Greenpeace

One of the most visible environmental activist organizations in the world, Greenpeace has engaged in several campaigns against nuclear arms, toxic waste, water pollution, and global climate change. It has advocated zero waste practices in developing nations across the world. Its methods are nonviolent, but confrontations with several nations (among them Japan and France) and industrial interests have aroused both controversy and acclaim over the organization's history.

Greenpeace was formed in 1971 when some members of the Quaker faith in Vancouver, Canada, decided that they wanted to protest the underground testing of nuclear bombs taking place on the tiny island of Amchitka off the west coast of Alaska. One of the tenets of the Quaker faith is to “bear witness,” or to observe situations that one feels are morally wrong. The small group of activists, concerned about the consequences of nuclear tests, sailed off in a boat named the Phyllis Cormack, but they did not make it to the Amchitka site before the nuclear test. Far from being a failed endeavor, however, the attempt to witness the nuclear test garnered so much media, public, and political attention that the activists realized that the attention to the issue of nuclear testing was, in itself, a success.

At a meeting soon after the Phyllis Cormack's sailing, someone left the room saying, “peace” and someone else replied, “make it a green peace,” [Page 331]and the international environmental organization Greenpeace was born. In the 21st century, Greenpeace continues to maintain as one of its core values “bearing witness to environmental destruction in a peaceful, nonviolent manner.” It has grown around the world, according to the Greenpeace international Website: there are Greenpeace offices in 41 countries, almost three million members, and a long list of victories. For example, the attention that the first Greenpeace sailing garnered, along with the subsequent work, was successful in pressuring the United States to abandon its Amchitka nuclear testing site in 1972.