Ask HN: Thoughts on Greenpeace? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Thoughts on Greenpeace?

8 pointssz9 comments

I had a long discussion with one of their street recruiter people this morning and I came away uncertain of whether Greenpeace is a worthwhile organization to support. With regard to integrity and efficacy of their tactics, what do you know about Greenpeace and are they on balance as good as they claim to be?

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I decided to support Greenpeace in the hope that they will keep up the good work of monitoring and evaluating consumer electronics companies. I am very interested in consumer electronics, and I have found noone else doing the work that Greenpeace does in this field.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/ele...

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, is now a critic of many of their policies. Stewart Brand is another critic.

Much of what they do is good, but it's clearly not driven by a cold and careful evaluation of the actual consequences of human behaviors, but by emotion.

Seems like a topic people are bound to have a variety of strong opinions on, and pretty far removed from the normal topics of discussion here.

Net detriment to society, obnoxious theatrics that accomplish nothing of real value, turns moderate people away from responsible and intelligent conservation.

Very good summary of my opinion as well. The keyword here is 'net'.

I agree with that opinion as well.

They do raise awareness on some important issues, but they misinform on some key others IMO.

For example, I strongly disagree with their anti-nuclear campaign:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear/

My stepfather is a nuclear phycisist and works for the IAEA so I'm a bit biased, but probably more informed than most anti-nuclears

Isn't that all charity?

I have mixed feelings on them (although I will admit I haven't critically researched all of their actions).

On one hand, they bring awareness to people of pretty good issues. On the other, they have been known to use unethical or dishonest tactics in order to increase their exposure.

On the whole, I think they do good things, although their philosophical basis seems to be "the end justifies the means." At least in my experience, they really think they're correct on these issues and want to try and control what you do (good and bad) in order to reach their goals.

Is anyone, on balance, as good as Greenpeace claims to be?

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