Environmentalism Summary

GREENPEACE
Greenpeace also has a very international infrastructure, with regional offices in over 42 countries around the world. Greenpeace is funded at the grass-roots level, building most of its infrastructure on the support of over 2.8 million financial supporters and from grants received from several charitable foundations. However, Greenpeace emphasizes its financial independence from corporations or government grants.

Critique involves the following:
1. Use of civil disobedience.
2. Opposing nuclear energy which realistically is environmentally the soundest of realistic short term goals.
3. Costing jobs in major industries such as logging.
4. Focus on ‘belief’ rather than scientific proof or reasoning in many of their actions.

CASE EXAMPLE: 1994 Shell In 1994, Shell was planning to dispose of the Brent Spar oil storage facility by scuttling it in the North Sea. Greenpeace objected and took Shell on in an acrimonious public campaign. Shell argued that its studies showed that disposing of the facility at sea was the most environmentally responsible thing to do. Shell capitulated. It changed its plans and dismantled Brent Spar on land. When the fray died down, many believed that the chosen option was, in fact, more environmentally damaging than the original plan.…