In the light of the appalling vandalism undertaken by Greenpeace at Nazca in Peru, I thought I would repost this piece from 2011, published as Greenpeace, an enemy of science. I note that, as in the previous instance, those involved did not turn themselves in. In this case, they have apparently fled the country.
Greenpeace, an enemy of science
Tim Lambert comments on Greenpeace sabotage of a CSIRO experiment on GM crops. Sadly, Greenpeace has become an openly anti-science organisation.
I agree with everything Tim says, but I’d add something more on the politics of this action. This kind of criminal vandalism, in the “right” cause, appeals to the juvenile instincts that nearly all of us retain to some extent, but it has repeatedly proved disastrous for the left, and the environmental movement. It’s worth comparing this kind of action to civil disobedience protests, where people put themselves on the line and openly invite arrest. If these guys had any desire to promote genuine debate they would turn themselves in and defend their actions in open court.
Given the embrace of anti-science and anti-rational views by the political right, it is important that the left and the environmental movement should dissociate themselves entirely from this kind of action. It will be a long time before Greenpeace can regain my support, if they ever do.
I’m just generally appalled at anyone who sabotages GM crop test fields. It shows how the “insufficiently tested” rhetoric they drag out is a lie, since they sabotage the tests designed to see how safe it is.
Don’t you know that there is a road trough the plato of Nazca lines and they widened it and paved even after the discovery of lines. Look at this truck stop right by the hands figure.
What damage by activists on Nazca lines plato?
The picture doesn’t show any visible damage made by walking and activists. The damage might be visible by standing up close, but none is visible on the pic. They did not leave letters behind nor removed rocks from the spot which is what i could consider as a damage done by acitivists. But there is nothing of the sort. So i think this post is completely a miss.
Just look at the response by Peru’s government which is so harsh against Greanpeace activists.
Sadly I’ve learned to expect this kind of whataboutery whenever one of Greenpeace’s vandalistic stunts goes haywire.
I regard the lack of respect shown by Greenpeace for the integrity of an ancient cultural site of enormous value to humanity as appalling. I cannot imagine how any group of their activists could have hatched this plan without realising how far outside of the organisation’s objectives it stood.
It would have been a simple matter to photoshop the message after all.
@Jordan
So the principle you’re upholding here is that if somebody does the wrong thing and the government disregards it, that makes it okay for everybody else to do the same thing?
Is that it?
I’m with you on destroying scientific trials. I agree wholeheartedly that fronting up and taking responsibility for your actions is a much more admirable and effective form of protest.
But what ‘irreparable damage’ did these people do again? A bunch of lightweight fabric signs held in place by small stones?
These relics have lasted 1000 years. They’ve survived countless wind and rain storms. Let’s not get carried away by a few human footprints in the desert.
Greenpeace are apologising because it ‘looks bad’. Well sure, the yellow they chose is a pretty awful colour…
Many years ago I gave money to “fighting funds” to defend arrested or jailed activists in various circumstances… after a time I got wise to myself, and stopped supporting people who engaged in some stunt or other, were (surprise!) arrested, and who then sought the sympathy (and financial support) of myself and others who may have had some broader positive view of their cause. But the courts rarely provide a forum for activists to fully and effectively articulate their arguments, and the activists themselves are rarely as articulate as they may think. Nor are the courts necessarily the best arena in which to undertake a political struggle, whatever the “justice” or “righteousness” of the cause. If a struggle is political (as well as being about the environment, or social justice, or whatever), and support is needed, the protagonists must choose their path carefully. Being a “member” of an organisation that engages in paramilitary activities, is furnished with quasi-military equipment, and which is not democratic, not transparent, and not consultative (let alone evidence-based), becomes a problem for me and others like me. On many issues, whether the focus is the actions of a government or the actions of a protest group, the slogan “Not in my name” comes quickly to mind. We need an effective and well-constructed “extra-parliamentary opposition” and sometimes perhaps we need high-profile symbolic stunts to get attention… but we don’t need vandalism carried out by self-appointed and self-styled “warriors” imbued with a romantic sense of mission that the rest of us have not signed up to.
As regards Photoshop, they apparently did something of the kind at Macchu Picchu
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/Greenpeace-Activists-Take-Pro-Solar-Message-to-the-Temple-of-the-Sun-in-Machu-Picchu-as-Climate-Summit-in-Lima-Begins/
As Nick says, none of this compares to destroying experiments, but it certainly doesn’t win them any points with me.
Not having heard anything about this “appalling vandalism”, I had to look into it.
I haven’t been following COP20 Lima very closely but it is clear that it is being driven to failure by the usual suspects.
Nearly a week ago, on 8 December, Greenpeace did a stunt. Here’s how the ‘Vancouver Observer’ reported it (my bold):
Searching around for the “appalling vandalism” angle I see News Ltd framed it that way 11 hours ago.
They weren’t the only ones, the local Peruvian press expressed ‘shock, outrage and fury’ too.
Apparently Greenpeace apologized and promised to do what they could to rectify any damage.
“Vandalism” surely requires destructive intent. It looks more like “thoughtless” action at worst, and a handy distractive beat-up.
‘… The soil has a large amount of lime, which hardens and protects the lines from wind erosion. However, the properties of the ground which has allowed these glyphs to endure for over a millennium are why … footprints can leave marks that will also endure over time. The area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 in order to preserve the images.
‘… Though BBC reports a Greenpeace spokesperson said the protestors were careful not to step on the lines themselves, they have damaged the area surrounding it. This is kind of like using permanent marker to write your name on the Mona Lisa and saying, “It’s okay! At least I didn’t write on her face!”’
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/greenpeace-irrevocably-damages-fragile-nazca-lines-peru-during-publicity-stunt
This is one of these confected “moral outrage” panics where the crime is vastly smaller than the real crimes being perpetrated against the environment by corporations. If you fall for the trap of over-condemning Greenpeace for this somewhat immature and unwise stunt, then you are falling for the one of the standard tricks of corporate capitalism. They commit flagrant damage to the environment and climate and then point to a relatively minor infraction by someone else (Greenpeace in this instance) and beat it up as the crime of the millenium.
I note that the media (compliant to corporate oligarchy) scream Greenpeace “may” have damaged the site. Science says we have almost certainly damaged our climate with far more damage to come. I can equally claim that climate change “may” damage this site far more than Greenpeace did. What hypocrisy from the corporate oligarchic establishment! They don’t give a damn for human or ecological heritage anyway.
There are a lot of “mays” and “mights” in the reporting. There is currently no firm evidence Greenpeace have irrevocably damaged anything. They appear to have taken equal care as is taken in the admitted cases where tourists are in fact still allowed to walk around this site. But of course tourism is sacred because it earns the sacred dollar.
I personally faced the same hypocrisy when I visited Uluru some time ago. I had intended to make the walk to the top of Uluru (perhaps unwisely and insensitively). However, I paid heed to the written and indeed verbal pleas from local aboriginals and park management. I walked the walking track around the Rock instead and was pleased that I did. It was marvellous what I saw (compared to “peak views” which are somewhat generically similar).
While I was walking around the Rock, I saw from some different angles busloads of Japanese tourists arriving and trekking up the Rock. I was pretty annoyed at the hypocrisy of it from all concerned except the local aboriginals who I judged to be sincere but still rather powerless in the matter.
This same kind of hypocisy is being exercised here. Tourists still go there and tourist planes fly over it apparently. You know, an aircraft “may” crash and it “may” crash on the site. What then? Oh and guess what!!! Plane crashes do occur in the vicinity of the Nazcar site. Look it up on the search engine of your choice.
Here’s one report from Contract Pilot tales.
“Many tourists take scenic flights over the Nazca lines, as they can only be fully seen from the air. However, in recent years the safety record of flights over the Nazca lines has been dismal:
7 people died in a February 2010 plane crash during a Nazca flight.
The plane that crashed in February 2010 had made an emergency landing on a highway in November 2008.
5 French tourists died in an April 2008 plane crash near Nazca. (see commentary below)
In June 2010 a light aircraft was reported hijacked over the Nazca lines, and the pilots later turned up in unexplained circumstances in the Peruvian jungle city of Puerto Maldonado.
Stuart at en Peru had this commentary about the 2008 crash:
“In March of 2008, five French citizens were killed after mechanical failures caused their plane to crash. The aeroplane was operated by Aeroica (Aero Ica) which had its operations shut down. The company had lied to the press indicating that a passenger panicked and caused the crash. Later investigations found that the plane had no fuel on board – apparently part of a effort to cut costs by having the planes glide back with the engine turned off.”
I’ve never flown over the Nazca lines, but just casual observation would make me think the safety standards are not good. In some reports there’s talk of the aircraft gliding back to base with the engine purposely cut off to save fuel. I’ve also been told that aviation and technical expertise in Peru is scarce.” – Contract Pilot Tales.
If this is the state of tourism over the area then a plane crash into the lines sooner or later is quite likely. So spare me the hypocrisy of attacking Greenpeace for a relatively minor infraction when much greater dangers to the site exist, fed as always by capitalism, self-interest and general greed for money.
J-D, I highly doubt those footprints are going to “endure over time”.
This is an instance of JQ in Very Serious Person mode.
The damage done ;-
biomass of humans = 300 million tons
biomass of farm animals = 700 million tons
biomass of wild animals cat size and up = 100 million tons.
from Vaclav Smil ,’The Earths Biosphere ,Dynamics and Change’ (Cambridge, Mass , MIT Press 2002)
Greenpeace is imperfect. Its corporate structure contradicts the possibility of democratic internal governance and there is a problem with the cynical way that young activists are offered few other the opportunities to engage except soliciting donations while wearing a koala suit. Above all, its corporate structure allows for ready infiltration by opposing forces because people are advanced within the organization without the scrutiny of democratic association.
Sharon Beder’s critical account of Greenpeaceis recommended. It is an early account of the sort of criticism’s of ‘big green’ that Naomi Klein has recently been advancing in ‘This Changes Everything’.
At the same time, Greenpeace is an excellent funnel for money and does support numerous independent actions where it does not attempt to control what happens on the ground. It is what we’ve got.
Nick, you highly doubt it? Oh well, that’s okay then. Somebody should write to the Peruvian government and tell them to stop worrying because Nick on the Web highly doubts it.
‘.. The environmental activist group said it would collaborate with the government to determine if any damage was done to the site, and that it would stop using photos of the protest in its campaigns. …’
(http://io9.com/this-greenpeace-stunt-may-have-irreparably-damaged-peru-1669728616)
I’m sure Greenpeace will be hugely reassured that they don’t have to worry about the possibility of damage having been done because Nick on the Web highly doubts it.
@Ikonoclast
You think ‘over-condemning’ Greenpeace would be a trap? So how much condemning do you think would be the right level, and what would you consider to be examples of exceeding that level?
My thoughts:
1. I’ve come full circle on the notion of vandalism, and now agree that the reaction to this just highlights how dismissive the public is of environmental vandalism on an industrial scale.
2. The overall response of Greenpeace supporters provides a classic example of the differences in partisanship between the Left and Right. Overwhelmingly, progressives have taken the attitude that they agree with the goals of Greenpeace, but regard this particular protest as misguided and unhelpful.
Now imagine how it would go down if a conservative group had done the same thing. The Oz would be demanding we invade Peru, Andrew Bolt would be insisting that the Nazca lines destroy jobs by preventing mining, and right-wing activists would be all over the internet screaming that a vast Incan conspiracy is trying to crush the free speach of patriots.
The tribes are very different.
@J-D
That is not what i am saying. Maybe in a second comment a little bit, but in my first comment i am saying that there is no visible damage.
NYT provided photo from JQ provided links does not show any damage to the soil by activists’ feet, There is no difference in hue color of disturbed sand and undisturbed sand. Nazca lines are done still visible due to removal of dark rocks from the light colored sand and shadows of rised edges, not so much from removal of the darker top layer of sand reveling lighter color sand. Such difference in sand layer colors is not noticable.
Nick also provided photo with up close view of disturbances of top sand by Greenpeace activisits and disturbed sand is showing no signs of diferent color or light diferentiation. The only way that footprints can be recognized is thanks to shadows of it, not through color difference. There is no damage by activists to Nazca lines.
On 10 December Greenpeace issued the following press release:
@J-D
My reply made it pretty clear. Over-condemning them;
(a) is calling them “vandals” when it is not yet clear that they did any damage at all.
(b) is calling them “vandals” while remaining silent about everything from climate change to tourist impacts and dangers to Nazca including the very real danger of tourist planes crashing on the site.
(c) is saying that it was any more than an unwise stunt and mostly unwise from a public relations angle.
It actually looks to me like they were pretty careful and I find claims of permanent damage to have very little credibility at least at this stage. I find the evidence that the Peruvian government, the tourist industry and global corporations are doing far more damage to the climate and to Nazca to be far more comprehensive and convincing.
To all the critics of Greenpeace on this occasion I would quote;
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
It is pure hypocrisy and a diversion tactic to attack Greenpeace on this occasion for this infraction. I mean by those who beat this up. Others who are joining in with the criticism either agree that Greenpeace should be subject to a beatup attack with little to no substance or they are allowing themselves to be easily manipulated or they bear some kind of personal animus against Greenpeace. Or maybe they know something I don’t know at this stage about the Greenpeace action. The last is always possible.
The Greenpeace sabotage attack on a CSIRO GM experiment is another issue. That was not ethically defensible.
J-D, there’s no need to be snide. You have a right to your viewpoint. I have a right to mine. The Peruvian Government certainly has a right to theirs.
However, since you want to go through the motions, it’s worth noting whatever evidence-based argument you’re trying to mount was ‘irrevocably weakened’ by linking to a sarcastic one-sided hit piece entitled:
“Greenpeace Irreparably Damage Ancient Nazca Lines”
When that’s far from having been established.
You may also wish to consider the logical inconsistency of criticising somebody simply for having an opinion, directly after quoting the following to bolster your argument:
As if that’s somehow not an opinion. Geez, lock ’em up and throw away the key!
Fwiw, I based my opinion on photographic evidence of the site in question.
And, fwiw, it’s not “kind of like”. It is nothing like.
@Ikonoclast
Since John Quiggin used the term ‘vandalism’, he’s caught within the scope of your definition of ‘over-condemning’, so your challenge ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?’ ought to apply to him; but what then is the metaphorical plank in his eye? He hasn’t done anything to the Nazca lines, has he?
@Nick
You are incorrect in this much: I did not criticise you, or anybody, simply for having an opinion.
As is usually the case, there is reason for circumspection in accepting the establishment media narrative.
There seems to be little doubt that the Peruvian government takes heritage seriously, especially because of the tourist dollars it brings.
But they also have an extremely poor record on police and military violence against social/environmental protesters and activists. The police have been caught in corruption scandals involving them working directly for mining and resource interests.
This year the government passed a law which essentially allows the police and military to kill environmental protesters with impunity.
It is called Law 30151.
Extract from the ‘Peruvian Times’ [15/1/14]:
Perhaps the Minister’s reaction to the greenpeace action was coloured to some extent by this background.
@J-D
I have a plank in my own eye now after over-criticising J.Q and lumping him in with the right on this issue. It is best I say no more.
Probably a good rule of thumb is that if one is starting to quote from the Bible one is becoming seriously over-rightous. Being a militant agnostic I have no excuse for such a deplorable mistake.
Since when has criminal vandalism proven ineffective for the environmental movement, or the animal rights movement? It’s a hugely effective tactic. But what Greenpeace did in Nazca is not vandalism, it’s either thoughtless criminal stupidity or harmless depending on the truth about the site. It is not destruction intended to delay or prevent an industrial process, as is the vandalism referenced in the OP; it’s a stupid mistake apparently brought about by the thoughtlessness of western elitist demonstrators [putting aside that some of the members involved were from middle-income countries].
Did John Quiggin object to the dudes who vandalized the Opera House in protest against the Iraq war? I suspect not. This post is actually not about vandalism at all, but about JQ’s continuing attempts to paint Greenpeace as anti-science because they disagree with him on GMOs. And where is the low-GI wheat that the CSIRO were trialling in 2009? Still not on the market. Not that it would matter, since diabetes and obesity are not going to be fixed by making a new form of wheat, but by addressing the social and structural factors that make people fat. There is no health or nutrition problem that is solved by GMOs, but there are a lot of corporate balance sheet issues that can be fixed by new crops …
@Fran Barlow
My understanding is that Greenpeace is structurally Leninist. Authority emanates from an unaccountable centre rather than rising democratically from the base. The International Olympic Committee has a similar form – the national committees are emanations of the IOC, not the other way round. Lenin did not invent the scheme, which goes back I suppose to the Catholic Church and other versions of Christianity accepting the apostolic succession.
Such centralisation has virtues. The Greenpeace position on anything is always clear, right or wrong. Cf the Vatican. It is possible for it to plan and carry out effective media stunts requiring secrecy and often courage. But these advantages are outweighed by institutional arrogance and lack of consultation.
Never mind all that stuff, I’m going to buy some flowers from a Turkish website that likes quoting comments from this site.
Hope they don’t sell anything from Som@lia! I might not be able to get through their rigorous security measures.
I would be and am far more critical of Greenpeace for selling out than for any supposed vandalism at Nazca. Sharon Beder’s article linked to by jungney sums up the sellout.
The base problem is capitalism itself. Until capitalism goes nothing will change. How will capitalism go? It will destroy itself.
@Ikonoclast
LOL. I take this to mean that you ferociously condemn atheists and believers alike for their foolishness in having a settled view on the matter.
On the topic of the OP, I tend to agree with you and Megan that the spittle-flecked reaction to this is quite overblown, particularly as (at this stage) there doesn’t appear to be any real evidence of damage to the site. Other than that it involves Greenpeace, the situation doesn’t really resemble the destruction of the GM experiments in 2011, which was a deliberate act of vandalism.
@Ikonoclast
A realistic appraisal of the specialised environment movement, by which I mean not people but the major NGOs – in Australia that would be the Greenpeace, the WWF, Planet Ark, the ACF, TWS, the NSW NCC and similar, and in the US, the Sierra Club and a host of others – have failed abysmally to halt either rampant ecocide or cc. This message is predictably unwelcome but it must be faced. The professional green bureaucracy only developed because of its acceptance of the neoliberal faith in market based solutions.
The broader movement, those of who either gave money to these NGOs or bought ‘green’ product in the belief that this would ‘fix the problem’, need to get back to the drawing board and promptly.
Greenpeace are not vandals, they are not enemies of science.
This is just psy-war by an academic economist..
@jungney
Yes, they and we have failed miserably to halt ecocide and AGW. But blame is not really the way to look at it. Many people thought that capitalism could be reformed. Maybe that was a reasonable hope at one point. We have enough empirical evidence now to know that capitalism is not reformable. Neither is capitalism stoppable. It has to blow itself out just as a hurricane has to blow itself out.
@Ikonoclast
Yair. The future looks a little Easter Island-ish to me as well. However, there will be opportunities to amplify moments of open rebellion in the near future in which I fully intend to participate. Might as well go down swinging. You just never know.
@faustusnotes
Maybe the CSIRO haven’t gotten their new strains on the market because someone mysteriously destroyed their trial crops?
Whatever you may think of Greenpeace, it does you no favours to misreport on their activities.
Contrary to your assertions, Greenpeace does take responsibility for what it does.
The activists involved in the GM activity you refer to certainly DID turn themselves into police, co-operated fully in the investigation, and pleaded guilty in court. They were fined and the activists received a suspended sentence.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/greenpeace-activists-in-costly-gm-protest-20120802-23i0t.html
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/gm-crop-destroyers-given-suspended-sentences-20121119-29l66.html
Greenpeace Exec Director has publicly apologised for the Nazca activity, and promised full co-operation in any investigation. Far from hiding from their actions, the activists were photographed placing the lettering, which were released publicly.
I look forward to your apology and to seeing your blogs corrected.
Greenpeace are good advocates for many environmental issues. Sometimes they engage in tactics which are illegal, but not only illegal, of questionable ethics. I have a very dim view of their attack upon CSIRO GM crop trials. If they were that concerned about what might happen if these GM crops were allowed into the environment, then traipsing around ripping up experimental crop plants, and then walking out into open air, is hardly the way to go about it. The protective greenhouse environment, didn’t that mean anything to Greenpeace? Nope, did not think that far ahead. Finally, what if that trial had demonstrated the GM crops weren’t going to work at all? We’ll never know now.
Advocacy without destruction is a far better approach, surely.
On a different note, for those people who have friends that insist their was a “pause” in global temperature warming, I strongly recommend a look at Tamino’s website. It is a bit statistical, but he writes so well, it should be clear enough to get the gist. Tell your friends to go look at it: it might not convince them, but hey, it’s always worth a try.
Damn grammar correction: In the comment’s final paragraph, first sentence, I meant “there”, not “their”. Grrr.
@Cat Dorey
Well, considering they video taped themselves destroying the experiment and then proudly posted pictures online….it was fairly obvious they were going to get caught and be found guilty. Best chance they had to avoid a permanent criminal record was to throw themselves on the mercy of the court.
I believe they also had to repay the cost of the trial ($200,000+) to the CSIRO. So remember the next time you donate money to Greenpeace that it could end up being used to support research into GM agriculture. And paying lawyers fees to keep their clowns out of prison..or get them out of Russian prisons…
It surprises me that people still donate to Greenpeace when there are so many better, science-based environmental NGOs (National Geographic, WWF, Nature Conservancy etc) that are more deserving of the support.
@Donald Oats
Donald, for those who insist that there has been a pause in global warming I suggest posting a graph of global temperature anomolies and then asking them to move their finger along the five year mean from what ever point they say the pause started at and then asking if their finger is higher or lower than when they started. I think this is the kindest method. After all, it’s a bit cruel to ask them to actually read something. But oddly enough, no one has ever thanked me for doing this.
@Ronald Brak
Good one Ronald! They are neither literate nor numerate nor even “grapherate”. But one hopes they know difference between up and down and can see as far as their fingertip.
@Cat Dorey
As I recall, the posted video did not contain an unambiguous admission of guilt, though obviously those involved were convicted. Do you have evidence that they handed themselves in.
Certainly, this hasn’t happened in the Peru case. The official apology is progress, and undercuts the defenders of vandalism in the thread above, but there is no sign that those responsible are willing to present themselves for arrest.
Storm. Teacup. Moral posturing.
@faustusnotes
If there is one debating tactic that really irks me, it’s making accusations of hypocrisy on the basis of an evidence-free assumption. I don’t recall the vandalism of the Opera House, but on looking it up, it’s exactly the kind of juvenile stuff I deplored in the post. Why would you expect me to think otherwise?
I await, but don’t expect, an apology.
I’m sorry John, I assumed you would see it as direct action and were restricting your criticisms of vandalism to the environmental movement (I inferred this from your post). I don’t agree with a consistent opposition to vandalism, but I’m sorry for making an accusation of hypocrisy when none applies.
I think you are wrong about petty vandalism not benefiting the left or, more specifically, the environmental movement. Almost all progress on animal rights has arisen from vandalism, and almost certainly the Sea Shepherd movement have singlehandedly brought Japan’s whaling practices to world attention and forced them into the international courts through vandalism. Almost all the early gains in ethical treatment of animals for research are due to vandalism, not direct action, and no I’m not referring to recent allegations of violent threats but to actions in the 1980s. Pretty much all the gains in forestry protection in Australia have arisen from confrontational tactics, and the poll tax was not stopped in the UK by direct action but by violence. The use of such tactics gains importance as the government moves installations further away from scrutiny, as in the case of asylum seekers being increasingly detained where we can’t get to them, and also military bases like Woomera – you’ll never be able to field a Greenham Common style protest at Woomera, but you might be able to break in and damage it (something that has been done in other countries too).
But most especially the environmental and animal rights movements have made major gains through this, and it’s particularly effective when there is a pressing need for reform in secretive institutions but the broad mass of people don’t support or don’t know about the movement trying to achieve that reform.
My understanding is that the suffragettes’ political strategy included smashing stuff. It’s not an ineffective tactic.
@John Quiggin
If there’s one moralising tactic that really irks me it’s pointing to the relatively minor infractions of those protesting against the horrendous damage inflicted by the capitalist establishment as they go about destroying the planet. When did you become such a bourgeois apologist?
“Pretty much all the gains in forestry protection in Australia have arisen from confrontational tactics”
As I said in the OP, there’s a huge difference between “confrontational” civil disobedience and criminal vandalism. I’m not aware of any important instances of the latter in the Oz forest campaign, other than in the form of rumors about vandalism spread by the other side of the dispute – an indication of how counterproductive these tactics are.
@Ronald Brak
Like!