Greenpeace Really Screws Up...Twice

Source: Greenpeace via Reuters

It's hard to imagine a more moronic act by a supposedly respectable environmental organization. I have appreciated the activism of Greenpeace in the past, especially the efforts of the Rainbow Warrior (all three of them) to stop whaling and nuclear testing. But this was stupid. And they made it worse in the aftermath.

Greenpeace has stood for action to save endangered species and habitats, sometimes putting lives on the line to protect them. It is sometimes the only weapon we have in the face of big money, overly powerful corporations, and corrupt governments. But there are two principles about civil disobedience: it should be directed at the right people and organizations, and those who truly believe in their actions should be ready to accept the consequences. This is what made this action so hard to understand.

Activists went into a restricted part of one of Peru's most treasured archaeological sites and unfurled long banners with their so-called message. The Nazca Lines are a World Heritage Site, and are fragile. They are geoglyphs, symbols and pictures dating back more than a thousand years, including birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, monkeys, and human figures. They were made by turning over stones darkened by desert varnish to expose the lighter surfaces underneath.

(Photo: Peru Ministry of Culture, via The New York Times)

It would be one thing if Greenpeace were throwing their bodies into the path of bulldozers trying to destroy the lines, but the Nazca Lines were not in any such danger. They had nothing to do with the Greenpeace protest whatsoever. Instead, the protesters trampled the ground, overturning varnished rocks, driving many of them into the sand. This kind of surface is highly vulnerable to such disruption. It is possible that the underlying sediments will now be mobilized in the next windstorm, blowing sand across and damaging the lines themselves. So that was stupid mistake number one.

Mistake two: when faced with the controversy, Greenpeace responded with one of the most mealy-mouthed apologies I've ever seen. Here is the first paragraph:

"Without reservation Greenpeace apologises to the people of Peru for the offence caused by our recent activity laying a message of hope at the site of the historic Nazca Lines. We are deeply sorry for this."

The problem? No apology for the destruction and damage to a priceless world heritage site, just an "I'm sorry to anyone we offended". These are the kind of words used by politicians who've been caught at KKK meetings and with hookers (or both). A non-apology apology. They hardly acknowledged that they did any damage.

What should be happening? Those responsible should come forth and accept the punishment due them. Should they be jailed? I don't know. At the very least, they should be on hands and knees replacing every stone they overturned. And Greenpeace International? They've severely damaged their reputation and should be doing a lot more than offering half-hearted apologies that say "we know this looks bad" (it really says that). It doesn't "look" bad, it is bad, and there should be a full-scale effort on the part of the organization to fix what they did, not just say words about it. 

Pete Seeger: Singing Truth to Power

What is the most powerful agent of social change? If we are to judge by the accomplishments of one particular man in a life well-lived, that tool would have to be song. Pete Seeger passed away this week, and it set me thinking about how we choose to spend the time we have been allotted on this planet.

I can't know the inner life and motives of Mr. Seeger, but everything I do know of his life is that he used it to make life better for others. He spent his early years helping workers unionize so they could stand united to improve working conditions. He was known for his pacifism even though he served during World War II, briefly as an airplane mechanic, but later as an entertainer for the soldiers. He was involved in the nascent civil rights movement as well.

He made a number of successful albums with the Weavers (Goodnight Irene, On Top of Old Smoky, Kisses Sweeter than Wine, and Wimoweh are familiar tunes), but was blacklisted for his communist leanings in the 1950s. He had to support himself by teaching music and singing on college campuses around the country.

He was witness to and participant in some of the greatest movements in American society, and his anthems gave voice to those who had never before had a voice. He was instrumental in bringing We Shall Overcome to the civil rights marches of the 1960s. In 1968 he truly sang truth to power by performing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy on the Smothers Brothers show (censored a year earlier), which was a subtle and yet not subtle jab at LBJ and his war in Vietnam. He was deeply involved in the environmental movement, and the fight against the death penalty. His voice was gentle but persuasive.

These are all the kinds of things that one can read in a Wikipedia article (just sayin'), but Seeger's passing affected me deeply on a personal level as well. Music touches our lives in many ways, and Seeger's words and songs played a huge part of mine. I was a child when JFK and MLK were murdered, and I was only dimly aware of the massive marches in Washington over the war and civil rights. I became a teenager when "Kumbaya" wasn't a joke around the campfire, and "We Shall Overcome" and "If I Had a Hammer" held solemn meaning. Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" was one of the first songs I ever learned on the guitar as I approached draft age at the end of the Vietnam War.

It didn't take me long to find one of my most treasured possessions when I was thinking about this entry. It's the little book pictured above, given to me by my parents decades ago. I learned American history partly through the music of my country, not the top 40 commercial dribble, but the words of real people in hard times and in hard places. Even today I subject my poor students (the geology students who join me in the field) to the music that is their real heritage. People may cringe when the guitar comes out, but the songs of the coal miners (Which Side Are You On? and Paradise) and fruit pickers (Deportee, Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) speak to the meaning of human existence and the need for social justice.

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?
(Woody Guthrie)


The passing of Pete Seeger and the heritage of his life really had me thinking. How dow we choose what we do with our lives? For many, there aren't many choices. Their lives are governed by the need for survival. But what about those who are gifted with a choice about the direction that their life will take? What drives the decisions they make? Money? Of course. Fame? Sometimes. But how often does that life choice involve altruism? Seeger ultimately led a comfortable life, but I sense that he was driven by a much more fundamental motivation. He wanted to make life better for those who had little or no hope.

I am a teacher, and sometimes I wonder what led me down this path. It would be foolish of me and a lie to say that the motives for my choice of career were altruistic. To be perfectly honest, it has been the most fun I can imagine in life. I have a good and secure job that is satisfying and often enjoyable. But my choices were influenced by my experiences in the environmental movement and exposure to the civil rights movement. I lived in a time when being a teacher or social worker was considered an honorable calling. I came of age when people realized that they did in fact have a voice and that they could make choices that could make their world a better place. Idealism was a real thing, and it drove people. As a teacher, I have the privilege of seeing the lives of my students change for the better, and I can have the satisfaction of knowing that I was part of the process. How many stock traders and investment bankers get to have that privilege?

Pete Seeger was an integral part of the movements towards a better society: acceptance of civil rights, the need for a healthy environment, and the need for peaceful resolutions to conflicts. He was a true American hero. He was most certainly one of mine. He stood up to those in power, facing down the House Un-American Activities Committee in a time when it was dangerous to do so. He had his career destroyed by those who benefited from the subjugation of workers and minorities. And yet he persisted, singing gentle songs of protest and encouragement to whomever would listen.  His banjo was one of the most dangerous weapons ever wielded in the defense of the poor and helpless (an inscription on his banjo said: "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender"). He lived a good and long life. I can only hope that we can be inspired to do the same.

If you've made it this far, I hope you will enjoy this video of Pete singing one of my favorite songs. He wrote of the hope that is not always visible or felt, but it's always there.

Don't you know it's darkest
Before the dawn?
This thought keeps me
moving on

If we could heed these early warnings
The time is now quite early morning
Some say that humankind won't long endure
But what makes them feel
So dog-one sure?

I know that you who hear my singing
Make those freedom bells go ringing
And so we keep on while we live
Until we have no more to give

And when these fingers can strum no longer
And the old banjo to young ones stronger

Don't you know it's darkest
Before the dawn
This thought keeps me
moving on

Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have
singing tomorrow

Thoughts for Earth Day 2013: There is a price to pay

Andrew Alden at About Geology notes today that he hosted an Accretionary Wedge on Earth Day in 2008. I had only been blogging a few months at the time, but I contributed, and in reading over my post from back then, I see that things haven't changed all that much. In just two months, I'll have the chance to return to my favorite spot on the planet at Cedar Mesa, and hopefully it will look as pristine as it did five years ago. Thanks, Andrew, for the reminder!

Here is my post from April, 2008:

This month's Accretionary Wedge (Accretionary Wedge #8 ) is hosted by Andrew Alden at About Geology, and the entries involve our responses to Earth Day. Mine is a bit late in coming; I reward myself with a blog entry if I get my other work done, and this has been finals week. It's been a bit hectic!

I offer today a picture of my most sacred spot on the planet (so far): the edge of Cedar Mesa at Muley Point. The cliff below the rocks drops 800 feet straight down to a flat plain which is then carved by the San Juan River into intricate canyons some 1,200 feet deeper still. Monument Valley and the Raplee Anticline lie in the distance, as well as the towns of Cortez CO and Farmington NM. It is a precious place to me, full of mystery, beauty and solitude. Ghosts of the Ancestral Pueblo people lurk here, and the fossils of Permian reptiles as well.

But...hidden in the bottom of the deep canyon is the greatest upstream extent of the artifical evaporation pond of Lake Powell. On a 1964 topographic map of the National Recreational Area, there is a notation at Muley Point: "slated for development". In the distance, at Mexican Hat, oil wells pump the black liquid from the ground, and around Farmington, a GoogleEarth view reveals hundreds or thousands of gas wells. Coal is mined from Black Mesa, off to the south, and evaporite minerals are torn from the ground to the north of Canyonlands National Park. Power lines criss-cross the region. My favorite place is under siege.

Of course, we need all these things to live, but the point of my entry today is this: there is a price to be paid. The price takes many forms, from high prices on commodities, in foul air, polluted rivers, extinct plants and animals, and in the almost never recognized loss of the wild places of our planet, the gauntlet in which our ancestors survived and thrived. We have lost touch with the earth that gave us our birth, and which continues to nurture us, despite our abuse. And our abusive ways are about to come to an end, one way or another: we will finally destroy the last of the wild places, drill the last drops of oil and shovel the last lumps of coal, we will melt the last glaciers, and deplete the last soils. Or, we will choose not to do these things, and exist on our planet in a new way: a sustainable existence that finds a way to give something back to our planet.

The environmental movement on our planet has been demonized, trivialized, and marginalized, because, I suppose, it has always threatened the perceived profits of somebody. What have environmental groups tried to do since the hey-day of the 1970's and the first Earth Day? A short list might include:

• Increase mileage standards and encourage the use of mass-transit
• Encourage the development of alternative energy resources
• Decrease emissions from our vehicles, including greenhouse gases and ozone destroying compounds
• Encouraged laws to protect our water, air and soil
• Protect the wild places that still remain on our planet

Environmentalists have been the visionaries and the prophets for our planet. They have seen the things we do today to abuse our planet, and offer an alternative path for the future, one based on sustainability. Such ideas run counter to the profit motive of particular industries, and thus environmentalists are attacked as elitists and flakes, while the money continues to flow into the coffers of the energy companies and the developers. But the bills for all of us are coming due...

The oil is running out, and thus the price spikes. We will never see cheap oil again. The mass conversion of agricultural fields to the growth of biofuels is causing grain prices to spike, and we are becoming less and less able to feed the hungriest people on the planet (Malthus is in the air; "Running Out of Planet to Exploit," ). The prices of metals are climbing.

Change is possible, and I sometimes see hopeful signs, and part of my optimism comes from Earth Day, and the works of good people to bring awareness to those who are waking up to the spectre of high prices and resource limits. We have a choice though...we can let the decisions about the future to be made by energy companies and their political lackeys, or we can demand a future based on sustainability. It will take education, and an end to the corporate media's obsession with Britney and Paris, and kidnapped white women, and American Flag Lapels. People, when given the right information, can make the right choices.

Those are my thoughts this week. You are welcome to comment!