Greenpeace

Greenpeace acts like the most cutthroat corporation I've ever heard of. I worked for a company that did fundraising for "progressive" non-profit organizations, and Greenpeace was one of their clients. They hired us to do a campaign based on a bill that would supposedly go a long way towards banning factory fishing trawlers. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a noted anti-environmentalist and oil industry hack. When I expressed surprise at this, the Greenpeace representative said "That's what's so great - we got him to come around on this issue."

About midway through the campaign, Greenpeace started getting a lot of flack from other environmental groups for its position. They argued that, far from working towards banning factory trawlers, the bill would set up the most generous regulations possible for large fishing companies - whereas before there had been next to no regulations. Regulating the industry would be a good thing, they argued, but we should try to do more than just take the industry's suggestions and implement them. Greenpeace was the only "legitimate" environmental group that supported the bill.

One of the groups calling Greenpeace to task was Earth Island, a smaller offshoot of Greenpeace and a sometimes client of the company I worked for. So we got an ultimatum, a golden opportunity, a velvet glove over an iron fist. Greenpeace would give us all of their fundraising work (several million dollars worth per year) if we would stop working for Earth Island, a ploy worthy of Bill Gates. The company I worked for, having even deeper ethical problems of its own, readily accepted the offer.

Of course, Greenpeace needed somewhere to put their fundraising work. They had just shut down all of their canvassing operations, and many other functions nationwide, in an effort to consolidate as much as possible in Washington, D.C. and enjoy the perks that come with being a full-time lobbying organization.

All in all, an impressive display in anti-competitive practices, downsizing and centralization.

Greenpeace, much to the confusion of most, is not a single organization. The parent organization, Greenpeace International does do a lot of the work in setting up campaigns, getting different countries to work together, and making sure that services are available to all National and Regional Offices (NRO's). Greenpeace has offices in about 32 countries/regions including Israel, China, Brazil, and New Zealand. Greenpeace International also has three ships, the Rainbow Warrior (the second of that name- France sunk the first), the Arctic Sunrise and the Esperanza.