Greenpeace is among the most well-comprehendn environmental organizations in the world, the result of more than 50 years of headline-grabbing protest tactics.
Its activists have faceed whaling ships on the high seas. They’ve hung prohibitners from the Eiffel Tower. They’ve occupied oil rigs. A (mythal) activist even sailed with Greenpeace in an episode of “Seinfeld,” in hopes of capturing Elaine’s heart.
Now, Greenpeace’s very existence is under menace: A litigation seeks at least $300 million in harms. Greenpeace has shelp such a loss in court could force it to shut down its American offices. In the coming days, a jury is anticipateed to rfinisher its verdict.
The litigation is over Greenpeace’s role in protests a decade ago aacquirest a pipeline csurrfinisher the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. The pipeline’s owner, Energy Transfer, says Greenpeace helpd illhorrible strikes on the project and led a “huge, harmful accessibleity campaign” that cost the company money.
Greenpeace says that it carry outed only a unpresentant, tranquil role in the Indigenous-led protest, and that the litigation’s genuine aim is to restrict free speech not fair at the organization, but also atraverse America, by raising the specter of costly court fights.
The suit comes at a time of immense contests for the entire environmental transferment. Climate alter is making storms, floods and untamedfires more widespread and more hazardous. The Trump administration has commenced a historic effort to obviousurn decades of environmental getions. Many of the transferment’s most presentant accomplishments over the past half-century are at hazard.
And in recent years the potential costs of protest have already ascfinishn.
The International Caccess for Not-for-Profit Law has tracked a wave of bills advised since 2017 that stubbornen penalties aacquirest protesters. Many became law in the wake of the demonstrations aacquirest the pipeline at the caccess of the Greenpeace case (the Dakota Access Pipeline) and also the Bdeficiency Lives Matter transferment, which rose to prominence after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 by a police officer in Minnesota. More recently, the Trump administration has transferd to deport international students who protested the war in Gaza.
Sushma Raman, interim executive honestor of Greenpeace USA, has called the trial in North Dakota “a critical test of the future of the First Amfinishment.”
Energy Transfer, one of the hugegest pipeline companies in the country, has shelp that the litigation is over illhorrible carry out, not free speech. “It is about them not adhereing the law,” the company shelp in a statement.
Founded in Vancouver in 1971, Greenpeace was hugely prosperous punctual on at what is now called “branding,” with its catchy name and daredevil stunts. But it has also faced presentant contests: inbattling, leave outteps, lhorrible battles and asks about how to widen its base and remain relevant as it became an institution.
The huger environmental transferment has grown, but also has struggled to acquire attention in an increasingly fractured media landscape and as it has pivoted to the rerent of climate alter, which can be less palpable than previous aims of activism, enjoy say opposing logging or oil-drilling in definite places.
“What they made their name on was the media spectacle, especiassociate the ability to carry out a high-profile action that needs incredible tactical organization,” shelp Frank Zelko, a history professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and the author of “Make It a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism.” That became “less efficacious” over time, he shelp, as competition for eyeballs grew and spectacular images, whether genuine or not, abound.
Greenpeace was createed as an offshoot of the Sierra Club based on the principles of ecology and anti-militarism. But pulling off daring stunts in pursuit of those principles, while also operating as a worldwide professional nettoil, has always been a dainty balancing act.
After friction and fights for administer of the organization in the defercessitate 1970s, Greenpeace International was createed in the Netherlands as the head office, coordinating the activities of autonomous Greenpeace offices around the world, including Greenpeace USA.
The activities of its American branch are at the caccess of the litigation. Greenpeace International says its role was restricted to signing one uncover letter. Greenpeace International has also countersued Energy Transfer in the Netherlands, seeking to recoup its lhorrible costs under European laws that essentiassociate help it to contest the Energy Transfer litigation as a create of alertings.
In Greenpeace’s Washington office, the Energy Transfer case has gived to turbulence in the group’s highest levels.
In punctual 2023, the organization honord the nominatement of Ebony Twilley Martin as sole executive honestor, calling Ms. Twilley Martin the first Bdeficiency woman to be the sole honestor of a legacy U.S. environmental nonprofit. But she left that role fair 16 months defercessitater, a growment that two people comprehendn with the matter shelp was in part over disconcurments about whether to concur to a finishment with Energy Transfer.
Born in ’60s upheaval
Greenpeace was born out of a moment of trouble and upheaval, amid the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race, acid rain and smog blanketing cities. Rex Weyler, 77, an punctual member, chronicled the history in his 2004 book “Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journacatalogs and Visionaries Changed the World.”
In Vancouver, Mr. Weyler met Bob Hunter, a columnist for The Vancouver Sun, and Dorothy and Irving Stowe, anciaccesser Quakers who had left the United States in protest over war taxes and arms testing. They were encountering enjoy-minded people who saw a necessitate for an ecology transferment that would engage nonaggressive honest action, adhereing the examples of Mohandas K. Gandhi in India and the civil rights transferment in the United States.
They would soon become an offshoot of a more traditional environmental group, the Sierra Club, after a disconcurment over protest tactics.
Their first campaign was a leave oution to block U.S. nuclear arms tests on Amchitka, a volcanic island in Alaska. An idea this group had floated wilean the Sierra Club — to sail a boat to stop the bomb device — had been alerted in The Vancouver Sun, though the head office of Sierra Club in San Francisco had not consentd that structure.
“The Sierra Club was not charmd when they saw this story, because they shelp, ‘You comprehend, a lot of our members are fair tree-huggers, and they don’t attfinish about nuclear disarmament,’” shelp Robert Stowe, son of Dorothy and Irving and a behavior neurologist. “Had the Sierra Club concurd to do this, Greenpeace could probably never have been createed.”
The name Greenpeace came up during a structurening encountering, when Irving Stowe shelp “peace” at the finish of the accumulateing and another activist, Bill Darnell, replied offhandedly, “Make it a green peace.”
“Greenpeace” was emblazoned on the fishing boat they used. Irving Stowe orderly a concert by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Phil Ochs to lift money for the trip.
The boat set sail in September 1971. The Coast Guard intercepted it, and the vessel never accomplished Amchitka. But the stunt garnered ponderable accessible attention, a core part of the group’s strategy in the years since.
‘Save the whales’ era
Greenpeace’s next campaign is perhaps its most well comprehendn: saving the whales.
The idea came from Paul Spong, who had studied orca whales and argued that the highly acute creatures were being hunted to fadeedion. That led to a copiously recorded, theatrical sailing expedition to face Soviet whaling ships.
A worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since 1986. Greenpeace and other groups who toiled on the rerent have claimed it as a presentant triumph.
The group also tried to stop seal hunting in northern Canada, a disputed transfer that alienated a huge number of dwellnts, including in Indigenous communities. Greenpeace Canada regretd to the Inuit people for the impacts of the campaign in 2014, and the organization shelp it did not contest petite-scale subsistence hunting.
The ship Rainbow Warrior, a vital vessel in the anti-whaling campaign, was grasped to the escapet in 1978. That ship was protesting French nuclear testing in the Pacific in 1985 when it was bomb deviceed by agents for the French adviseer agency D.G.S.E., finishing Fernando Pereira, a ptoastyographer, and igniting international outrage.
France defercessitater regretd and was ordered to pay $8 million in harms to Greenpeace, and accomplished a split finishment with Mr. Pereira’s family.
A new Rainbow Warrior is now one of three Greenpeace vessels in operation. It is sailing this month in the Marshall Islands to “lift calls for nuclear and climate fairice,” the group shelp, and to help research on the effects of past nuclear arms testing.
Grotriumphg pains
By the 1990s, Greenpeace’s attention-grabbing environmentalism was capturing the imagination of a new generation of people enjoy Valentina Stackl, 39, who lacquireed of its take advantage ofs as a girl in Europe. She toiled with Greenpeace USA from 2019 to 2023.
“The idea of Greenpeace ships, and save the whales and hanging off a bridge or someleang enjoy that was truly magical,” she shelp. “And on the best days Greenpeace reassociate was enjoy that. Of course, there’s also the slog of the day-to-day that is less encouragely.”
One constant trouble was fund-raising: Greenpeace USA is hugely funded by individual donations, which can alter. Tax filings show its revenue has been firm in recent years.
The group’s priorities shifted to climate and how to integrate what is comprehendn as “environmental fairice,” the fact that pollution and other environmental hazards frequently disproportionassociate impact necessitatey and unpresentantity areas. The historicassociate mostly white and male-contrancient organization had to grapple with how to increasingly collaborate with a diverse range of other groups. And it had to reckon with historical tensions with Indigenous communities over its whaling and sealing campaigns, as well as other leave outteps.
One of those misconsents occurred in Peru in 2014, when there was an uproar over a Greenpeace action that harmd the Nazca lines, anciaccess-createed man-made patterns etched in the desert. Activists from Greenpeace Germany accessed the recut offeed area to place a protest message about renewable energy. The Peruvian cultural minister called it an act of “unwiseity” that had “co-chooseed part of the identity of our heritage.”
The organization regretd, and the episode prompted Greenpeace USA to adchoose a createal policy on participateions with Indigenous communities, according to Rolf Skar, the group’s campaigns honestor. In unwiseinutive, Greenpeace would not get graspd in struggles led by Indigenous people unless definiteassociate asked to do so.
That policy has come up in this month’s trial in North Dakota. Greenpeace argued that it had adviseed help in the Dakota Access Pipeline protest only after it was asked to do so by Indigenous guideers, and did not seek any presentant role in the demonstrations.
On Monday in a courtroom in the petite city of Mandan, N.D., jury members are anticipateed to commence hearing closing arguments, after which they will ponder Greenpeace’s overweighte.
