On this site during this past March I wrote “Shell Plays Unique Legal Tactic.” The post dealt with some legal maneuvering undertaken by Shell Oil in order to pre-empt Greenpeace protest actions on its vessels headed to the American Arctic for summer drilling. The action took place in a United States District Court.
The result of the legal wrangling was that Shell successfully obtained a restraining order against Greenpeace which prevented the environmental activists from interfering with Shell operations in American waters.
As you know, Greenpeace likes to board vessels in order to chain themselves to the ship, preventing its operation. What Greenpeace also likes to do is read restraining orders very carefully. The federal court said that Greenpeace could not interfere with Shell operations in American waters.
A week ago today several Greenpeace activists were arrested by Swedish authorities for illegally boarding a Shell Oil-contracted ice breaker in the Baltic Sea.
Make a note. Greenpeace, like corporate lawyers, likes to read the fine print.
I can see that campaigning by Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth and other environmental activists will likely increase between now and at least the November election. Why do I think this?
The results of a Gallup poll last month said that among fifteen issues measured as significant to Americans, the economy was number one with 71% of respondents saying that this issue mattered to them “a great deal.” Where was the environment? Way down there at number twelve.
Only 37% of Americans told Gallup that the environment mattered to them “a great deal.”
These aren’t exactly the kind of survey results that donors of Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and Friends of the Earth are looking for. And when there’s a possibility, in this case a distinct one, that donors will be unhappy, the campaigners at the aforementioned environmental organizations, and others like them, jump into high gear lest their own jobs go extinct.
So, look for more anti-corporate campaigns, character assassinations, bridge and building scaling along with banner flying, and all the other attention-getting antics that are used by environmentalists and loved by the media.
And of course, all of this will dovetail nicely with the now inevitable “rich people and companies are evil” campaign which will pervade the coming presidential election contest.
It will be an interesting summer.
On February 24, 2012, in Port Taranaki, New Zealand several Greenpeace activists boarded a Shell Oil contract ship docked in the port. Their objective, per the Greenpeace Web site, was to stop the Shell Oil ship “from departing the port of Taranaki for the remote Arctic.” The ship was bound for the Arctic to begin exploratory drilling operations.
The activists occupied the ship for four days, after which they were arrested and removed from the vessel.
The following day, February 29, 2012, Greenpeace claimed victory.
How does that make sense?
The simple answer is that it does not make sense.
It does not make sense because in this campaign Greenpeace’s stated objective was to prevent the ship from departing. They did not accomplish their objective. The ship departed port.
This strategy is nothing new for Greenpeace. We have previously seen Greenpeace shift their objective based on the actual, rather than the intended, outcome of their campaign. For some examples, check this article series titled “Gilding the Lily.”
Why would they do this?
Donations and “victories” are directly correlated.
In “Greenpeace Victory Claim is a Sham,” I spoke about how Facebook and Greenpeace are now collaborating together on a variety of Facebook projects. The article referenced a link to a Greenpeace document, “Facebook and Greenpeace Collaboration on Clean and Renewable Energy,” which outlines the duties of each organization in this new project.
A review of the document shows that essentially Greenpeace will act as a consultant to Facebook in matters of environmental responsibility.
Greenpeace is not set up to be a consulting organization. Greenpeace is a campaigning and advocacy organization (see PDF page 2, item 1 in that link). The organization has a specific, activist agenda and in order to enact that agenda, Greenpeace is willing to disparage Facebook, other companies, or anyone who disagrees with it. How many other consultants behave in this way?
I’ll bet you answered “None, that I know of.”
Yes, there must be hundreds, no thousands, of regular environmental consulting companies on the globe, organizations with no particular political agenda; organizations with no history of trashing the reputations of companies, especially those with which they later “consult” when the trashing is done.
Now, it’s not Greenpeace that I criticize here. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I criticize Greenpeace plenty. In this case, Greenpeace is just doing what they do, gaining control of a major company from the inside, after trashing that company’s reputation on the outside.
No, it’s not Greenpeace who I criticize in today’s post. Rather it is Facebook.
By giving in to the political, reputation-damaging campaign that Greenpeace waged against Facebook, Facebook plays right into the hands of this anti-capitalist organization. By taking on Greenpeace as a de facto consultant, Facebook self-interestedly is only trying to preclude future reputation attacks by Greenpeace upon Facebook. This short-sighted Facebook strategy enables and supports Greenpeace’s larger battle against the free market and free choice.
Perhaps it is this sort of thinking and behavior, a thinking and behavior that eschew the voice of the free market in favor of the influence of an interest group like Greenpeace, that at least partially explain why Facebook is among the top ten most hated companies in America.
As the third in a series of articles about how anti-capitalist activists falsely claim victory against companies, today’s post looks at Greenpeace action against Lego.
In July 2011, on their Web site Greenpeace claimed success in getting Lego to stop using Asia Pulp & Paper (AP&P) as a packaging supplier. As part of their campaign, Greenpeace demanded that Lego:
“Stop buying paper products from Asia Pulp and Paper . . . and any companies connected to APP.”
As their victory claim, Greenpeace said:
“Lego has announced that they intend to not buy packaging from companies involved in deforestation. This means dropping Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) along with any paper companies linked to forest destruction.”
For proof of their victory claim, and the accession to their demand, Greenpeace evidenced a Lego statement concerning the company’s policy on the environmental impact of the packaging materials they purchase. That Lego statement may be seen by clicking here.
If you click through to the Lego statement, you will find that nowhere on that page does Lego mention AP&P, or any other supplier by name.
So, then how does Greenpeace know it met its demand goal relative to Lego?
Supposition?
Conjecture?
Probably.
And I say probably because it is on these two semantic practices that Greenpeace often depends.
Warriors in the battle against capitalism need to train. And it looks like some of that training will be coming up soon.
Greenpeace, a organization which has acknowledged its anti-capitalist stance, will be running an activist training camp in the near future. Of course, exactly when in the future is largely unknown.
According to Tampa Bay Online, although it was reported that the camp will be held in the Tampa Bay area, Greenpeace will not reveal the exact location nor the exact dates of the six day camp. (Sounds a bit clandestine, no?) Although based on information in the article itself, my guess is that the time would be somewhere around February 25 or 26.
Per the article, among the skills in which the activists will be trained are:
Climbing: Trainees learn basic skills from a variety of climbing disciplines, including industrial, alpine and arborist.
Blockades: Attendees will be taught essential skills for immobilizing and occupying space, using tools — and their bodies.
Tampa Bay Online reports that the camp will serve about 50 people and that this type of activist training camp is rare, one like it having not been held for about ten years. This makes one wonder why. Why are they holding this camp now? Are they attempting to stock up on skills that they will be calling upon in the near future?
If so, the list above would suggest that the climbing skills would be applied in more corporate headquarters building scaling while the blockade training, given that the article mentioned that the campers would also be instructed in chemical issues, would possibly indicate future interference with truck traffic outside of chemical plants.
Activists are slated to arrive from all over the country. I wonder what their travel carbon footprint will be?
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