Greenpeace are idiots

[Agent]

I was in my local town on Saturday and I had the unfortunate time of meeting these people.

Now, I don't want to be taken wrong here - I have the utmost respect for people who campaign for something they believe in (regardless of if I agree with their cause). Its certainly better than sitting on your arse and moaning about the situation.
However, I don't think these people have quite understood the methods needed to get people to actually listen.

A Greenpeace girl approached me and asked how I was (I didn't realise she was with them). A bit puzzled, I simply said "Fine thanks, you?". This was my first mistake as it seemed to be a signal that every Greenpeace activist within 50Km was allowed to descend upon me like a swam of bees.

I was soon being bombarded with questions from them along the lines of "What's your CO2 footprint", "How did you travel here today" before a clipboard was shoved under my nose and told to sign it. They went on to explain it was a petition against Japan and whaling - I refused to sign it.
He exploded into a rant on how much of an issue it was and that I was supporting them by not putting a squiggle on this bit of paper.
Politely, I pointed out that I wasn't aware of the situation in Japan other than the small clips I'd seen on TV a while back and I certainly wasn't going to sign it without doing my own research on the matter. Pointing out that they have an agenda so are likely to have one sided information didn't go down to well.

At this point I started to be followed down the high-street being shouted at..."This man supports whaling" and various other things, with one person constantly trying to stop me from walking forward. Telling him that we exhale CO2 so by killing himself would help reduce emissions for the rest of us made matters worse.
After a minute or so I lost it - I made it clear that in no uncertain terms unless he moved out of my way his ass was going to be hitting the floor pretty soon. They backed off shortly afterwards to the location of their banners and posters.

I did a little searching today and it seems these people are nothing short of corporate bullies if you don't agree with them. A good example of this I found on Wikipedia:

According to a report by the New England-based environmental organization Clean Air-Cool Planet, Canon tops the list of 56 companies the survey conducted about climate-friendly companies.[9]

To further show the company's commitment to the environment, Canon launched three new calculators in Europe, called "Green Calculators", which are produced, in part, from recycled Canon copiers.[10]

However, despite extensive advertisements regarding conservation, Canon was criticized by Greenpeace with regard to the issue of whaling in Japan in their attempt to stir up controversy. Greenpeace sent Canon a statement asking Fujio Mitarai, the Chairman and CEO of Canon Japan, to sign it to support the end of lethal whaling research. Canon responded by saying they are committed to preserving the environment but since opinion varies on scientific whaling research, they would not sign the statement. Greenpeace used this response to speculate that Canon supports whaling. [11]

And to make matter worse, a Jury has just decided that they can break the law in the name of global warming: http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...aw-925561.html

From what I've seen they are almost religiously fanatical about their cause. Dismissing anyone who does not agree with them 100% as people who like to put kittens in blenders for fun.

Anyone else had a run in with these lot?

[TheAnimus]

I was in Prague three weeks ago, whilst walking to the Kunsthaus i was accoutered by a very nice looking street chugger (someone who collects money for charities). She completely blocked my path but was really nice looking, so i couldn't really just push her out of my way.

In my best english accent i started to say "ich sie nur einbissen deutsch sprechen" (a very broken way of saying i only speek a little german... Bad grammar and all).

She turns round in a great english accent and says, "oh i was asking if your concerned about the situation in africa where millions of people don't have access to clean water".

My response took her a little by shock when i said "not really". I then proceeded to explain that in my little holiday, i've spent £180 on air tickets, £300 on food + wine, £150 on accomodation. If i really cared about the genuinely awful plight of these people, i wouldn't squander money on a little weekend away. Anything i did give her wouldn't really be trying to address the issue, only my gilt. And that helping keep people on life support is ultimately pointless.

She looked liked she died inside, i felt quite bad.

[iranu]

Greenpeace are watermelons. Green on the outside but red on the inside. They are nothing but authoritarian socialists who would like us to go back to sunsistence farming. Most of them are so blinded by their ideology they can't see their own hypocrisy and they have the fervour of the self righteous nutter. If I was approached like that I'd ask to see the labels of their clothing and where it was manufactured. If it wasn't a non-man-made fibre, hand woven/knitted within 20 miles of where they bought it I'd point out their hypocrisy then kindly tell them to piss off. And if they didn't I'd lump one of them on the grounds that I felt they were threatening me.

[AdamAnubis]

Unfortunately not, However it seems like an interesting expiernence. However it does seem a tad far for them to block you, and chase you shouting 'he supports whaling' :/ I'd like to see cameron doing that in his capmaigns And nice comeback on the CO2 emissions btw

[Virtual Monkey]

I'm actually astounded that they had the nerve to persue you while shouting stuff. Being so militant is completely the wrong way to go about addressing any issue.

Concerning the link - I can't agree that destroying property should be allowed, but why are coal-fuelled power plants still being built?

[Steve]

Chuggers - charity muggers - I hate them.

I generally respond with as antagonistic a response as I can muster.

Some of these people get paid more than me to stand on the streets and hassle me; why should I be remotely interested in their cause, when they're paid to be interested in it.

[Mblaster]

At this point I started to be followed down the high-street being shouted at..."This man supports whaling" and various other things, with one person constantly trying to stop me from walking forward. Telling him that we exhale CO2 so by killing himself would help reduce emissions for the rest of us made matters worse.
After a minute or so I lost it - I made it clear that in no uncertain terms unless he moved out of my way his ass was going to be hitting the floor pretty soon. They backed off shortly afterwards to the location of their banners and posters.

I've never seen anything like that ammount of harrassment, guess they know they're in a good position because if you do hit one of them you would probably be arrested for assault

I guess they must choose their targets carefully as I can't image most people being so restrained.

[TheAnimus]

Concerning the link - I can't agree that destroying property should be allowed, but why are coal-fuelled power plants still being built?

Because they really aren't *that* bad.

Also just from an not putting all your eggs in one basket point of view, having a mixture, of coal, gas and nuclear is probably a very good idea. As that way you've got less sensativity to the price of the fuels.

[Norky]

One of the founding members of Greenpeace now speaks out against their scare tactics and opposition to nuclear power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick...ironmentalist)

[Guy]

A year or so ago, I was actually in the local paper on an article about 'chuggers' well the cameraman for the Newbury Weekly News happened to take the picture of them aproaching me, so I was front page material for a week!

Every other week there seems to be one charity or campaign group hitting the town, they also spread themselves out that if you manage to avoid the first few, futher down the street you ARE definatly gonna get hastled by more.

I ask if there on comission for doing this, if its a yes then they get a frank quite rude f-off if I wanted to give to your cause I'd do so of my own accord, not giving you money which frankly will just encourage you. Also as Ade pointed out am only being presented with probabily the most biased infomation to hand, so if I was serious, alot more research would be done before handing over my hard earned money.

Best tactic DONT ever make eye contact and if they do start to surround you just push your way through, Ive never had to get angry/threaten but I will if they continue to harass.

[TAKTAK]

aaah... the joy of living in a very rural area

the CO2 comeback was great aswell

[TheAnimus]

The problem is its very easy to understand why they've got into this state.

If you've got £10,000 of donations, and you think you can turn it into more, you'd be a fool not to. No charity keeps its cash in an account that dosen't accrue interest. If they take that £10k an spend it on advertising, they could get back 20k. It makes sense for them to do it.

If their chuggers are giving up their time, it makes sense to renumeterate them for their effort, and as anyone who's ever managed a sales team will tell you the difference a commission makes is hudge.

So it stands to reason that the charity does invest ins money in such things, i remeber reading somewhere that the people who make you sign up for direct debits of £2.50, tend not to actually re-coup the cost of paying for hte chugger, and the advertisement etc, until after a year!

Problem is along the way, it stops been charity, but a political movement. And as many of the larger charities end up trying to mearly prolong the inevitable given the governmental situation..... Actually lets just say there is no easy solution to the problems. Giving money to an organisation certainly isn't it.

[Agent]

Concerning the link - I can't agree that destroying property should be allowed, but why are coal-fuelled power plants still being built?

The price of oil is at one of its all time highs.
Russia controls a huge amount of gas.
Nuclear gets every hippy within a 1000miles protesting without understanding it.
Coal is in abundance. It allows us to be a bit more self dependant, and provided its a new generation coal station (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7584151.stm) they are no where near as bad as people think.

A lot of its irrelevant anyway. The world population is still growing at a huge rate. The processes we have for power generation are limited, and as far as I know, even with newer technologies we can not offset the carbon emissions of all the new arrivals in the world.

Then you can also give people a choice - run the risk of regular electricity cuts due to lack of power stations, or cut our CO2 by not building and running them. I'll put money on people voting for the latter one in droves.

Common Fraz - Can't you figure out how to harness fusion at the LHC yet?

[Agent]

I've never seen anything like that ammount of harrassment, guess they know they're in a good position because if you do hit one of them you would probably be arrested for assault

I guess they must choose their targets carefully as I can't image most people being so restrained.

Actually the police were there later on telling them to pack up and move. I've no idea if they had a run-in with someone who decided to take things further. Didn't really stick around to find out.

[manwithnoname]

If I'm out and about in the city centre I ignore any random person who comes up to me. If I'm in the centre during the day I'm there to do some shopping, i hate shopping - if I'm shopping I'm in a bad mood and shouldn't be approached.

Random person: How are you today sir?
Me: I'll be fine if you leave me alone.

Random person: Can I ask you a few quick questions?
Me: No

Random person: Can I interest you in..
Me: No

Random person: We are offering free ...
Me. I'm not interested.

I'm sure I've missed out on a few free things because of my attitude but I'm sure that that this is more that compensated by the amount of time I've saved by not engaging them in conversation.

Why do random people in the street believe that they have a right for me to continue a conversion they start? I've had people shouting at me in the street because I refuse to partake in the conversion. One person shouted at me: 'Your so ignorant', I replied: 'Blissful so'. I honestly believe they thought branding me ignorant was their trump card to get my attention, the person had no understanding that ignorance is not always an insult. I'm happy to be ignorant of there offers, petitions and requests for money.

[Whiternoise]

This is a bit like the situation with Climate Camp and other green bodies. Whilst their morals are pretty much in the right place, and yes, things like budget airlines and "ghost" flights need to be stopped, but they're going the wrong way about it.

"We've got no intention of harming commuters" = Said after sitting on the runway and delaying a few thousand people. And this strange belief that BAA is responsible for everything. Sure they're funding the third runway, but they're by no means the only culprits. There are more factors involved. There is also this mentality of the blame game. They protest because they like the idea of "us against the Man", and they need it to do what they do. As justification.

A worrying number of charities do this, they have good ideas, but they think that the best way of sorting it is protesting. And whilst it does certainly grab attention for things like anti-war protests - the ones through London for instance - for others it's really not doing anything.

It does annoy me when people expect me to have a charitable obligation though. When they say "donate blah blah please" or "sign here to say you approve" and so on and so forth. And then they give you the look of "you absolute bastard" if you don't do what they want. It's no wonder elderly people get conned so much. An awful lot of these people just remind me, sorry, of religious fanatics. The people that tell me i'm going to hell (i just say "thanks, i'll save you a seat") or i need saving etc.

It's like those sodding gypsies (not meaning to be racist, but they were last time i checked) in London who give you flowers and ask you for money. One that cracked me up last time was "it's for the kindergarten". I'm sorry? Not even "kinder", just "kindergarten". And what annoys me more is that the best comebacks always occur to you after you've told them that their children can go and get a job thankyou very much.

To be honest Agent, i think you're spot on. Though i would have threatened to call the police rather than threaten to deck. Most groups won't be too happy if you threaten legal action.



With regards to the coal situation. Yes, it probably is worth building another - in the long run, it will get a LOT less opposition than nuclear power if it's got carbon capture technology. It would be more prudent, however, to say that we'll knock down an old one/refit and old one in return for the new one, that way we're still decreasing emissions.