Greenpeace target Land Rover in climate protest (UK)

[struggle4progress]

By Rod Chaytor

GREENPEACE activists chained themselves to cars at Land Rover yesterday to halt production of "climate-wrecking" 4x4s.

About 35 walked in with the 7am shift, discarded jackets to reveal orange boiler-suits and pressed shut-down buttons to stop the assembly line.

The protesters wound "crime-scene" tape around vehicles and handcuffed themselves to cars at the Lode Lane plant in Solihull, West Mids.

Spokesman Ben Stewart said the petrol-hungry cars were "designed for off-road use ... not on the school run" and were a cause of climate change. <snip>

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15524871&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=4x4-chain-gang-name_page.html

[Webster Green]

1. I love it!

Greenpeace rocks!

[NNadir]

2. Greenpeace is a clown troupe.

These are spoiled children from the upper classes who mostly thrive on attention.

Their point is hardly ever to accomplish viable environmental change or protection, so much as it is to bring attention to themselves, as this bit of useless theater so clearly demonstrates.

If I were a Greenpeace twit who developed a moral concience - not that such a change is a likely occurance since these types are so clearly ethically challenged - I might spend my time working for free in windmill production plants or working to clean up toxic spills or in the organic farming the so claim to love. In other words I might practice what I preach. I might work in a reforesting project, to take some courses in analytical chemistry, so that I might donate time to identify toxic leaks.

Instead we have this useless business that, in typical Greenpeace fashion, at the end of the day will have accomplished exactly zero beyond getting a bunch of mindless adolescents a little bit of the press for which Greenpeacers apparently live.

It is pathetic that such people have neither a sense of self-respect nor even worse, a sense of shame.

[Nihil]

3. Nice broad brush you have there!

> Greenpeace is a clown troupe

> If I were a Greenpeace twit who developed a moral concience - not that
> such a change is a likely occurance since these types are so clearly
> ethically challenged ...

> It is pathetic that such people have neither a sense of self-respect
> nor even worse, a sense of shame.

That is about as useful as people saying that nuclear power advocates
are all lying bastards in the pay of the industry. I seem to recall
that you disagree with this viewpoint ...

SOME Greenpeace actions - like this one - are mere publicity seeking
(rather than actually achieving a tangible result) but not all of the
publicity is bad.

I was a Greenpeace member for many years and found a lot of useful
information there (yes, along with a lot of propaganda but that's
what your brain is for: mentally sorting the wheat from the chaff).

I was (and still am) a supporter of nuclear power but that doesn't
mean that I believe all of the stuff in BNFL leaflets either ...
Any pretence that pro-nuclear information is somehow free of "spin"
is just as false as the opposing view that it is all spin.

Like it or not, this "clown troupe" raises awareness of environmental
issues that are otherwise brushed out of sight. In my case, it was
the actions of "a bunch of mindless adolescents" intervening in the
even more mindless slaughter of whales that started the process of
environmental awareness. Greenpeace formed a gateway to a number of
ecological organisations and information sources. I didn't agree with
many of their views but didn't let that blind me to the beneficial
side of the organisation.

I have taken my kids round wind farms, hydroelectric plants and
nuclear power stations. I have explained why I spent hours laying
&$^£ing fibreglass insulation in the loft. I introduced them to
better tasting (though more expensive) organic foods. I've led them
to understanding how the web of life interacts, how we can co-exist
with yet still enjoy the beauties of nature.

A lot of this (though not all) has followed from my Greenpeace time.
Without such groups, there would be even less awareness of environmental
issues than there is today.

Sorry that this has rambled on but I get just as tired of your
"eco-organisations are self-indulgent wasters" view as you must get
of other people's "nuclear advocates are self-indulgent wasters" one.

Nihil