who are Greenpeace

i've heard a few grumblings around about Greenpeace not doing enough actions, i thought i'd wait until that had been comprehensively disproved (as it has been in the last few weeks here and here) before responding on the the general point of where i see Greenpeace fitting in.

when i first joined GP i was slightly surprised by how keen they were to be seen as respectable and respected policy thinkers, but it quickly became cear to me that years of hard work and detailed knowedge meant that that position was inevitable. There was still some way to go with getting the media and public to catch up (certain sections of the media were still cautious and much of the public still think it's all ships and whales) but the process was in it's final phase.

Then, after conversations with one or 2 staff and volunteers i wondered whether GP should be aspiring to be a mere 'think-tank' - it was more than that, and uniquely for such a large international NGO was about taking action rather than lobbying. If anything it should be going back to it's roots of concentrating on actions and allowing the others to do all the political, lobbying policy type stuff.

However, I now realise that this mis reads Greenpeace's historical and contemporary role. Greenpeace has always been first and foremost an organisation that puts pressure on the bad guys to do the right thing - in essence lobbying them, except it uses a lobbying tool that others don't - actions that are always highly visible and sometimes also act directly on the problem.

So, GP is not a direct action movement, it (almost) never has been - except perhaps the very first activities stopping nuclear tests, after those very quickly the action became simply a tool, albeit an important one.

GP is also not a 'movement' it is a really quite small organisation that has loads of supporters. This is one of it's strengths, it keeps it focussed and says 'we do what we do, if you agree support us, if not then don't'. movements involve everyone and are open and have certain strengths through that, but GP (in the the UK at least) is really no more than 20-30 people, giving it a huge amount of strategic integrity. This kind of centralisation isn't for everyone, but many people who support GP are also members of 'movements' as well, they support GP because it works bloody well at what it does, the mistake, made by the author of the link at the top, is to mis interpret what it does.