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    Re: Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg? Archived Message

    Posted by margo on April 29, 2019, 7:32 am, in reply to "Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg?"

    Thanks, Shyaku. I linked to this article series the other day saying, like you, that I'm no expert. This series of articles by Cory Morningstar requires a slow read because she includes loads of links, video and photographs.
    The photograph of Greta Thunberg in a train with executive director of Greenpeace International Jennifer Morgan, who personally accompanied Thunberg throughout her recent Europe/UK trip, raises some questions

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    Greenpeace founder says organisation has been co-opted
    Sara Burrows

    ReturnToNow -- GREENPEACE founder says the organization has been co-opted and now does more harm than good giving destructive, polluting corporations their “green” stamp of approval.[...]

    “I sometimes feel like Dr. Frankenstein,” says Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson, in a clip from the documentary End Civ.

    He claims the organization’s been co-opted by corporations and now does more harm than good.

    Watson calls Greenpeace the world’s biggest “feel good” organization.

    “People join it to feel good, to feel like I’m part of the solution,” he said. “The organization brings in close to $300 million a year. And what do they do with that money? Generate more money. The people at the top of the totem pole now are not environmentalists – they’re fundraisers, they’re accountants, they’re lawyers, they’re business people.”

    Revolving Doors

    Watson listed a handful of examples of revolving doors between Greenpeace and some not-so-environmentally friendly industries:

    * Former president of Greenpeace Canada, Patrick Moore, now works for the logging industry.

    * Former president of Greenpeace Australia, now works for the mining industry.

    * Former president of Greenpeace Norway, now works for the whaling industry.

    The result?

    In the 1990s, the indigenous Canadian people of Nuxalk Nation engaged in a campaign of direct action to stop logging on their traditional land in the Great Bear Rainforest. Greenpeace, Sierra Club and Forest Ethics co-opted the movement. While publicly claiming to be brokering a deal with the industry for 40-60 percent conservation, the NGOs gave their blessing to a deal of only 20 percent conservation.

    In 2010, 21 logging companies signed a deal known as “The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement” with several major environmental organizations aimed at silencing all criticism of logging practices in the Boreal Forest.

    “With Greenpeace, David Suzuki, Forest Ethics, and Canadian Parks and Wilderness on our side, when someone comes and tries to bully us, the agreement actually requires that they come and work with us in repelling the attack,” said Avrim Lazar, CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada in a conference about the deal. “We’ll be able to say, fight me, fight my gang.”

    There you have it – the logging industry considers Greenpeace a member of their “gang.”

    Silencing Grassroots Activism

    A collective of indigenous environmental organizations called “Wretched of the Earth” accused Greenpeace and AVAAZ of trying to silence their message at a climate march in London last year.

    Organizers from Greenpeace and other NGOs called the police to confiscate signs from the grassroots activists that “didn’t fit the message of the day.”

    While the narrative of the typical Greenpeace or Sierra Club member is “we do this for the love of skiing,” the Wretched of the Earth see their brand of environmentalism as a fight for survival. They see themselves as being up against a new form of British imperialism – corporatism – which is perpetrating “climate genocide” in “black and brown” parts of the world.

    The Co-opting of Environmentalism

    After environmentalism became popular in the 1970s and 80s, corporations realized they could sell things by calling them “green.”

    The problem is most “environmentalists” take our industrial economy as a given, says coauthor of What We Leave Behind Aric McBay. Their attitude is – “How can we save the industrial economy? Oh, and it would be nice if we still have a planet.” [...]

    Mainstream environmentalists tell us the way to “save the planet” is by making better personal consumer choices, but Keith argues that’s a lie propped up by corporations and the environmental organizations they’ve co-opted. “It doesn’t matter if I buy hemp soap if there’s a runaway greenhouse effect and the planet becomes uninhabitable.”

    LINK https://returntonow.net/2016/03/28/green-is-the-color-of-money/

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