently, Greenpeace has members serve on boards for the Stockholm Convention of Persistent Organic Pollutants, a UN-sponsored body that pressures countries to stop using environmental toxins such as DDT. Although the convention technically allows DDT to be used for Malaria control, the permit process has been so elaborate that up to 85% of USAID toward Malaria control is spent on environmental consultants needed to comply with the convention. Even as late as 2001 Greenpeace has been lobbying to shut down the last major DDT factory in the world located in Cochin, India, even persuading the Indian government to shut down the factory by 2005.

On April 25, 2005 the Ugandan minister of health Jim Muhwezideclared: "DDT has been proven, over and over again, to be the most effective and least expensive method of fighting malaria...malaria kills between 70,000 and 110,000 children every year[in Uganda]"

On September 16, 2006 the Director of the WHO's Global Malaria Program Dr. Arata Kochi announced with Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah Assistant Director-General that they would promote the spraying of DDT to control Malaria in Africa. Dr. Kochi said "One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying. Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT."

Famous Critics of Greenpeace's DDT campaign include Michael Crichton Ralph Nader,Patrick Moore (environmentalist) and Penn Gillette

Anti-GMO campaigns

Dr. Patrick Moore, ecologist and an early member of Greenpeace, has broken with the group over a range of issues, including its campaign against genetically modified crops. He stated that "the campaign of fear now being waged against genetic modification is based largely on fantasy and a complete lack of respect for science and logic."

Greenpeace spends roughly $12 million annually on campaigns against genetically modified crops, and have thereby encouraged governments to establish regulation which an an industry funded lobby group,AgBioWorld claims is overly restrictive .

Among other anti-GMO campaigns, Greenpeace opposes golden rice. The alternative proposed by Greenpeace is to discourage mono-cropping and to increase production of crops which are naturally nutrient rich (containing other nutrients not found in golden rice in addition to beta-carotene). The Golden Rice Project acknowledges that "While the most desirable option is a varied and sufficient diet, this goal is not always achievable, at least not in the short term."

Although it had admitted efficiency to be its primary concern as early as 2001 , statements from March and April of 2005 also continued to express concern over human health and environmental safety despite the fact that these sorts of fears have been widely discredited. While calling for human safety testing, Greenpeace has also opposed the field trials which would provide the needed material . Field trials were not conducted until 2004 and 2005 .

Interestingly, the renewal of these concerns coincided with the publication of a paper in the journal Nature about a version of golden rice with much higher levels of beta carotene. This "golden rice 2" was developed and patented by Syngenta, which provoked Greenpeace to renew its allegation that the project is driven by profit motives.

Dr. C.S. Prakash, who is the director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University and is president of the industry lobby group AgBioWorld Foundation expressed the opinion that "[c]ritics condemned biotechnology as something that is purely for profit, that is being pursued only in the West, and with no benefits to the consumer. Golden Rice proves them wrong, so they need to discredit it any way they can."

Population control

It is incongruous that Greenpeace does not campaign on population issues. The rapid rise in the human population is one of the key factors involved in the destruction of wildlife habitats and the environment in general. Thirty years ago, Paul Ehrlich and J. Holdren established a possible relationship between populations and the environment through the equation: I = P x A x T. In other words, people's impact on their environment (I) is a product of the population size (P), its affluence (A), and its technology (T).

Population levels are therefore one of the key factors involved in the destruction of the environment, as the Wiki article on overpopulation demonstrates. Despite this demonstrable link and despite Greenpeace's concern about the environment, they never have never been known to campaign for a reduction in population; an omission that begs for a explanation. However, other organisations, like the Optiumum Population Trust, are concerned about overpopulation and campaign for population reductions.

Nuclear power

Greenpeace has been accused of down playing the benefits of nuclear power by indicating that nuclear power can only satisfy electrical power requirements, and not heating. However, if heating systems were derived from electrical supplies, instead of gas or oil, then nuclear power could supply electrical and heating requirements. On the Greenpeace pie-charts, this represents about 65% of national energy requirements. Greenpeace also do not champion the fact that nuclear power has no 'end use' CO2 output, and is therefore as environmentally friendly in terms of climate change as are wind turbines. This is confirmed by Andris Piebalgs, the European Energy Commissioner, who has said: "Nuclear power has no CO2 emissions. It is Europe's biggest source of CO2-free energy. Finally, after protesting about the building of nuclear power for a number of years, Greenpeace now maintains that they can not be built quickly enough to reduce our CO2 emissions before "it is too late." In other words, it is not nuclear power that is the problem, but Greenpeace's opposition to the industry.

Renewable power

Greenpeace also fails to point out that the renewable options they champion, like solar, wave, wind and tidal, are all intermittent power sources. As the Northeast Blackout of 2003 demonstrated, even a small power outage can result in a cascade of power outages across the country and social disruption on a massive scale. Thus if an intermittent power source (like wind power) contributes a significant amount of energy to the grid, it will either need a conventional power station to back it up, or some means of electrical energy storage. There are various methods proposed for grid energy storage, but none of these appear to be practical technologies that would maintain electrical supplies during low-wind conditions. Recognising this, the 'Renewable Energy in Scotland Inquiry' declared that:

When a wind power station is connected to the grid a similar conventional capacity must be maintained as spinning reserve to cover the uncontrolled intermittency. The presence of an increasing number of distributed intermittent and unreliable micro-generators to replace more secure forms of generation leads to grid instability.

Wind energy will always be a secondary, intermittent, unreliable energy source and can never satisfy a base load demand. (Wind energy) is a profligate waste of our most precious resource - wild land.

The fact that the Greenpeace website completely ignores these issues, infers that they cannot be necessarily trusted to give fair and impartial advice on the future energy supplies that nations need. Nevertheless, Greenpeace's opinions are gaining support in political circles. The UK government's decision to 'indoctrinate' children with Al Gore's film 'An Inconvenient Truth', a film that Greenpeace enthusiastically endorsed, demonstrates this growing influence. This political policy was successfully challenged in the UK High Court. The London Telegraph said of the judge's ruling:

Al Gore’s environmental documentary ... contains nine crucial scientific errors and is a "political film" rather than an impartial analysis of climate change, a High Court judge has ruled ... the film can only be shown (to school children) with guidance notes, to prevent political indoctrination.

Greener Electronics campaign

In August 2006, Greenpeace released a "Guide to Greener Electronics," which ranked fourteen consumer electronics vendors in environmental issues. Greenpeace encouraged manufacturers to clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances and to take back and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.

The Guide to Greener Electronics stated "the ranking is important because the amounts of toxic e-waste is [sic] growing everyday and it often ends up dumped in the developing world. Reducing the toxic chemicals in products reduces pollution from old products and makes recycling safer, easier and cheaper." It ranked Nokia and Dell near the top, but essentially gave failing grades across the industry, ranking Toshiba thirteenth, and Apple Computer in last place out of the fourteen brands. The report singled out Apple for its low rank, saying: "Already, many of the companies are in a race to reach the head of the class - that is, except for Apple, who seems determined to remain behind rather than be the teacher's pet we'd hoped for." This caught the attention of tech media news sites, and was widely reported.

Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted Magazine criticized the guide in an article , saying the Greenpeace guide's "ranking puts far more weight upon what companies publicly say rather than what they actually do. It is also clear that Greenpeace intended the report more as an attention getting stunt than a serious rating of corporations' actual responsibility." Daniel Eran's own objectivity has also been called into question, as his website is supported by Apple advertising. In addition, Roughly Drafted has been called "the lunatic fringe of Mac fandom."

Greenpeace responded to the criticisms in a rebuttal also published by RoughlyDrafted. Along with the Greenpeace rebuttal, the article further presented the results of a second Greenpeace report, called "Toxic Chemicals in Your Laptop Exposed," which Roughly Drafted called an 'apology' for the initial claims Greenpeace made in the Greener Guide rankings. While Greenpeace itself has never used the word "apology", they did restate several of their initial claims in a response to Keith Ripley, another reviewer of the report . For example, the data reported findings of minimal traces of TBBPA, an unregulated fire retardant in the Apple computer; the Greenpeace press release said Apple "appears to be using far more of this toxic chemical than its competitors". This is despite the fact that the EU Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks concluded in March of 2005 that TBBPA "presents no risk to human health" and "the World Health organisation conducted a scientific assessment of TBBPA and found that the risk for the general population is considered to be insignificant."

More criticism of the statements in the Greenpeace press release followed in : "The most recent report, 'Toxics in Your Laptop Exposed,' did credible scientific tests, but then threw out the data to instead present a lathered up, misleading and deceptive press release that was simply a lie. No amount of credible science is worth anything if you ignore the findings and simply present the message you wanted to the data to support."

Greenpeace published an article on its website, addressing the criticism so far, with a special focus on scientific issues.

Blunders and coverups

Coral destruction

More recently, Greenpeace was fined for damaging almost 100 square meters of coral in Tubbataha Reef. The group accepted responsibility for the act, and paid a fine of approximately $7,000 equivalent in Philippine Pesos, while claiming that charts provided to them by the Philippine government were outdated and inaccurate. In June 2006, The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise was banned from attending the 58th International Whaling Commission meeting in St. Kitts by the St. Kitts and Nevis Government citing national security concerns. Greenpeace's protests were discussed at the same IWC meeting with agenda item IWC/58/3, relating to their protest actions against Japanese whaling in the Southern ocean in December 2005 / January 2006, during which a collision occurred between a Japanese whaling ship and a Greenpeace ship, resulting in this resolution from the IWC. However, according to Lloyd's database (the international record of maritime movements and casualties), it was the Nisshin Maru, not the Arctic Sunrise, which was at fault for the collision in December 1999, as officially recorded after investigations.

Cutting down of ancient tree

In June 1995, Greenpeace took the trunk of a tree from the forests of Metsähallitus in Ilomantsi, Finland and put it on exhibitions held in Austria and Germany. They said in a press conference that the tree was originally logged by local people from an ancient forest, but in truth that tree had crashed over a road during a storm a few weeks before. The incident received much publicity in Finland, for example in the large newspapers Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat.

Faked deforestation

In Summer 2005, German Greenpeace Magazin 6/2005 was showing a photo with a single scots pine tree alone on a wide snowy area which was said to be a result of the clear cutting of a Finnish forest (in German "Kahlschlag am nordfinnischen Peurakairasee"). This was later found to be an error, for the area which can be seen on photo had never been a forest.

Press release blunder

In Philadelphia, in 2007, Greenpeace accidentally issued a press release containing the words "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]."