tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/greenpeace-1592/articlesGreenpeace – The Conversation2022-11-16T13:28:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1932102022-11-16T13:28:02Z2022-11-16T13:28:02ZThrowing soup on a Van Gogh and other ways young climate activists are making their voices heard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495767/original/file-20221116-27-hyom6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4992%2C3351&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inside COP27, young activists like Luisa Neubauer spoke to the media to press their case.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/november-2022-egypt-scharm-el-scheich-luisa-neubauer-news-photo/1244604994">Photo by Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In London, youth activists threw soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” <a href="https://twitter.com/JustStop_Oil/status/1580869474064175105">asking</a>, “Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice?” In Melbourne, Australia, two protesters <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/09/prized-picasso-unharmed-after-extinction-rebellion-activists-glue-hands-to-painting-in-melbourne">superglued themselves</a> to Picasso’s “Massacre in Korea” to highlight the connections between climate change and future conflict and suffering. </p>
<p>Others have engaged in similar protests, targeting a Boticelli at <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/749951/climate-change-activists-glue-themselves-to-priceless-botticelli-painting/">the Uffizi Gallery</a> in Florence, Italy; an ancient Roman statue at the <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/754671/climate-protesters-glue-themselves-to-vatican-masterpiece/">Vatican</a>; a Klimt in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/15/climate-activists-throw-black-oily-liquid-at-klimt-painting-in-vienna.html">Vienna</a>; and a mummy exhibit at <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLocalSpain/status/1592143133445193728">Barcelona’s Egyptian Museum</a>.</p>
<p>Their actions have incited mixed responses around the world. <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/why-climate-change-activists-vandalizing-art-so-powerful-n1300371">Some people praised</a> the activists’ daring and ingenuity; others lambasted the groups <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/26/climate-activists-protests-soup-paintings">for polarizing the fight</a> for climate justice, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/vermeer-glue-soup-climate-protest-outrage/671904/">sending mixed messages</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/vermeer-glue-soup-climate-protest-outrage/671904/">using plain poor logic</a>. </p>
<p>But tactics like these draw media attention and make a lasting impression, and that’s the point – especially right now.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man holds a megaphone while people chant and hold signs reading 'climate justice' behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495215/original/file-20221114-16-e80ub4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A few small pop-up protests appeared at the COP27 venue in Egypt, rather than the usual mass street marches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/november-2022-egypt-sharm-el-sheikh-members-of-the-asian-news-photo/1244658094">Gehad Hamdy/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Normally in November, tens of thousands of climate activists converge on the United Nations climate summit, with <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/giant-papier-mache-heads-of-g8-leaders-to-appear-at-g20-1.512734">noisy street theater</a> and large marches that can be counted on to draw media attention and light up social media feeds. </p>
<p>This year’s summit is in Egypt, where the government <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/egypt-human-rights-cop27-climate-activist-hunger-strike-rcna55405">effectively bans public protests</a> and has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/02/egypt-human-rights-climate-crisis-cop27">cracked down</a> on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/world/middleeast/egypts-prisons-conditions.html">political dissent</a>. Small <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/cop27-protesters-within-un-venue-demand-climate-finance-2022-11-09/">pop-up rallies</a> have appeared briefly in U.N.-controlled areas. And the U.N. allowed a march of several hundred people on Nov. 12, 2022, but it had to be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/12/climate/cop27-protests-egypt.html">inside the conference venue</a>. The Egyptian government agreed to arrange a designed protest space – but it’s several blocks away from where negotiators and heads of state are meeting, and is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/11/11/climate/cop27-climate-summit#dissent-and-protest-are-allowed-inside-the-cop27-venue-the-same-isnt-so-true-beyond-its-walls">monitored by Egyptian security</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, activists have been working from the inside, and using <a href="https://youtu.be/vDpI4UE81wg">audacious actions</a> in <a href="https://youtu.be/09Mp0KAzwgM">their home countries</a>, to draw public attention to the cause.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters wearing " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=101%2C1%2C1159%2C716&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495216/original/file-20221114-25-g67lag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two young protesters were arrested after throwing soup on the glass covering Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ at the National Gallery in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/climate-protesters-hold-a-demonstration-as-they-throw-cans-news-photo/1243970418">Just Stop Oil/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1038417">I study</a> the role of disruptive politics and social movements in climate policy and am in touch with activist groups at the summit. With governments slow to act on the rising climate risk, young activists in particular are growing in number and organizing globally over social media. They aren’t necessarily more aggressive than in the past, but they are finding creative ways to make their voices heard.</p>
<h2>A brief history of protest and division</h2>
<p>Environmental activist groups have always had differences of opinion on policies, different visions of the future and different approaches, from family-friendly actions to more radical and destructive acts.</p>
<p>In the first part of the 20th century, the division was between preservationists, who wished to keep ecosystems pristine, wild and untarnished by humans, and conservationists, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, who believed natural resources should be extracted for human use but at a rate that would preserve them for future generations.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MyV5CcXC9uU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Activists today use social media to reach a global audience. One young activist walks through some of the history of environmentalism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1970s and 1980s, following the success of the first Earth Day and the signing of the landmark U.S. Clean Air and Clean Water acts, many environmental nonprofits professionalized. They invested time in lobbying, set up offices in Washington and began courting corporate partnerships.</p>
<p>Other environmentalists accused them of selling out and called them “light greens,” or “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332183190_Green_Theory_in_International_Relations">shallow environmentalists</a>.”</p>
<p>From that mindset emerged “deep” or “radical” environmentalism, which argued that the only way to save the world from irreversible damage was to challenge political and economic systems rather than work from inside them. Groups like Earth First! embraced radical tactics, such as sabotaging oil pipelines and blocking logging forests. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/podcasts/the-daily/americas-environmentalist-underground.html">Earth Liberation Front</a> went further, claiming several acts of arson in the 1990s.</p>
<h2>Tamer but more global protests today</h2>
<p>Recent years have seen an uptick again in confrontational actions that draw attention, like <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/this-landmark-trial-of-climate-activists-puts-the-political-system-itself-on-trial/">shutting off oil pipelines</a>, <a href="https://grist.org/fix/opinion/dakota-access-pipeline-operating-illegally-shut-it-down-for-good/">staging standoffs</a> to block oil infrastructure and throwing soup on multimillion-dollar paintings. </p>
<p>But the movement is known better now for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-59185007">peaceful mass protests</a> that draw hundreds of thousands of people with witty signs, theatrics and chanting.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KoC_1rOAFX0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The rise of youth climate activism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is unique today is the transnational character of environmental activism, and how young activists have become the face of the climate movement. </p>
<p>Rather than “thinking globally, acting locally,” environmentalists have taken their fight worldwide, often coalescing around key events like U.N. climate summits. With the help of social media, their messaging quickly goes viral. Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg launched the global school strikes for climate, and within months had encouraged <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/19/school-climate-strikes-more-than-1-million-took-part-say-campaigners-greta-thunberg">over a million</a> schoolkids to walk out of class to demand action on climate change.</p>
<p>Still, for every noisy protest, thousands of climate activists are busy quietly working behind the scenes, lobbying lawmakers, <a href="https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/05/28/german-court-sides-with-youth-climate-activists-to-safeguard-human-rights/">pressuring governments and industries with lawsuits</a> and influencing international negotiations, especially during the U.N. conferences.</p>
<h2>Activism behind the scenes at COP27</h2>
<p>While the U.N. climate conference in Egypt has meant fewer opportunities to demonstrate, activists are still making their voices heard.</p>
<p>For example, members of the <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/3214/chapter-abstract/91650/Environmental-NGOs-and-the-Kyoto-Protocol">Climate Action Network</a>, one of the largest global climate advocacy networks, get their messages to delegates inside the talks by writing white papers on technical aspects of the talks, offering sample text for consideration and publishing a <a href="https://eco.climatenetwork.org/">daily newsletter</a> geared toward negotiators called “The ECO.” The group, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/3214/chapter-abstract/91650/Environmental-NGOs-and-the-Kyoto-Protocol">credited by scholars</a> for influencing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is <a href="https://eco.climatenetwork.org/category/eco-issues/">pushing for action this year</a> on “<a href="https://theconversation.com/loss-and-damage-who-is-responsible-when-climate-change-harms-the-worlds-poorest-countries-192070">loss and damage</a>” – compensation for developing countries hit hard by climate change.</p>
<p>From the inside and the outside, activists have been a major force in recent years in getting the world to adopt a 1.5 degree Celsius target for limiting global warming and introducing language on “climate justice” and human rights in the 2015 Paris Agreement.</p>
<p>For groups of activists often fighting oppressive, hierarchical structures, the horizontal form of organizing, with fluidity and lack of structure, is the very ethos they are trying to emulate and support.</p>
<p>So, looking at the young protesters throwing soup on a Van Gogh, given <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/15/governments-falling-short-paris-climate-pledges-study">the lack of progress</a> in nearly 30 years of global climate negotiations, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02846-3">broken promises on climate finance</a> and the <a href="https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/07/false-balance-reporting-climate-change-crisis/">disinformation in some media coverage of climate change</a>, more provocation may be exactly what is needed to draw attention to the problem. And so is the tough work you don’t see that’s influencing the negotiations.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated Nov. 16, 2022, with the protest in Vienna.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Gibson is affiliated with the Global Justice Ecology Project. </span></em></p>Activists aren’t necessarily more aggressive than in the past, but they are using creative and sometime shocking new tactics that quickly go viral.Shannon Gibson, Associate Professor of International Relations and Environmental Studies, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1865822022-07-12T07:27:35Z2022-07-12T07:27:35ZZondo Commission’s report on South Africa’s intelligence agency is important but flawed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473381/original/file-20220711-14-lesf18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Cyril Ramaphosa, right, receives the final State Capture Report from Chief Juistice Raymond Zondo. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s judicial probe into state capture and corruption, the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Zondo Commission</a>, has concluded that the <a href="https://www.ssa.gov.za/">State Security Agency</a> was integral to the capture of the state by corrupt elements. These included former president Jacob Zuma’s friends, <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-gupta-brothers-from-india-landed-south-africas-ruling-party-in-its-biggest-crisis-397138">the Gupta family</a>.</p>
<p>The agency has been unstable for some time. <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/Assets/Documents/PDFs/csrc-background-papers/Intelligence-In-a-Constitutional-Democracy.pdf">Previous</a> <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">investigations</a> have made findings to improve the performance of civilian intelligence. Yet problems relating to poor performance and politicisation persist. They escalated during <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/The_Zuma_Years.html?id=BwxbDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Zuma’s tenure</a>.</p>
<p>The commission’s <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">hearings</a> were remarkable for an institution that had become <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-01-26-commission-hears-of-alleged-covert-ops-in-media-judiciary-civil-society-academia-and-unions-costing-taxpayers-hundreds-of-millions/">used to operating secretly</a>. Spies testified in detail, and in public, about what had gone wrong at the agency during the Zuma era (<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2014 to February 2018</a>). Some did so <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-01-28-security-alert-images-circulating-on-social-media-may-put-state-capture-commissions-unidentified-witnesses-at-risk/">at great personal risk</a>.</p>
<p>I have researched intelligence and surveillance, and served on the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency</a>. In my view, the Zondo report is a globally significant example of radical transparency around intelligence abuses. But it lacks the detailed findings and recommendations to enable speedy prosecutions. It also fails to address the broader threats to democracy posed by unaccountable intelligence. </p>
<h2>Covert operations</h2>
<p>The commission heard evidence pointing to fraud, corruption and abuse of taxpayers’ money at the agency. It also heard how the Guptas benefited from these abuses. The agency shielded them from investigations that indicated they were a national security threat. </p>
<p>The most significant recommendation is that law enforcement agencies should further investigate whether people implicated in the report committed crimes. The commission expressed particular concern about covert intelligence projects that appeared to be “special purpose vehicles to siphon funds”. It made specific reference to three people who should be investigated further.</p>
<p>The first is former director-general <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/arthur-fraser-a-law-unto-himself-helped-by-zuma-to-hide-pure-crime-linked-to-r600m-spy-network-20220624">Arthur Fraser</a>, for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-05-the-principal-agent-network-pan-dossier-zuma-and-mahlobo-knew-about-arthur-frasers-rogue-intelligence-programme/">his involvement</a> in the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-12-06-the-principal-agent-network-pan-dossier-part-2-bugging-the-auditors-dumb-and-dumber/">Principal Agent Network</a>. This was a covert intelligence collection entity outside the State Security Agency. It has been controversial for over a decade after investigations pointed to the abuse of funds.</p>
<p>The second person is former deputy director-general of counter-intelligence <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-15-confessions-of-a-dangerous-mind-a-divinely-inspired-zuma-spy-thulani-dlomo/">Thulani Dlomo</a>. He was responsible for the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/ssa-declassified-i-networks-which-looted-r15bn-from-spy-agency-still-in-place-as-investigations-collapse-20220221">Chief Directorate Special Operations</a>, a covert structure which the report says ran irregular projects and operations that could well have been unlawful.</p>
<p>The most significant of these was <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/investigations/ssa-declassified-illegal-operation-mayibuye-allegedly-siphoned-millions-from-ssa-to-jacob-zuma-20220226">Project Mayibuye</a>, a collection of operations designed to counter threats to state authority. In practice, they and others sought to shield Zuma from a growing chorus of criticism of his misrule.</p>
<p>The commission <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202206/electronic-state-capture-commission-report-part-v-vol-i.pdf">found</a> that the project destabilised opposition parties and benefited the Zuma faction in the ruling African National Congress. </p>
<p>The third person is the former minister of state security, <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-norma-mngoma-david-mahlobo-to-testify-at-state-capture-inquiry-20210409">David Mahlobo</a>. The commission found that he became involved in <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-19-former-state-security-minister-david-mahlobo-distances-himself-from-apartheid-assassin-and-jacob-zuma-poisoning-projects/">operational matters</a> instead of confining himself to executive oversight. It also found that his handling of <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-09-cash-parcels-to-minister-spying-on-media-and-infiltration-of-anti-zuma-movement-highlighted-in-report-on-sa-spy-agency/">large amounts of cash</a>, ostensibly to fund operations, needed further investigation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-in-south-africa-how-the-rot-set-in-and-how-the-project-was-rumbled-176481">State capture in South Africa: how the rot set in and how the project was rumbled</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>According to the commission, Mahlobo’s predecessor, <a href="https://www.pa.org.za/person/siyabonga-cyprian-cwele/">Siyabonga Cwele</a>, did the same by <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-11-26-how-zuma-and-state-security-minister-cwele-shut-down-2011-investigation-into-the-guptas/">stopping an investigation</a> into the Guptas and their influence on Zuma’s administration.</p>
<p>The commission concluded, based on overwhelming evidence, that Zuma and Cwele did not want the investigation to continue. Had it continued, it could have prevented at least some of the activities that led to the capture of the state by the Guptas and the loss of billions in public money through corruption.</p>
<h2>Recipe for abuse</h2>
<p>The commission also addressed some of the deeper factors that predisposed the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/42/state-security-agency-ssa">State Security Agency</a> to abuse.</p>
<p>One of these was the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/merger-of-spy-agencies-led-to-cabinet-ministers-giving-ssa-operatives-illegal-instructions-20210915">amalgamation</a> of the domestic intelligence branch, the National Intelligence Agency, with the foreign branch, the South African Secret Service, into a new entity, the State Security Agency, in 2009.</p>
<p>The commission found that the amalgamation had disastrous consequences, as it allowed most of the abuses it examined to happen. The two entities were merged in terms of a presidential proclamation. Yet the constitution <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng-11.pdf">requires</a> intelligence services to be established through legislation. This meant that until <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/general-intelligence-laws-amendment-act-0">legislation</a> was introduced in 2013, the security agency operated without a <a href="https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/4715/">clear legal basis</a>.</p>
<p>It was highly centralised, allowing a super-director-general to control all activities. This made abuse easier for an appointee with corrupt intentions. The agency was also based on a state security <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">doctrine</a>, rather than a people-centred doctrine. This doctrinal shift prioritised the protection of the state from criticism, and the president more specifically, rather than the security of society. <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/merger-of-spy-agencies-led-to-cabinet-ministers-giving-ssa-operatives-illegal-instructions-20210915">Ministerial political overreach</a> into operational matters heightened the potential for abuse.</p>
<p>The commission also found that the <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/committee-details/169">Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence</a>, the <a href="https://www.oigi.gov.za/">Inspector General of Intelligence</a> and the <a href="https://www.agsa.co.za/">Auditor General</a> had failed to exercise proper oversight. This meant the external checks and balances on the State Security Agency were weak to non-existent.</p>
<h2>Weighing the Zondo report</h2>
<p>The struggle for more accountable intelligence has been strengthened through the Zondo report’s exposure of abuses. But many of the findings and recommendations are vague and general. The commission could have been more specific about upgrading the Inspector General’s independence, for instance. Likwewise the Auditor General’s capacity to audit the agency.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-state-capture-commission-nears-its-end-after-four-years-was-it-worth-it-182898">South Africa's state capture commission nears its end after four years. Was it worth it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The commission could also have made more of the evidence presented to it. And it could have been more categorical about when it thought criminality had occurred. At times, the report does little more than restate the recommendations of previous enquiries.</p>
<p>These include an <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-09-spooks-and-spies-the-pan-progamme-arthur-fraser-and-eight-years-of-investigations/">investigation</a> into the Principal Agent Network programme in 2009, providing prima facie evidence of criminality. </p>
<p>Another is the report of the 2018 <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">High Level Review Panel</a>, which showed that the agency had been politicised and repurposed to benefit Zuma. </p>
<p>An important gap in the Zondo report relates to the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-01-civil-society-organisations-release-boast-report-demand-accountability-for-rogue-spying/">infiltration and surveillance of civil society</a>, and the agency’s broader threat to democracy.</p>
<p>Little is made of the fact that, according to a recently 2017 declassified <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/580662166/Boast-Report#download&from_embed">performance report</a>, the agency claimed to have infiltrated <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/">Greenpeace Africa</a>, the <a href="https://www.r2k.org.za/">Right2Know Campaign</a>, trade unions and other civil society organs.</p>
<p>The spies masqueraded as activists. They reported back to the agency on supporter strengths, main actors, ideology, support structures and agendas. The report’s author, a security agency member, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/580662166/Boast-Report#download&from_embed">boasted</a> about these and other accomplishments, such as infiltrating the social media networks of the Western Cape <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1753-59132021000400006">#feesmustfall</a> student movement. </p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>In the preparations to investigate and prosecute wrongdoers responsible for the abuses by the State Security Agency, its infiltration of civil society must not be allowed to fall under the radar. It must receive as much attention as all the cases of grand corruption that are going to keep the <a href="https://www.npa.gov.za/">National Prosecuting Authority</a> busy. </p>
<p>Otherwise, the social forces that could potentially bring deeper and more meaningful changes to society may remain targets of state spying, as <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745337807/activists-and-the-surveillance-state/">has been the case elsewhere</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Duncan receives funding from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa and Luminate. She served on the 2018 High Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency. </span></em></p>The commission could have made more of the evidence and been more categorical about when it thought criminality had taken place.Jane Duncan, Professor, Department of Communication and Media, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1617302021-09-02T16:29:48Z2021-09-02T16:29:48ZHow Europe’s ban on seal products turned frontier communities into pariahs<p>In the 1970s, a sustained campaign convinced much of the world that protesters were saving cuddly seals from murderous killers near the Arctic Circle. Before long, people around the world became accustomed to seeing <a href="https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/a-seal-hunt-in-canada/">images</a> of hunters with clubs, looming over a fluffy white-harp seal pups.</p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/how-europes-ban-on-seal-products-turned-frontier-communities-into-pariahs-161730&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Europe was the <a href="https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.002">primary market</a> for seal products at the time. After a public outcry, the European Economic Community banned the <a href="https://www.ifaw.org/international/journal/ifaws-history-working-to-end-canadas-east-coast-commercial-seal-hunt">import of</a> white-harp seal pup furs in 1983, and then the EU later extended the ban to all seal products <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/environment/biodiversity/animal_welfare/seals/seal_hunting.htm">in 2009</a>, citing “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/seal-product-ban-upheld-on-ethical-grounds-1.2438904">moral concerns</a>”. </p>
<p>The campaign against sealing succeeded in destroying European interest in seal products, but there was a lot missing from the story. For example, in contrast to the commercial hunt that image depicted, subsistence sealing had sustained generations of coastal people in north-eastern Canada and the Canadian Arctic over centuries. </p>
<p>Today, non-Indigenous hunters in Canada are permitted to take <a href="https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/reports-rapports/regs/licences-permis/ch6-eng.htm">six seals a year</a> for personal use. Subsistence hunters and their families eat the meat and, when possible, sell the fur for <a href="https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.002">a small income</a> during the lean winter months when the main fishing seasons for species like cod, crab and capelin are closed. In contrast, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/faqs-the-atlantic-seal-hunt-1.803159">commercial hunts</a> historically left much of the animal on the ice after the fur was removed. </p>
<p>While protests in the 1970s targeted the commercial harp seal-hunt on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.002">north-east coast of Canada</a>, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and the Gulf of St Lawrence, some <a href="https://thenorthernreview.ca/index.php/nr/article/view/907">hardline protesters</a> didn’t <a href="https://mun-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=01MUN&search_scope=Everything&tab=default_tab&docid=Alma-MUN21312933490002511&lang=en_US&context=L&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&query=any,contains,The%20Devil%20&mode=basic">distinguish between</a> the two different types, and wanted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/01/animal-rights-activists-inuit-clash-canada-indigenous-food-traditions">all hunting stopped</a>.</p>
<p>The result was the EU import ban, which, even today, lumps commercial and subsistence hunting by non-Indigenous peoples together. It only permits import into the EU of <a href="https://gov.nu.ca/eia/news/government-nunavut-disappointed-wto-seal-ban-decision">items produced by Inuit</a> through <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32009R1007">traditional hunting</a> and deprives other subsistence sealers of an economic and cultural lifeline. As we shall see, the anti-sealing cause has left deep wounds in Canada.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sealer approaches a dead harp seal on an ice floe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418871/original/file-20210901-18-1usd1ps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fur from Indigenous subsistence sealing is permitted within the EU.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ilulissat-greenland-oct-2009-greenlandic-seal-1042324681">Kylie Nicholson/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anti-sealing activism</h2>
<p>In 1964, a film crew paid someone to skin a seal alive, and the act of cruelty was portrayed as a typical sealing practice in an <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/new-rules-to-protect-seals">explosive documentary</a>. A few years after airing, the footage <a href="https://www.ilesdelamadeleine.com/2021/05/ephemerides-un-film-choc-tourne-en-1964-les-grands-phoques-de-la-banquise-5/">was debunked</a>. But the process of demonising sealers and their cultures was already in full swing.</p>
<p>Coordinated campaigns against sealers and the sealing industry <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2014.919179">began in 1969</a>. Sealers received death threats from protesters who <a href="https://mun-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=01MUN&search_scope=Everything&tab=default_tab&docid=Alma-MUN21312933490002511&lang=en_US&context=L&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&query=any,contains,The%20Devil%20&mode=basic">inundated small communities</a> in Newfoundland, interfering in commercial hunts. During the <a href="https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.002">1977 seal hunt</a>, protesters reportedly held a sealer hostage on floating ice. </p>
<p>However, the anti-sealing movement itself didn’t speak with a single voice. Traditional <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2014.919179">conservation organisations</a> like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) argued for more oversight and sustainable quotas. Animal rights organisations like the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) argued that sealing <a href="https://www.biblio.com/book/savage-luxury-slaughter-baby-seals-brian/d/1008637336">shouldn’t happen at all</a>. </p>
<p>The initial protests were sparked by concerns about the declining harp seal population. This was something sealers and activists alike worried about. Over 40 years later, though, <a href="https://www.ifaw.org/ca-en/about/guiding-principles">the argument</a> that sealing threatens an endangered species is less convincing. In 2017, the Canadian government’s <a href="https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/201718E">Department of Fisheries and Oceans</a> estimated that the harp seal population in the north-west Atlantic was “about 7.4 million animals – six times larger than in the 1970s”. </p>
<p>Among the initial protest organisations, Greenpeace stands out for its evolving position on sealing. Greenpeace began protesting sealing in 1976, but <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25149506?seq=1">acknowledged the connection</a> between subsistence sealing and Inuit and Newfoundland and Labrador cultures. It partnered with the Newfoundland Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers union (FFAW) to protect seals from foreign over-hunting. </p>
<p>But a year later, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/McLuhan_s_Children.html?id=75phAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Greenpeace joined</a> the hardline campaign against all sealing and abandoned the FFAW. Eventually, Greenpeace <a href="https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.002">withdrew from campaigning</a> in response to WWF and Inuit advocates who highlighted the negative effects of the protests on Indigenous peoples.</p>
<h2>A painful legacy</h2>
<p>The IFAW promotes its stance on sealing by championing its role in the success of the European ban. “Once that ban was in place”, <a href="https://www.ifaw.org/ca-en/projects/ending-the-commercial-seal-hunt-canada">its website claims</a>, “the number of Canadian sealers dropped by 90%”.</p>
<p>At the height of the protests in 1977, the typical sealer had 3.5 dependants, a grade-9 education, and lived in an isolated community with few alternative job prospects, according to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.002">Greenpeace report</a>. </p>
<p>To this day, sealers and their families risk violence to practise and express their cultures. A Newfoundland woman whose father is a subsistence sealer allegedly received a threat to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-122-the-broadcast/clip/15847237-sealer-reacts-call-greenpeace-apologize-sealers-n.l.">kidnap and skin</a> her three-year-old child after she posted a photo of them wearing a seal-fur bow tie and hat.</p>
<p>In 2014, Greenpeace Canada acknowledged its role in the anti-sealing movement <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/story/5473/greenpeace-apology-to-inuit-for-impacts-of-seal-campaign/">and apologised</a> to Canadian Inuit and other Indigenous and coastal peoples. But there is still little being done to stop the damage to sealers and sealing cultures.</p>
<p>The EU <a href="https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/inuit-exemption-to-european-unions-seal-product-ban-is-ineffective-report/">continues to ban</a> imports from non-Indigenous sealers on ethical grounds and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-wins-partial-victory-in-challenge-of-eu-ban-on-imported-seal-products/article15583922/">successfully defended</a> its position against a <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-loses-wto-appeal-eu-seal-products-ban-upheld-1.1833331">Norwegian, Canadian and Inuit challenge</a> in 2010.</p>
<p>The hidden human cost of all this is rarely discussed. Sealing cultures in northern Canada suffered during the long campaign against the sealing industry and their traditional way of life, and as a result of the EU ban, that suffering endures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danita Catherine Burke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sealing is a more complicated issue than successful protests against it would suggest.Danita Catherine Burke, Fellow of the JR Smallwood Foundation, University of Southern DenmarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1299562020-02-07T13:50:43Z2020-02-07T13:50:43ZThe Philippines has rated ‘Golden Rice’ safe, but farmers might not plant it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313835/original/file-20200205-149747-1qd8v3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C5%2C3573%2C2382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Golden rice, right, compared to white rice, left.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#/media/File:Golden_Rice.jpg">IRRI/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.goldenrice.org/">“Golden Rice</a>” is probably the world’s most hotly debated genetically modified organism (GMO). It was intended to be a beta carotene-enriched crop to reduce Vitamin A deficiency, a health problem in very poor areas. But it has never been offered to farmers for planting.</p>
<p>Why not? Because Golden Rice has an activist problem, according to its proponents. They insist that the rice would have prevented millions of child deaths by now had it not been blocked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/26/gm-golden-rice-delay-cost-millions-of-lives-child-blindness">anti-science activists</a>. </p>
<p>In particular, they single out <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/us/stop-bashing-gmo-foods-more-than-100-nobel-laureates-say.html">Greenpeace</a>, which has <a href="https://storage.googleapis.com/planet4-international-stateless/2013/10/08786be5-458-golden-illusion-ge-goldenrice.pdf">campaigned against approval</a> of Golden Rice as part of its broader opposition to GMOs. Greenpeace responds that its actions <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/6866/nobel-laureates-sign-letter-on-greenpeace-golden-rice-position-statement/">are not what has kept Golden Rice from reaching the market</a>.</p>
<p>We study <a href="https://anthropology.wustl.edu/people/glenn-davis-stone">developing-world agriculture</a>, including <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dominic_Glover">use of genetically modified crops</a>, and are conducting ongoing research on Golden Rice, originally funded by the <a href="https://www.templeton.org/">Templeton Foundation</a>. We advocate <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/341532">keeping an open mind</a> about Golden Rice, which may eventually have some nutritional potential in limited cases. But our view, based on numerous scientific studies, is that the rice is still beset by problems that have little to do with activists.</p>
<h2>Filling a nutritional gap?</h2>
<p>Vitamin A is one of many nutrients lacking in the diets of the world’s poorest children. Vitamin A deficiency, or VAD, can cause <a href="https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/nutritional-disorders/vitamin-deficiency,-dependency,-and-toxicity/vitamin-a-deficiency">blindness and even premature death</a>. </p>
<p>The vitamin comes directly from animal products and indirectly from <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/252758.php">beta carotene</a> in plants, which the human body can convert to Vitamin A. Plant scientist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Potrykus">Ingo Potrykus</a>, who co-developed Golden Rice, has claimed that “VAD often occurs where <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11627-001-0019-9">rice is the major staple food</a>.” White rice grains contain no beta carotene. </p>
<p>But it’s not rice’s job to provide vitamins. Most diets across Asia and Africa consist of a carbohydrate core such as rice or maize, which provides calories and bulk, and a sauce, stew or soup for flavor and nutrients. </p>
<p>Since rice is a <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318699.php#7">poor source of vitamins and minerals</a>, any child eating a rice-only diet will be sick. Genetically modifying rice to contain beta carotene is at best a band-aid for extreme cases of VAD, not a corrective for a widespread problem.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312561/original/file-20200129-92977-1mnsd0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Estimated prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in children aged 6 to 59 months by country in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00039-X">Stevens et al, 2015</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Decades of development</h2>
<p>Potrykus and colleagues devised a strategy for producing Golden Rice in 1992, and announced in 2000 that they had <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.287.5451.303">developed an experimental prototype</a>. Potrykus appeared on the <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997586,00.html">cover of Time magazine</a> with his rice, which the cover proclaimed “could save a million kids a year.”</p>
<p>The biologists were on to something, but the prototype was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-016-9696-1">nowhere near ready for farmers or consumers</a>. The beta carotene concentration was far too low, and researchers did not know if the plants would grow well. The prototype was also a rice variety that farmers in VAD areas would not grow. </p>
<p>In 2002 Golden Rice research moved to the <a href="https://www.irri.org/">International Rice Research Institute</a> (IRRI) in the Philippines to be developed for Filipino farmers. Meanwhile scientists at the global agricultural company Syngenta, which had <a href="http://www.goldenrice.org/Content1-Who/who4_IP.php">acquired commercial rights to the rice</a>, began to develop a new package of genes to improve the beta carotene levels. By 2005 they unveiled Golden Rice 2, which accomplished this.</p>
<p>Next, researchers inserted these GR2 genes into multiple plants, with the goal of introducing them without disrupting other genes. Each insertion is called an “event.” IRRI breeders took the most promising event and began breeding the trait into two trusty lowland rice varieties.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313839/original/file-20200205-149742-2aj307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Packets of different rice breeds stored in a refrigerated room at the International Rice Research Institute Rice Germplasm Bank, Laguna, Philippines, Nov. 27, 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tens-of-thousands-of-packets-of-different-rice-breeds-are-news-photo/2769505?adppopup=true">Joel Nito/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there was a problem. Field trials showed that the introduced genes had indeed <a href="http://www.goldenrice.orwww.goldenrice.org/PDFs/Dubock-The_present_status_of_Golden_Rice-2014.pdf">disrupted other genes and lowered the rice’s productivity</a>, so breeders turned to a different event. By 2017 field trials showed that this rice <a href="https://www.irri.org/golden-rice-faqs">grew adequately</a>. The rice was submitted to the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry, which <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2228793-gm-golden-rice-gets-landmark-safety-approval-in-the-philippines/">designated it as safe</a> in December 2019.</p>
<p>However, Golden Rice still has to be approved for commercial sale and still needs a company to grow marketable quantities of seed. Proponents’ claim that the rice would be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbt.2010.07.012">given free to farmers</a> is false: No one has offered to produce and distribute the rice seed for nothing. And even if someone were to grow marketable quantities of seed for sale, two crucial problems remain.</p>
<h2>Unanswered questions</h2>
<p>First, the claim that Golden Rice will remedy Vitamin A deficiency remains unproven. As <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150813165459/http://irri.org/blogs/item/clarifying-recent-news-about-golden-rice">IRRI scientists themselves stressed in 2013</a>, “It has not yet been determined whether daily consumption of Golden Rice does improve the vitamin A status of people who are vitamin A deficient.”</p>
<p>Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and children with VAD rarely have fats in their diet. Moreover, they usually suffer from gut parasites and infections that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-8223(01)00073-6">make it harder to convert beta carotene to vitamin A</a>. </p>
<p>A 2012 study, which has been cited over 70 times – despite being <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.114.093229">retracted in 2015</a> for breaching research ethics – seemed to show that Golden Rice would <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.111.030775">raise children’s vitamin A levels</a>. But children in the study were fed balanced meals that included fats, thus demonstrating only that Golden Rice worked in children who did not need it. </p>
<p>Even the latest analysis of Golden Rice’s safety points out that research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-57669-5">has yet to show that it will mitigate VAD</a>. And by the time Golden Rice gets to undernourished children, its beta carotene level may be very low, since the compound <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.11.121">deteriorates fairly quickly</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4dxnw4MMfoQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Fortifying foods like rice with micronutrients is an established strategy for reducing malnutrition. But Golden Rice is the first effort to do this through genetic engineering.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, there is no clear way for the rice to get to the children who need it. Projections of the benefits of Golden Rice assume that farmers will immediately grow it, but families poor enough to be affected by VAD often lack land to grow rice for themselves. VAD in the Philippines has been highest in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Province">Mountain Province</a>, where farmers are unlikely to plant lowland rice varieties, and in part of metro Manila where no rice farming occurs.</p>
<p>To reach undernourished kids in areas like these, Golden Rice would have to be grown by commercial farmers and sold in markets. We examined whether farmers would plant Golden Rice in a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X19304804?via%3Dihub">new study of seed selection practices</a> in a “rice bowl” area of the Philippines.</p>
<p>Farmers choose from a large and rapidly changing array of rice seeds, based on agronomic performance, market demands and local trends. Their choices show that varieties containing the “Golden” trait are out of fashion, overtaken by newer and better performing varieties.</p>
<p>Some might adopt Golden Rice if it could fetch a premium in the market, but extremely poor customers are unlikely to pay it. Farmers may need subsidies to plant Golden Rice, but it is unclear who would pay them to plant it.</p>
<h2>An oversold solution</h2>
<p>The old claim, repeated again in a <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/golden-rice">recent book</a>, that Golden Rice was “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/17/golden-rice-genetically-modified-superfood-almost-saved-millions/">basically ready for use in 2002</a>” is silly. As recently as 2017, IRRI made it clear that Golden Rice still had to be “successfully developed into rice varieties suitable for Asia, approved by national regulators, and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170217145954/http://irri.org/golden-rice/faqs/what-is-the-status-of-the-golden-rice-project-coordinated-by-irri">shown to improve vitamin A status in community conditions</a>.”</p>
<p>The Philippines has managed to cut its childhood VAD rate in half with <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140731160310/https://www.irri.org/golden-rice/faqs/why-is-golden-rice-needed-in-the-philippines-since-vitamin-a-deficiency-is-already-decreasing">conventional nutrition programs</a>. If Golden Rice appears on the market in the Philippines by 2022, it will have taken over 30 years of development to create a product that may not affect vitamin levels in its target population, and that farmers may need to be paid to plant. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Davis Stone has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundatioin for Anthropological Research, the John Templeton Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Glover has received funding from various sources to support different pieces of work on the spread and impacts of transgenic crop technologies in the global South, including the John Templeton Foundation, the UK's Economic and Social Research Council and the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCHR, on behalf of the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food).</span></em></p>Golden Rice – a controversial genetically modified product designed to combat malnutrition – has been approved as safe in the Philippines. But key questions remain unanswered.Glenn Davis Stone, Research Professor of Environmental Science, Sweet Briar CollegeDominic Glover, Research Fellow, Institute of Development StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1101422019-01-31T11:43:21Z2019-01-31T11:43:21ZCapturing carbon to fight climate change is dividing environmentalists<p>Environmental activists are teaming up with fresh faces in Congress to <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez">advocate for a Green New Deal</a>, a bundle of policies that would fight climate change while creating new jobs and reducing inequality. Not all of the activists agree on what those policies ought to be.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/397201459/Green-New-Deal-Letter-to-Congress">Some 626 environmental groups</a>, including Greenpeace, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350, recently laid out their vision in a letter they sent to U.S. lawmakers. They warned that they “vigorously oppose” several strategies, including the use of <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/around-the-world-in-22-carbon-capture-projects">carbon capture and storage</a> – a process that can trap excess carbon pollution that’s already warming the Earth, and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/first-fight-about-democrats-climate-green-new-deal/580543/">lock it away</a>.</p>
<p>In our view, as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dqT4eqUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">political philosopher</a> who studies global justice and an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3_-bNuAAAAAJ&hl=en">environmental social scientist</a>, this blanket opposition is an unfortunate mistake. Based on the <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/11/16/what-they-dont-tell-you-about-climate-change">need to remove carbon from the atmosphere</a>, and the risks in relying on land sinks like <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00122-z">forests</a> and <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-changes-impact-on-soil-moisture-could-push-land-past-tipping-point">soils</a> alone to take up the excess carbon, we believe that carbon capture and storage could be a powerful tool for <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1126/science.aah3443">making the climate safer</a> and even rectifying <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1038/srep20281">historical climate injustices</a>.</p>
<h2>Global inequality</h2>
<p>We think the U.S. and other rich countries should accelerate negative emissions research for two reasons.</p>
<p>First, they can afford it. Second, they have a <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/media/who-caused-climate-change-historically">historical responsibility</a> as they burned a disproportionate amount of the carbon causing climate change today. Global warming is poised to hit the least-developed countries, including dozens that were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/oct/22/resource-extraction-colonialism-legacy-poor-countries">colonized by these wealthier nations</a>, the hardest.</p>
<p>Consider this: The entire African continent <a href="https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/emis/tre_afr.html">emits less carbon</a> than the U.S., Russia or Japan.</p>
<p>Yet Africa is likely to experience climate change impacts <a href="https://clarknow.clarku.edu/2016/09/23/professor-presents-findings-on-climate-smart-agriculture-in-sub-saharan-africa/">sooner and more intensely than any other region</a>. Some African regions are already experiencing warming increases at <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085004">more than twice the global rate</a>. Coastal and island nations like Bangladesh, Madagascar and the Marshall Islands face <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/rising-seas-force-marshall-islands-relocate-elevate-artificial-islands/">near or total destruction</a>. </p>
<p>But the world’s <a href="https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/research/negativeemissions.html">richest nations have been slow to endorse and support</a> the necessary research, development and governance for negative emissions technologies. </p>
<h2>Bad track record with coal</h2>
<p>What explains the objections from climate justice advocates?</p>
<p>The U.S. has heavily funded <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/12/10/trump-carbon-capture-storage-coal-dream-dead">experiments with carbon capture and storage</a> to drastically reduce greenhouse gas <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/news/a27886/how-does-clean-coal-work/">emissions from new coal-fired power plants</a> since <a href="https://issues.org/clean-energy-diplomacy-from-bush-to-obama/">George W. Bush’s presidency</a>.</p>
<p>Those efforts have not paid off, partly because of economics. <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/7/13/17551878/natural-gas-markets-renewable-energy">Natural gas and renewable energy have become cheaper</a> and <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37952">more popular</a> than coal for generating electricity.</p>
<p>Only a handful of <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants">coal-fired power plants are under construction</a> in the U.S., <a href="https://about.bnef.com/blog/u-s-coal-plant-retirements-near-all-time-high/">where closures</a> are routine. The <a href="https://qz.com/1235125/the-number-of-coal-plants-worldwide-is-shrinking-but-nowhere-near-enough/">industry is in trouble</a> everywhere, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-climate-progress-may-have-faltered-in-2018-but-it-seems-to-be-on-the-right-path-108589">few exceptions</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, carbon capture with coal has a <a href="https://energytransition.org/2018/11/post-mortem-auditors-analyse-eus-failed-carbon-capture-projects/">bad track record</a>. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/clean-coal-america-kemper-power-plant">biggest U.S. experiment</a> is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/clean-coal-america-kemper-power-plant">US$7.5 billion Kemper power plant in Mississippi</a>. It ended in <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/carbon-capture-suffers-a-huge-setback-as-kemper-plant-suspends-work#gs.PQcUy2os">failure in 2017</a> when state power authorities ordered the plant operator to give up on this technology and <a href="http://msbusiness.com/2018/02/psc-brings-kemper-plant-saga-end/">rely on natural gas instead</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="OWP7d" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OWP7d/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Other uses</h2>
<p>Carbon capture and storage, however, isn’t just for fossil-fuel-burning power plants. It can work with <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/environmentalists-find-renewed-hope-in-industrial-ccs/">industrial carbon dioxide sources</a>, such as steel, cement and chemical plants and <a href="http://bellona.org/news/ccs/2016-01-carbon-capture-and-storage-comeback-must-focus-on-industrial-emissions-say-experts">incinerators</a>.</p>
<p>Then, one of two things can happen. The carbon can be turned into new products, such as <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/6/14/17445622/direct-air-capture-air-to-fuels-carbon-dioxide-engineering">fuels</a>, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cement-producers-are-developing-a-plan-to-reduce-co2-emissions/">cement</a>, <a href="https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/coca-cola-going-use-captured-co2-carbonate-its-drinks.html">soft drinks</a> or even <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/shoes-no-carbon-footprint-180960542/">shoes</a>. </p>
<p>Carbon can also be stored permanently if it is injected <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/carbon-capture/">underground</a>, where geologists believe it can stay put for centuries.</p>
<p>Until now, a common use for captured carbon is <a href="https://www.iea.org/topics/ccs/storagethroughco2-eor/">extracting oil out of old wells</a>. Burning that petroleum, however, can make climate change worse.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255885/original/file-20190128-108364-yy0bpv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captured carbon has a variety of industrial uses, including oil extraction and fire extinguisher manufacturing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/research-and-development/co2-utilization">U.S. Energy Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Going carbon negative</h2>
<p>This technology may potentially also <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/03/taking-greenhouse-gases-sky-7-things-know-about-carbon-removal">remove more carbon than gets emitted</a> – as long as it’s designed right.</p>
<p>One example is what’s called <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-dirty-secret-of-the-worlds-plan-to-avert-climate-disaster/">bioenergy with carbon capture and storage</a>, where farm residues or crops like trees or grasses are grown to be burned to generate electricity. Carbon is separated out and stored at the power plants where this happens.</p>
<p>If the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1039/C7EE00465F">supply chain is sustainable</a>, with cultivation, harvesting and transport done in low-carbon or carbon-neutral ways, this process can produce what scientists call <a href="https://qz.com/1416481/the-ultimate-guide-to-negative-emission-technologies/">negative emissions</a>, with more carbon removed than released. Another possibility involves <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/cost-plunges-capturing-carbon-dioxide-air">directly capturing carbon</a> from the air.</p>
<p>Scientists point out that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage could require <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-beccs-might-not-produce-negative-emissions-after-all">vast amounts of land</a> for growing biofuels to burn. And climate advocates are concerned that both approaches could pave the way for oil, gas and coal companies and big industries to simply <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-warn-negative-emissions-moral-hazard-20785">continue with business as usual</a> instead of phasing out fossil fuels. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255878/original/file-20190128-108358-25qtog.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many experts agree that limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius will require reducing the volume of carbon emissions through energy efficiency and renewable-energy generation and CO₂ removal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/research/negativeemissions.html">MCC</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Natural solutions</h2>
<p>Every pathway to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the most recent U.N. <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-ipccs-special-report-on-climate-change-at-one-point-five-c">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> report projected the use of carbon removal approaches.</p>
<p><iframe id="ZkVBY" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ZkVBY/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Planting more trees, <a href="http://www.regenerativeagriculturedefinition.com/">composting and farming in ways that store carbon in soils</a> and <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/bluecarbon.html">protecting wetlands</a> can also reduce atmospheric carbon. We believe the natural <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-01-state-of-the-art-climate-crisis.html">solutions many environmentalists might prefer are crucial</a>. But soaking up excess carbon through afforestation on a massive scale could <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.06.002">encroach on farmland</a>.</p>
<p>To be sure, not all environmentalists are writing off carbon capture and storage.</p>
<p>The Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, along with many other big green organizations, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/152885/biggest-green-groups-cold-feet-green-new-deal">did not sign the letter</a>, which objected not just to carbon capture and storage but also to <a href="https://www.conservationinstitute.org/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-energy/">nuclear power</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/taxes-and-caps-on-carbon-work-differently-but-calibrating-them-poses-the-same-challenge-104898">emissions trading</a> and <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=biomass_waste_to_energy">converting trash into energy</a> through <a href="http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/negative-impacts-waste-to-energy/">incineration</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than leave carbon removal technologies out of the Green New Deal, we suggest that more environmentalists consider their potential for removing carbon that has already been emitted. We believe these approaches could potentially create jobs, foster economic development and reduce inequality on a global scale – as long as they are meaningfully accountable to people in the world’s poorest nations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Jean Buck receives research funding from The Nature Conservancy and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect those of her funding organizations.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These technologies could turn into a powerful tool for fighting global warming, and they have the potential to address historical climate injustices.Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown UniversityHolly Jean Buck, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/960432018-07-17T11:36:11Z2018-07-17T11:36:11ZGoing viral: what social media activists need to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227414/original/file-20180712-27039-rcq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sign displaying the #metoo and #timesup message at the Women's March in San Francisco in January, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/january-20-2018-san-francisco-ca-1007583703?src=MDfcEqZAsapSH186CCu_Rg-1-3">Shutterstock/SundryPhotography</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Inspiring stories of social activism, such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/civil-rights-11321">Civil Rights movement</a> and the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-fight-for-climate-change-is-a-civil-rights-fight_us_58de5ef6e4b0fa4c0959884c">fight against climate change</a>, abound in history. And it is generally thought that the new social media era has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya">helped cases of activism</a> to succeed. But <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772714000426">our research</a> has revealed some major threats, which activists need to understand if they are to be successful in getting their message across to the masses.</p>
<p>Social activism refers to a broad range of activities which are beneficial to society or particular interest groups. Social activists operate in groups to voice, educate and agitate for change, targeting global crises. </p>
<p>Take, for example, environmental groups such as <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/what-we-do/climate/">Greenpeace</a> which aim to curb climate change by targeting governments and major manufacturers with poor environmental records. Or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-sweatshop_movement">anti-sweatshop movement</a>, which started with a group of activists in the 19th century organising boycotts aimed at improving the conditions of workers in manufacturing places with low wages, poor working conditions and child labour.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1017309641363976192"}"></div></p>
<h2>Online social activism</h2>
<p>These days the voices of dissent have increasingly been carried via the evolving medium of the internet. From <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/voiceit/ct-hoy-from-metoo-to-timesup-how-undocumented-women-fit-in-the-women-s-movement-20180424-story.html">#Metoo, #TimesUp and #WeStrike</a> to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-43541179">#NeverAgain</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter">#BlackLivesMatter</a>, social activists wield the power of the internet to pressure powerful organisations.</p>
<p>The group <a href="https://350.org/about/">350.org</a>, for example, is made up of climate change activists. The group uses online campaigns and grassroots organising to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects. Its aim is to get society moving closer to clean energy solutions that work for all.</p>
<p>Online activism allows activists to organise events with high levels of engagement, focus and network strength. On the one hand, <a href="https://cas.uab.edu/humanrights/2016/12/07/age-online-activism/">researchers</a> suggest that the anonymity offered by online communication provides the possibility of expressing the views of marginalised minority groups that might otherwise be punished or sanctioned. Online activities reinforce collective identity by reducing attention to differences that exist within the group (such as education, social class, and ethnicity).</p>
<h2>The online threats</h2>
<p>But <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Save-Everything-Click-Here-Technological/dp/1610393708">other research</a> argues that while this modern form of activism may increase participation in online activities, it might merely create the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/mar/14/online-activism-social-media-engage">impression of activism</a>. Or it may even have negative consequences, such as creating social <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.1983">stereotypes</a> including those about feminists and environmentalists or <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20768205">getting social activists arrested</a> as is the case in authoritarian countries.</p>
<p>The aim of our research was to develop insights that would obtain better outcomes from online activism, targeting some of society’s most important issues. During our study, we collected data from three YouTube cases of online activism. Our findings suggest that online activism delivers a temporary shock to the organisational elites, help organise collective actions and amplify the conditions for movements to form. </p>
<h2>The elites fight back</h2>
<p>But these initial outcomes provoke the elites into action, resulting in counter measures – such as increased surveillance to track activists. For example, some governmental authorities intensified internet filtering, blocked access to several websites and decreased the speed of the internet connection to slow down social activism. These measures prompted self-censorship among activists and a loss of interest among the public in relation to the cause and contributed to the ultimate decline of social activism over time. </p>
<p>Our study challenged the <a href="https://theconversation.com/slacktivism-that-works-small-changes-matter-69271">optimistic hype</a> around online activism in enabling grassroots social movements by suggesting there is a complex relationship between activists and those groups they are targeting, which makes the outcomes very difficult to predict. As different parties with different interests intervene, they either encourage or inhibit activism. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-metoo-is-an-impoverished-form-of-feminist-activism-unlikely-to-spark-social-change-86455">encouraging actions</a> can take the form of support (such as the thousands of women around the world who posted on social media sharing their stories under #metoo), <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-metoo-is-an-impoverished-form-of-feminist-activism-unlikely-to-spark-social-change-86455">inhibiting actions</a> may come in the form of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry">information asymmetry</a> (strategies such as filtering and surveillance) from elites.</p>
<p>Inhibiting strategies are not limited to authoritarian organisations. Senior managers may also monitor email correspondence of staff, set up structures and hierarchies for access to organisational information, and use information provided by secretive companies to check the status of their employees (for example, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/mar/16/blacklisted-workers-hotline">blacklisting workers perceived as trouble-makers</a>). </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"905119017207308288"}"></div></p>
<h2>Less emotion and more strategic patience</h2>
<p>Online activists should understand that the dynamics of reaching collective action might not necessarily be the result of critical thinking, lifelong learning or other dimensions of civic engagement. Journalist Nicholas Kristoff <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000924mag-sweatshops.html">has talked about</a> how the anti-sweatshop movement “risks harming the impoverished workers it is hoping to help” by causing mass job redundancies. Similarly, our main message is that online activism could prompt reactions that will result in unintended and long lasting consequences for the activists involved.</p>
<p>A common and frequently used approach that risks these types of consequences is to share emotive information through social media. While this is used to inform and capture people’s attention and mobilise as many people as possible, our study suggests that more thought should be put into the consequences of information sharing and what information is most appropriate to be shared.</p>
<p>Activists may need to spend more time and energy to create and share information that is less emotive and help people learn about the underlying causes of problem. For example, the activism videos we have researched and commonly see on the internet are essentially reactive and emotive.</p>
<p>Instead of focusing on the problem and the need for change, activists can share information that explains why and how the current situation has been created and what can be learned for the future. Online activism in such manner can gradually lead to the development of people who are capable of <a href="http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm">generating new knowledge and wisdom</a> to respond to changing social environments. However, that requires strategic patience and that is often a scarce resource among activists desperate for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shahla Ghobadi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Social media is a great tool for activists campaigning for social justice. But if it is not used with caution it can end up working against them.Shahla Ghobadi, Assistant Professor, Software, Design, Social Activism, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/935192018-03-19T15:04:37Z2018-03-19T15:04:37ZThe unholy alliance that explains why renewable energy is trouncing nuclear<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210996/original/file-20180319-31596-bujmzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'I was the future once.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rusty-door-on-chernobyl-atomic-station-6508090?src=V82f5ywKRL8FJjRdH7xGKg-1-70">Betacam-SP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If recent <a href="https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review-2017/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2017-full-report.pdf">trends</a> continue for another two years, the global share of electricity from renewables excluding hydropower will overtake nuclear for the first time. Even 20 years ago, this nuclear decline would have greatly surprised many people – particularly now that reducing carbon emissions is at the top of the political agenda. </p>
<p>On one level this is a story about changes in relative costs. The costs of solar and wind have plunged while nuclear has become almost astoundingly expensive. But this raises the question of why this came about. As I argue in my new book, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Low-Carbon-Politics-A-Cultural-Approach-Focusing-on-Low-Carbon-Electricity/Toke/p/book/9781138696778">Low Carbon Politics</a>, it helps to dip into cultural theory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210974/original/file-20180319-31624-13ja6ut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2017.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Culture wars</h2>
<p>The seminal text in this field, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520050631">Risk and Culture (1982)</a>, by the British anthropologist Mary Douglas and American political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, argues the behaviour of individuals and institutions can be explained by four different biases:
</p><ol>
<li><strong>Individualists</strong>: people biased towards outcomes that result from competitive arrangements;</li>
<li><strong>Hierarchists</strong>: those who prefer ordered decisions being made by leaders and followed by others;</li>
<li><strong>Egalitarians</strong>: people who favour equality and grassroots decision-making and pursue a common cause;</li>
<li><strong>Fatalists</strong>: those who see decision-making as capricious and feel unable to influence outcomes.</li>
</ol><p></p>
<p>The first three categories help explain different actors in the electricity industry. For governments and centralised monopolies often owned by the state, read hierarchists. For green campaigning organisations, read egalitarians, while free-market-minded private companies fit the individualist bias. </p>
<p>The priorities of these groups have not greatly changed in recent years. Hierarchists tend to favour nuclear power, since big power stations make for more straightforward grid planning, and nuclear power complements nuclear weapons capabilities considered important for national security. </p>
<p>Egalitarians like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth usually oppose new nuclear power plant and favour renewables. Traditionally they have worried about radioactive environmental damage and nuclear proliferation. Individualists, meanwhile, favour whichever technologies reduce costs. </p>
<p>These cultural realities lie behind the problems experienced by nuclear power. To compound green opposition, many of nuclear power’s strongest supporters are conservative hierarchists who are either sceptical about the need to reduce carbon emissions or treat it as a low priority. Hence they are often unable or unwilling to mobilise climate change arguments to support nuclear, which has made it harder to persuade egalitarians to get on board. </p>
<p>This has had several consequences. Green groups won subsidies for renewable technologies by persuading more liberal hierarchists that they had to address climate change – witness the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/apr/29/renewableenergy.energyefficiency">big push</a> by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth for the feed-in tariffs that drove solar uptake in the late 2000s, for example. In turn, both wind and solar have been optimised and their costs have come down. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210998/original/file-20180319-31599-1k04sha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hot property.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/solar-farm-green-energy-field-thailand-204711964?src=WFLFHWuAd1EGRrA4FzvwaA-1-6">kessudap</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nuclear largely missed out on these carbon-reducing subsidies. Worse, greens groups persuaded governments as far back as the 1970s that safety standards around nuclear power stations needed to improve. This more than anything <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Low-Carbon-Politics-A-Cultural-Approach-Focusing-on-Low-Carbon-Electricity/Toke/p/book/9781138696778">drove up</a> costs.</p>
<p>As for the individualists, they used to be generally unconvinced by renewable energy and sceptical of environmental opposition to nuclear. But as relative costs have changed, they have increasingly switched positions. </p>
<p>The hierarchists are still able to use monopoly electricity organisations to support nuclear power, but individualists are increasingly pressuring them to make these markets more competitive so that they can invest in renewables more easily. In effect, we are now seeing an egalitarian-individualist alliance against the conservative hierarchists.</p>
<h2>Both sides of the pond</h2>
<p>Donald Trump’s administration in the US, for example, <a href="http://energypost.eu/trumps-coal-nuclear-subsidy-cost-u-s-economy-10-billion-year/">has sought</a> subsidies to keep existing coal and nuclear power stations running. This is both out of concern for national security and to support traditional centralised industrial corporations – classic hierarchist thinking. </p>
<p>Yet this has played out badly with individualist corporations pushing renewables. Trump’s plans have even been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/08/donald-trump-coal-industry-plan-rejected-rick-perry">rejected</a> by some of his own appointments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. </p>
<p>In similarly hierarchist fashion, electricity supply monopolies in Georgia and South Carolina started building new nuclear power stations after regulatory agencies allowed them to collect mandatory payments from electricity consumers to cover costs at the same time. </p>
<p>Yet even hierarchists cannot ignore economic reality entirely. The South Carolina project <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-25/duke-asks-to-cancel-planned-south-carolina-nuclear-reactors">has been</a> abandoned and the Georgia project only survives <a href="https://www.fitsnews.com/2017/09/29/georgia-gets-nuclear-windfall-from-federal-government/">through</a> a very large federal loan bailout. </p>
<p>Contrast this with casino complexes in Nevada like <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-mgm-prepared-itself-to-leave-nevadas-biggest-utility#gs.F2Ag7fY">MGM Resorts</a> not only installing their own solar photovoltaic arrays but paying many millions of dollars to opt out from the local monopoly electricity supplier. They have campaigned successfully to win a state referendum supporting electricity liberalisation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/210999/original/file-20180319-31624-1bykk42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Casino solar, Las Vegas.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The UK, meanwhile, is an example of how different biases can compete. Policy has traditionally been formed in hierarchical style, with big companies producing policy proposals which go out to wider consultation. It’s a cultural bias that favours nuclear power, but this conflicts with a key priority dating back to Thatcher that technological winners are chosen by the market. </p>
<p>This has led policymakers in Whitehall to favour both renewables and nuclear, but the private electricity companies have mostly refused to invest in nuclear, seeing it as too risky and expensive. The only companies prepared to plug the gap have been more hierarchists – EDF, which is majority-owned by France, and Chinese state nuclear corporations. </p>
<p>Even then, getting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant">Hinkley C</a> in south-west England underway – the first new nuclear plant since the 1990s – required an extensive commitment by the UK treasury to underwrite bank loans. There is also an embarrassingly high price to be paid for the electricity over a very long 35-year period. Such has been the bad publicity that it’s hard to imagine a politician agreeing to more plant on such terms. </p>
<p>Where does this reality leave hierarchists? Increasingly having to explain prohibitive nuclear costs to their electorates – at least in democracies. The alternative, as renewable energy becomes the new orthodoxy, is to embrace it. </p>
<p>In Australia, for example, a big utility company called AGL is trying to seduce homeowners to agree to link their solar panels to the company’s systems to centralise power dispatch in a so-called a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-utilities/panel-beaters-australia-utilities-branch-out-as-customers-shift-to-solar-idUSL3N1KH2M2">virtual</a> power plant”. </p>
<p>When the facts change, to misquote John Maynard Keynes, you can always change your mind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Toke has received funding from the ESRC, the EU, the World Future Council, Friends of the Earth, UNISON, and the Combined Heat and Power Association, for research into various issues involving renewable energy and energy. David Toke is a member of the trade association, RenewableUK. He is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales and also a member of the Scottish Green Party.</span></em></p>To understand what happened to our love of giant radioactive kettles, take a look at cultural theory.David Toke, Reader in Energy Policy, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921972018-02-23T12:16:49Z2018-02-23T12:16:49ZWhat Oxfam can learn from charities that survived scandals<p>The <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top-oxfam-staff-paid-haiti-quake-survivors-for-sex-mhm6mpmgw">Oxfam scandal</a> has brought to the fore the relationship between the public and charitable organisations. Accusations that Oxfam covered up claims that senior members of its staff in Haiti used prostitutes has brought the reputation of the organisation into question.</p>
<p>The unethical behaviour of its staff is a short-term issue for Oxfam to deal with, but its long-term impact could have a profound effect on the charity’s work. Oxfam is not the first high-profile charity to be caught up in a scandal. But past examples show that some fared better than others when it came to surviving the media and public backlash that followed.</p>
<p>Prominent Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) such as Oxfam have come to occupy an important position in the modern political landscape. This is due in part to the expertise that these organisations obtain on specific matters such as humanitarian aid, the environment and human rights. This expertise can be used by politicians to inform government policy and by journalists to set the media agenda around these issues.</p>
<p>Alongside this, throughout the 20th century, people have come to increasingly <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-of-expertise-9780199691876?cc=gb&lang=en&">trust the work of NGOs more than political figures</a>. This demonstrates a shift, with experts now occupying an important part of modern political life. The trust and respect for the work of NGOs is visible in the financial donations given by members of the public wishing to support the ideals of organisations such as Oxfam.</p>
<p>What happens when this trust is challenged by scandal? Are the consequences an end to these donations, as reports suggest that more than <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/more-7000-brits-stop-oxfam-12059318">7,000 people in Britain have done</a>, or are there more deep seated effects? Are the NGOs themselves ruined by the events, or are there mechanisms by which they can defend their work?</p>
<h2>Amnesty</h2>
<p>Amnesty International occupies a central position in how human rights are understood in the modern world. Its campaigns regularly attract significant media attention and it has been rightly heralded as making a genuine change to peoples’ lives <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1961/may/28/fromthearchive.theguardian">since its foundation in 1961</a>. Yet the history of the organisation is not without scandal. Amnesty’s founder Peter Benenson was unceremoniously removed from a senior post in the organisation in 1967 following allegations that the NGO <a href="https://academic.oup.com/tcbh/article-abstract/15/3/267/1702572?redirectedFrom=fulltext">had been infiltrated</a> by British intelligence agents and had distributed secret funds.</p>
<p>This was particularly damaging at the height of the Cold War, where accusations of secret government funding <a href="http://grantabooks.com/Who-Paid-The-Piper">brought other organisations to their knees</a>. Similar scandals occurred in the late 2000s when Amnesty was found to have paid substantial pay-offs to senior members of the organisation, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358537/Revealed-Amnesty-Internationals-800-000-pay-offs-bosses.html">drawing the ire of the press</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this, Amnesty continues to flourish. This is in part due to the philosophy that binds the organisation together – protecting victims of human rights violations. This powerful ethos, <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100173990">which has been likened to a secular religion</a>, has allowed Amnesty to deflect these controversial events and maintain its efforts unhindered.</p>
<h2>Greenpeace</h2>
<p>Similar controversies have affected environmental NGOs. Greenpeace has been involved in several scandals throughout its history. This is in part due to its tactic to attract media attention <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/McLuhan_s_Children_The_Greenpeace_Messag.html?id=TALZBQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">through its campaigning efforts</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/23/greenpeace-losses-financial-disarray">Scandals of financial mismanagement</a>, the short-haul aeroplane commutes of some of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-greenpeace-executives-commute-is-a-flight-of-fantasy-28368">its leading figures</a> and the adoption of morally dubious policies to identify climate change sceptics <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-it-matter-that-greenpeace-journalists-lied-in-order-to-expose-academics-for-hire-52192">in the pay of energy companies</a> have all impacted its public image. Yet Greenpeace still maintains public support, again arguably due to the strong ideals binding the group together.</p>
<p>So what next for Oxfam? The increased size and scale of NGOs in the modern world means that scandals are increasingly inevitable. How these organisations respond to them will rely on drawing upon the philosophy that binds them together. Oxfam is not its CEO Mark Goldring, its international executive director Winnie Byanyima or Roland van Hauwermeiren – the former Oxfam official who is at the centre of the current controversies. It is a broader idea about making the world a better place. Perhaps it is this ideal that will come to protect Oxfam’s integrity. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was amended on February 23 to remove a reference to the Kids Company collapse, which could have been misinterpreted. We are happy to make this change and apologise for any confusion.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Hurst does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Oxfam is not the first charity to be drawn into a high profile scandal. If it is to survive it needs draw on its core ideals.Mark Hurst, Lecturer in the History of Human Rights, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900582018-01-12T21:01:27Z2018-01-12T21:01:27ZWhat activists today can learn from MLK, the ‘conservative militant’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201793/original/file-20180112-101518-1v277rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protestor holds a sign with a quote from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the South Carolina Statehouse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the turbulent days following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, activists launched resistance movements: Greenpeace activists climbed a large construction crane near the White House and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/greenpeace-resist-banner-protest-trump.html?_r=0">unfurled a large banner</a> with the single word – “Resist.” </p>
<p>Similar protests took place elsewhere. Thousands of protesters used their bodies to <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Protesters-spell-out-resist-on-Ocean-Beach-10927336.php">spell the word “resist”</a> on a San Francisco beach. And at the Grammys, the very next day, rapper <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/q-tip">Q-Tip</a> <a href="http://deadline.com/2017/02/donald-trump-attacked-grammy-awards-a-tribe-called-quest-muslim-ban-1201910151/">yelled “resist”</a> no less than four times from the stage. </p>
<p>A year later, demonstrations like these have not disappeared. A <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-womens-march-2018-story.html">second women’s march</a> is planned for later this month. But the resistance has moved beyond street protests. Activists are now embracing the hard work of political organizing. <a href="https://www.runforsomething.net/book/">“Don’t Just March Run for Something”</a> – the title of a best-seller by Amanda Litman, email director of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, crystallizes this transition. </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498511438/Democratic-Humility-Reinhold-Niebuhr-Neuroscience-and-America%E2%80%99s-Political-Crisis">studied the words and actions</a> of Martin Luther King Jr. for decades. The very change we are witnessing now – the transition from protest to politics – is exactly the kind of transition that King called for during the civil rights movement. </p>
<h2>MLK: A ‘conservative militant’</h2>
<p>In the words of historian <a href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2003/in-memoriam-august-a-meier">August Meier,</a> who wrote a seminal book, <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/22712/negro_thought_in_america_1880_1915">“Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915,”</a> published in 1963, King succeeded because he was <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">“a conservative militant.”</a> </p>
<p>The word, “conservative” has a specific meaning here. King was a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/martin-luther-king-socialist/">democratic socialist</a>, he opposed the Vietnam War, and he called for massive investment in the inner cities. He was not conservative in any political sense. But what Meier showed was that King nevertheless manifested a <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">conservative core</a> – one that resonated with millions of Americans and thereby helped achieve the movement’s remarkable success. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewPolitics-1965q1-00052">Meier’s words</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“American history shows that for any reform movement to succeed, it must attain respectability. It must attract moderates, even conservatives to its rank.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>King understood this. And to that end, he was indeed conservative – both in the arguments he made and the manner in which he presented them.</p>
<p>King argued that racism in America meant the United States was not living up to its own ideals. At the very core of the <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/">Declaration of Independence</a> and thus at the center of American life was the belief that “all men are created equal.” But in America in the 1960s, and especially in the South, African-Americans lived out their lives as <a href="http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/8-civilrights/1946-1953">second-class citizens</a>. In King’s words, American culture was <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2015/01/some_will_have_to_face_physical_death_dr_martin_luther_king_jr_in_syracuse_1961.html">“the very antithesis”</a> of what it claimed to believe. </p>
<p>King did not want to challenge, let alone replace, ideals of freedom and equality. He wanted America to better embody them. He argued that the civil rights movement was just the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/184971711/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-A-Testament-of-Hope-1969">latest in a long American tradition</a> that was both grounded in those ideals and sought to make them more authentic. </p>
<p>King compared the civil rights movement with the abolitionist movement, the populist movement of farmers and laborers in the late 19th century, and even to the American Revolution itself. The American ideal “all men are created equal” constituted what King called a <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm">“promissory note.”</a> In each case, ordinary citizens demanded that that promise be honored. And through their actions, the nation was made more free and more just.</p>
<p>By framing the cause of civil rights in words and ideas that most Americans strongly identified with, King was able to appeal to their innate patriotism. What’s more, those who stood against his cause were, by implication, the ones who could be seen as un-American. </p>
<h2>King’s strategy</h2>
<p>King’s resistance was also strictly nonviolent. Following the model of civil resistance developed by M.K. Gandhi, the leader of Indian independence, King argued for nonviolence <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf">within the terms of his own Christian faith</a>.</p>
<p>King said that by responding to injustice with civility and to violence with nonviolence, the resister was fulfilling <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">“the Christian doctrine of love.”</a> For King, that love was <a href="https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218225500/http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol4/6-Feb-1957_NonviolenceAndRacialJustice.pdf">best reflected</a> in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-fractured-nation-needs-to-remember-kings-message-of-love-68643">Greek word “agape,”</a> an “understanding, redeeming good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.” This was the love that Christ epitomized, and which his followers were called to emulate. </p>
<p>But King also insisted that nonviolent resistance spoke to a respect for the law that can only be called conservative. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” where he was imprisoned in 1963, King insisted that while unjust laws must be broken, they must be <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html">broken “lovingly,”</a> such that the act demonstrates a respect, even a reverence, for the law. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159331/original/image-20170303-29012-59mc7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_nonviolent_resistance/">King argued</a> that this nonviolent strategy was not simply the most Christian response. It was also “the most potent instrument the Negro community can use to gain total emancipation in America.” <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/19/alex-haley-s-1965-playboy-interview-with-rev-martin-luther-king-jr.html">He said that</a> violent protests gave the white man “an excuse to look away,” to ignore those who want to claim the mantel of equality.“ </p>
<p>Conducting the struggle <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm">"on the high plane of dignity and discipline,”</a> dressing well, using respectful language and accepting violence without responding in kind – all this gave protesters a moral standing that attracted moderates to the cause. It also sought to change the hearts and minds of the bigots. Even if that effort failed, the bigots were nevertheless defeated. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/14301/slavery-by-another-name-by-douglas-a-blackmon/9780385722704/">Jim Crow system of racial segregation</a> rested on the idea that African-Americans were inferior to whites. By rigidly adhering to the high road, the actions of protesters proved that that entire system was based on a falsehood.</p>
<p>Indeed, if anything, actions on both sides demonstrated the opposite. </p>
<h2>Acting politically</h2>
<p>Many protesters in the 1960s sought to bring down an established order that they saw as irredeemably racist and corrupt. But to <a href="http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Watts">those who said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Burn, baby, burn,” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/01/18/mlk-speaks-philadelphia-middle-school/">King said</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Organize, baby, organize.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fundamental purpose of resistance was to effect political change and that meant operating within existing political institutions.</p>
<p>It also often required compromise. For example, at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, a crisis developed when the newly created and integrated <a href="https://theconversation.com/voter-id-laws-why-black-democrats-fight-for-the-ballot-in-mississippi-still-matters-63583">“Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party”</a> demanded they be recognized and seated instead of the all-white “official” Mississippi delegation. They argued they were the truly democratic representatives of the state as they were the product of procedures fair and open to all. </p>
<p>Party leaders <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_mississippi_freedom_democratic_party/">worked out a compromise</a> that allowed the Mississippi delegation to remain. King accepted this compromise, but many advocates condemned it as an illegitimate accommodation to racism. </p>
<p>King did not disagree, but he argued that this face-saving gesture would help to ensure that the South would not abandon then-candidate Lyndon Johnson. One year later, President Johnson <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_voting_rights_act_1965/">signed the Voting Rights Act</a>, which ensured voting rights for all African-Americans, and brought federal control over elections in the South. </p>
<h2>Resistance through politics is conservative</h2>
<p>The notion of conservative militancy is not one that many of Trump’s opponents would likely affirm. Some see this moment is an opportunity to grow and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/social-media-powered-berniecrats-try-move-party-left/">strengthen the left</a>; others see it as an opportunity to <a href="https://greenpartywashington.org/2016/11/09/resist-trump-failed-two-party-system/">move beyond</a> the two-party system altogether. But the transition from marching to politics show that many understand that opposing Trump requires mobilizing the power necessary to make that happen. </p>
<p>The civil rights movement expressed a similar operating principle: Keep your <a href="https://library.wustl.edu/spec/filmandmedia/collections/hampton/eop/">“eyes on the prize.”</a> Here too, the thought was that opponents should not allow themselves to be satisfied with simply articulating their dissatisfaction. Rather, they should continually orient themselves and their actions such that they advance the movement toward the ultimate goal. </p>
<p>Right now, those Americans who oppose the president contend that longstanding democratic procedures, norms and ideals are under attack. Because they seek to defend those core American ideals, those who resist have become, by default, conservatives and patriots. And now, one year after his inauguration, that defense has moved from protest to politics. </p>
<p>Whether they know it or not, in both regards, these Americans are following King’s example. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-in-resistance-from-mlk-the-conservative-militant-73506">originally published</a> on March 5, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Beem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>King led one of the most successful resistance movements in American history. A scholar explains King’s strategies in resistance.Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/772652017-05-31T12:48:21Z2017-05-31T12:48:21ZWhy charities should be allowed to campaign freely at election time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171512/original/file-20170530-23667-1p51oct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are rules about what charities can say and spend during election campaigns. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everybody was caught off guard when Theresa May announced Britain would be heading to the polls on June 8. But charities were more surprised than most by the news – which had an immediate impact on their day-to-day campaigning operations. </p>
<p>Under special election-time rules, charities are legally restrained in their campaigning missions. The law <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/41/section/85">restricts</a> campaigning on policy platforms that are intended to procure the electoral success of a particular party or candidate. </p>
<p>For example, as the Conservative <a href="https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/manifesto2017/Manifesto2017.pdf">manifesto</a> proposed giving MPs a free vote on the legalisation of fox hunting, animal welfare organisations will have to proceed very carefully before speaking out. Opposition to the change could easily be interpreted as favouring one party over another. </p>
<p>If charities do want to campaign on policy platforms associated with political parties there are particular election-time <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/4/section/28/enacted">rules</a> about how much money they can spend. If they intend to spend more than £20,000 during a campaign, they must register. For such campaigns in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the threshold is £10,000. Total expenditure is then <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/165961/intro-campaigning-charities-npc.pdf">capped</a> at £319,800 or £9,750 in any given constituency.</p>
<h2>Snap election causes headache</h2>
<p>The ordinary period that this covers before a general election is <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/41/schedule/9/enacted">365</a> days – a very long time. But because we are in a snap election, this period is treated retrospectively, which has placed an extra and surprising burden upon campaigning charities. This means charities must now unexpectedly account for all of their expenditure over the past year which might reasonably be regarded as intended to procure electoral success.</p>
<p>As the current rules were introduced in <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/4/contents/enacted/data.htm">2014</a>, and this is the first snap election since then, this is the first time this retrospective rule has been used. In light of this, the Electoral Commission has <a href="https://blogs.ncvo.org.uk/2017/05/26/charities-and-the-lobbying-act-the-electoral-commissions-view/">promised</a> to take a “pragmatic and proportionate response” to the issue. </p>
<p>Still, the demand from the Electoral Commission to register expenditure over £20,000 retrospectively will have come as a surprise to charities. And refusal to comply with the rules carries very serious sanctions. In April, <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-donations/greenpeace-and-friends-of-the-earth-fined-for-breaking-campaigning-rules?">Greenpeace</a> was fined £30,000 by the Electoral Commission for refusing to register during the 2015 election campaign – even though the commission estimated the charity had spent over £100,000. </p>
<p>Taking a <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/oceans/fish-%E2%80%98must-have%E2%80%99-prop-election-campaign-20150430">coastal boat tour</a>, Greenpeace activists had visited communities around the UK, deliberating targeting political candidates and attempting to get them to sign up and support sustainable fishing.</p>
<h2>Ban on direct party-political support</h2>
<p>Charities are also subject to a long-standing year-round ban on direct party political support. They cannot put up banners telling people how to vote, nor can they knock on doors and promote a particular party. This stems from the <a href="http://thephilanthropist.ca/1983/07/mcgovern-v-attorney-general/">case</a> of McGovern v Attorney General in the 1980s, which declared the campaigning activities of Amnesty International to be outside the scope of acceptable legal charitable activity. </p>
<p>In the case, the judge also ruled unequivocally that charities are also subject to a ban on party-political support. The ban applies at all times, but its effect is inevitably felt most keenly ahead of an election. It also extends to all places of worship which are classed as charities under the law.</p>
<p>It’s up to the Charity Commission, rather than the Electoral Commission to enforce these ordinary rules against direct party political support. Its regulatory approach was put to the test during the 2015 election when the dome of the Shacklewell Lane Mosque, a charity, was found unlawfully daubed with the name of a candidate running against then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage. The commission responded in a carefully measured way, without sanctions. They ensured the trustees were <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/610331/Campaigning_and_political_issues_arising_in_the_runup_to_the_2015_General_Election_new.pdf">aware</a> of the law and paid a site visit to ensure the charity was properly run. </p>
<p>Clearly, not all charities will intend to spend over £20,000 and it is important to note that the Charity Commission actually encourages organisations to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/610137/CC9.pdf">speak out</a> so long as they stay within the rules. But as my colleague Debra Morris at the University of Liverpool has noted, the overall impact of this complex regulatory landscape might still be to <a href="http://www.vssn.org.uk/paper/too-political-charities-and-the-legal-boundaries-of-campaigning/">deter</a> charities from their campaigning mission.</p>
<h2>Is this justified?</h2>
<p>In my view, there are two possible justifications for regulating election-time campaigning. The first is based around concerns about keeping charities above the political <a href="http://calnonprofits.org/publications/article-archive/521-let-s-keep-nonprofits-and-churches-above-the-political-fray">fray</a>. If charities are seen to take sides on weighty political issues, some members of the public will inevitably find it distasteful, which might damage the “charity brand”.</p>
<p>But while this concern might justify the ban on party-political support, wider-ranging restrictions on policy campaigning throw the baby out with the bathwater. Charity is <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2878008">inherently</a> linked with policy. It is impossible to think of a <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/25/section/3">charitable purpose</a> that does not have at least a policy tinge and restrictions on policy campaigning misunderstand that part of their nature.</p>
<p>A second possible justification for limiting election-time campaigning flows from the relationship between charity and the regulatory state. The government now delivers a great many <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/public-service-delivery-rules-for-charities">welfare services</a> through charities. Just as civil servants are subject to purdah at election time, it might be said that charities should also maintain a hushed neutrality. </p>
<p>But not all social welfare organisations – such as the <a href="https://rnli.org/about-us/our-strategy/our-philosophy">RNLI</a> – receive government funds. And even in the case of those organisations which do receive taxpayers’ money, I hope that the relationship between the sector and the state amounts to something more than government purchasing a second civil service on the <a href="https://data.ncvo.org.uk/a/almanac16/income-from-government/">cheap</a>. Government authorities should be prepared to fund independent, opposing voices.</p>
<h2>Moves for change</h2>
<p>There are some tepid signs that reforms might be coming. In a 2016 review, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/508568/2904969_Cm_9205_Complete_Text_V0.5.pdf">recommended</a> that only campaign activities deliberately intended to impact upon the ballot box should be controlled at election time. A <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldchar/133/133.pdf">report</a> published by the House of Lords in March 2017 also adopted this view.</p>
<p>Such cautious steps do not grasp the nettle. A bolder path would be to accept that all charity is straightforwardly and unambiguously political. Charities are mostly run by people motivated to change the world. They have political campaigning missions and it will benefit everyone if they can speak out freely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77265/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Picton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Charities are limited in how much they can spend on campaigning. Is this justified?John Picton, Lecturer in Charity Law, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/621422016-07-07T14:29:32Z2016-07-07T14:29:32ZWhy scientists’ failure to understand GM opposition is stifling debate and halting progress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129720/original/image-20160707-30705-168vxku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GM protest in Montpellier.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/peter_curb/19418818568">Peter/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Genetically modified crops are safe for human consumption and have the potential to feed the world and improve human health, scientists have been telling us for years. On June 30, 110 Nobel laureates from around the world <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/30/nobel-winners-slam-greenpeace-for-anti-gm-campaign">signed a letter</a> demanding that the environmental pressure group Greenpeace stop its campaign against GM crops. How many people must die before we consider this a “crime against humanity”? the letter asks.</p>
<p>The scientists are accusing Greenpeace of ignoring facts, misrepresenting risks and benefits, failing to recognise the authority of science and relying on emotion and dogma. They are particularly concerned about Greenpeace’s opposition to <a href="http://www.goldenrice.org/">Golden Rice</a>, which has an added gene that boosts vitamin A levels – something scientists claim is much needed in many poor populations. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/agriculture/problem/Greenpeace-and-Golden-Rice/">Greenpeace argues</a> that there are cheaper and more effective alternatives to Golden Rice and that GM rice developers are out of touch with the needs of local populations. It also claims developers are downplaying the risk that GM rice will contaminate traditional and organic rice crops.</p>
<p>The eminent scientists appear to have learned little about opposition to GM crops over the last 20 years. Social science research suggests they are misinformed and their approach <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/crispr-science-can-t-solve-it-1.17806">is misguided</a>. Opposition to GM crops is not always based exclusively on scientific risks and benefits and neither is it grounded in emotion or dogma. To characterise opposition in this way only serves to inflame the relations between proponents and opponents. It is therefore unlikely to help us realise the potential of GM crops in feeding the world.</p>
<h2>Flawed debate</h2>
<p>Together with Frøydis Gillund, Lilian van Hove and Fern Wickson from the Norweigian <a href="http://genok.com/biosafety/">GenØk Centre for Biosafety</a>, I have been studying the acrimonious debate about agricultural biotechnology for several years. Our research has identified <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1002453">five requirements</a> for advancing a responsible debate about GM crops. These are a commitment to honesty; recognition of the values underlying the practice of science; involvement of a broad range of people; consideration of a range of alternatives; and a preparedness to respond. </p>
<p>We believe that this approach will moderate the debate, offering a workable approach to considering the role of GM crops. But the attitudes of many scientists stand in the way of such progress.</p>
<p>Discussions about GM crops need honesty about the quality of the available scientific knowledge and the degree to which claimed benefits can be realised. It must take concerns seriously, even those beyond scientific risk. The lack of openness about when Golden Rice will be finished and who it will benefit is cause for concern and can lead to significant misunderstandings and mistrust between scientists and the public. Golden Rice is being developed in the Philippines, not in Africa and Southeast Asia, which you may believe if you read the letter. And even in the Philippines, <a href="https://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/stone/stone_glover_2016_golden_rice.pdf">it is not expected to be ready for several years</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129695/original/image-20160707-30670-117fgnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Golden Rice (right) versus regular rice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) / wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also need to think about how values and assumptions shape the way we govern GM crops. We know that hiding values and choices from public scrutiny continues to be a source of controversy. With Golden Rice, there is an assumption that technology is the appropriate fix for a complex social problem. Such values must be recognised and addressed openly rather than hiding them within a narrow debate about human and environmental risk. This would in turn allow more transparent decision making and effective dialogue between Golden Rice developers, policymakers and civil society.</p>
<p>Decisions about GM crops need to include different scientific disciplines (for example, molecular biology and ecology) and stakeholders such as farmers, citizens, and organisations like Greenpeace. When the GM crop debate is confined to human and environmental risk, it limits who can participate in decision-making and privileges scientists – in this case, Nobel laureates who are not necessarily experts on GM crops or GM rice. However, the GM crop debate is not only a technical debate about scientific risks: it involves other ethical and social concerns such as community empowerment, patents and nutrient availability. Inclusive decision-making about GM will make the process more democratic and create a more comprehensive knowledge base.</p>
<p>We also need to talk about the range of alternative ways to frame the problem of global food security, as well as the range of alternative solutions. As the Nobel laureates recognise, agricultural systems are under severe stress from converging problems associated with soil deterioration, lack of water, chemical pollution, climate change, and population growth. Current policies to address these problems typically focus on technological fixes that deliver economic benefits. For example, <a href="https://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/stone/stone_glover_2016_golden_rice.pdf">alternative ways of addressing vitamin A deficiency</a> through fortification, rather than genetic modification, in the Philippines have had dramatic results since 2003. </p>
<p>Ultimately, GM crop developers, risk researchers, regulators, and policy makers need to be willing and prepared to consider and respond to societal needs and concerns as well as to new scientific knowledge. This is important not only for ensuring the democratic accountability of science and technology but also as a means to enable us to reverse decisions and adapt policies in the face of change. </p>
<p>It is clear that the scientists accusing Greenpeace of crimes against humanity feel deeply frustrated about what they see as shackles on a technology that for them has clear benefits for the world’s poor. However, by signing the inflammatory letter, they reveal a flawed and naïve understanding of the debate. This approach is likely to result in further agitating and polarising the debate rather than achieving the desired outcome. Indeed, some may even see these scientists as using their privilege and authority to promote a particular technological solution to a political problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Hartley receives funding from Leverhulme Trust ‘Making Science Public’ programme
under Grant RP2011-SP-013. </span></em></p>When the GM crop debate is confined to the human risks, it limits who can participate in the decision making and privileges scientists.Sarah Hartley, Research Fellow, Sociology and Social Policy, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/541662016-03-14T01:42:01Z2016-03-14T01:42:01ZNot so grassroots: how the snowflake model is transforming political campaigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112639/original/image-20160223-16451-2zpshp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's London to Aldermaston march, 1958: an early example of mass political mobilisation to achieve a specific goal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cnduk.org/about/item/437">CND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Consider these five vignettes of contemporary politics in Australia:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/what-we-do/climate/Save-the-Reef/">environmental activists</a> start an online petition against a coal mine near the Great Barrier Reef;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.australianunions.org.au/saveourweekend_petition">trade unionists</a> organise against changes to weekend penalty rates;</p></li>
<li><p>a <a href="http://www.nab.com.au/about-us/corporate-responsibility/our-programs-and-initiatives/social-and-financial-inclusion">bank</a> promotes access to financial services for marginalised individuals;</p></li>
<li><p>volunteers knock on doors to promote their <a href="http://thisislabor.org">political party</a>; and</p></li>
<li><p>community groups work with a <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/stories/finalists-announced-racism-it-stops-me-award-2015">government authority</a> to prevent racism.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These diverse projects – undertaken by widely different groups, promoting different ends, in different locations – are all variations on an increasingly common mode of collective political action: they are all campaigns.</p>
<p>Long part of the repertoire of political parties, campaigning has broken out from the electoral context and <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/19369403">evolved into</a> a new tool for business, government and civil society actors.</p>
<p>Campaigning is now the dominant form of collective political activity in Australia. Waves of transformative technological change continue to morph campaigning into an intensely mediated activity. Dispersed individuals and locations are linked through television, the web, social media networks and most recently <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/you-better-watch-out-big-data-and-presidential-politics/">big data</a>.</p>
<p>Scholars have somewhat overlooked this transformation and its significance for politics and democracy. In particular its powerful internal tensions deserve closer attention. The campaign model is inherently divided between co-existing yet contradictory characteristics: bottom-up participation and top-down direction. </p>
<p>In this topsy-turvy form of politics, what looks to be grassroots-driven may on closer inspection be revealed as organised, coordinated and managed from the centre.</p>
<h2>The origins of the campaign</h2>
<p>It’s instructive to consider the etymology of this very political word. <em>Campagna</em> is Italian for field, plain or open country. The military recruited the word in the 17th century to denote the time an army spent in the field. So, campaigns were finite periods of intense fieldwork as armies mobilised in spring, fought in summer and stood down in winter.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111904/original/image-20160218-1240-rzlgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first campaigns involved mobilised armies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ResoluteSupportMedia/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 19th-century America, the word was given civilian clothing and put to work in elections and commercial advertising, though it retained the sense of short-run mobilisation. With the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958, the word began to denote a mass political mobilisation to achieve a specific goal.</p>
<p>A campaign is not a rally, protest, grievance or open-ended social movement. A campaign is a series, a finite short-run sequence, of activities.</p>
<p>Importantly, it is designed. A campaign is directed and managed rationally and strategically; it is not spontaneous, random or incidental. And it wants a particular result – not a generally improved state of affairs, but an identified and targeted outcome, an achievable end-point.</p>
<p>If a campaign is designed, the campaign manager is the designer, the strategist, the planner, the orchestrator of the activities that constitute the campaign. The campaign manager may not be visible or overt, but a campaign cannot function without a campaign manager.</p>
<h2>Language talks up grassroots role</h2>
<p>This observation sits uncomfortably with the strongly normative, almost emancipatory, language often used to describe campaigns. This typically involves words of participation and empowerment; words that celebrate individual efficacy and civic engagement; words that privilege the grassroots, with their authentic local knowledge, over the centre, the home of bosses and business as usual.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/greenpeaceusa/videos/10152907412764684/">Greenpeace declares</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Isn’t it amazing what we can do together? The driving force behind Greenpeace is a community of people like you – people who speak out and take action to make the world a better place. … Thank you for your courage. We are so proud to stand with you in this fight.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Australian Human Rights Commission, discussing its anti-racism campaign, tends to <a href="https://itstopswithme.humanrights.gov.au/about-campaign">agree</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s often the people working on the ground within local communities or specific environments who have the best understanding of the issues and ideas of how to overcome them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Australian Labor Party, too, is increasingly using the language of empowerment as it develops its Obama-style campaigning skills. In the last federal election, campaign manager George Wright produced a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=044ziCWXYEE">YouTube video</a> that declared – too optimistically as it turned out – that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the only thing standing between Tony Abbott and the Lodge is you, me, Kevin and thousands of supporters across the country.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Identifying the campaign targets (marginal seats and campaign donations), Wright called on “thousands of Australians to donate and … to volunteer”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/044ziCWXYEE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Labor’s plan to win is to get you involved.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the end of the campaign, Wright claimed Labor’s campaign had recruited 5000 “tele-campaigners” (call centre staff) and registered another 10,000 volunteers – more than could be used. The campaign made 1.2 million phone calls, conducted 250,000 “registered volunteer doorknocks”, sent out 3.5 million emails and raised $800,000 from online donations – a potential game changer for cash-strapped parties.</p>
<p>After the election, Wright <a href="http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/professionals">claimed</a> this “new approach to campaigning” was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… pushing political power into the hands of the people who stand to lose or gain from the outcomes of elections … and reforming the party from the grassroots up.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Who really drives the campaign?</h2>
<p>But does contemporary campaign practice justify such claims? Is campaigning a celebration of individual empowerment, of democratisation, of dispersal of organisational power? Is it so “amazing”? </p>
<p>Or is there a less obvious, but nonetheless critical and even dominant role, for the centre? What can we learn from campaigning about the relationship between the grassroots and the centre – between campaign volunteer and campaign manager? Who controls the resources? Who makes the decisions?</p>
<p>Consider Labor’s campaign for the Melbourne seat of Carrum in the 2014 Victorian state election.</p>
<p>Carrum was a classic marginal. To wrest the seat from the incumbent Liberal MP, Donna Bauer, Labor hired a modest flat in the back streets of Seaford. The living room was converted into a call centre, equipped with computer screens linked to a database of voter statistics. It was filled with the buzz of volunteers making calls on behalf of their candidate, Sonya Kilkenny.</p>
<p>Other operatives in the flat directed fieldwork – which, harking back to the military origins of campaign, describes the coordination of doorknocking. Teams of volunteers were sent out from the flat with maps and clipboards, again using the database to reach out to voters identified as persuadable.</p>
<p>All of this is volunteer work, under the banner of the “<a href="http://thisislabor.org/">Community Action Network</a>”. But their work is far from spontaneous, random or even self-directed. It is structured, planned, scripted, targeted and managed from the centre.</p>
<p>Volunteers, whether talking to voters on their doorstep or over the phone, or at train stations and supermarket carparks, are trained in what to say and how to say it.</p>
<p>Computer-assisted phone callers are guided through their conversations by scripts: first, tell them your own story, what values motivated you to volunteer; listen for a connection between your own narrative and values and those of the voter; then turn the conversation to talk about the candidates’ values, achievements and plans; and finally draw a contrast between your candidate and the opposition. </p>
<p>Don’t talk party or politics or policy. Instead, make it meaningful in terms of how voting Labor will benefit the voter and the voter’s family.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=177&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=177&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=177&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111889/original/image-20160218-1269-1q9ww68.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Labor’s Community Action Network claims to be a grassroots movement of more than 5000 activists in Victoria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">This is Labor</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Each snowflake has a centre</h2>
<p>The campaign in Carrum – which succeeded in getting Kilkenny elected – has been matched by similar volunteer networks in Labor’s NSW and Queensland branches, as well as in the union movement. </p>
<p>They are all, ultimately, modelled on the successful Obama campaigns, themselves derived from older traditions of <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/rules-for-radicals-comes-to-carrum">community organising</a>, but turbo-charged by Big Data, as <a href="http://www.thevictorylab.com/">described by American journalist Sasha Issenberg</a>.</p>
<p>Obama <a href="https://my.barackobama.com/page/content/snowflake/">campaign literature</a> uses the metaphor of the <a href="http://www.cstreet.ca/organizing_snowflake_model_campaigns_in_nationbuilder">snowflake to describe the campaign structure</a>. Like a snowflake, it has a strong centre occupied by a campaign organiser. Around the organiser are the snowflake’s limbs, staffed by “team leaders” or “captains”. Each is responsible for recruiting and directing volunteers in a campaign task – fieldwork, phone banking, data management and so on.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111902/original/image-20160218-1276-1szg52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Like a snowflake, every campaign is beautifully orchestrated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">yellow cloud/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The snowflake structure encourages accountability and results, and is designed for organic growth and replication. Making it work – maintaining the enthusiasm of volunteers and avoiding burnout and micro-management by captains – requires organisational commitment to training, development and the sharing of purpose. </p>
<p>But ultimately this is an effort by the centre to recruit, coordinate and control the periphery.</p>
<h2>So what are we to make of this?</h2>
<p>On one hand, political parties are supposed to be dying, or surviving as hollowed-out shells. Members have been leaving in droves; branches are closing; partisan attachments are withering; political efficacy – the sense that “I can make a difference” – is declining around the world.</p>
<p>The whole electoral contest is seen as an increasingly irrelevant exercise in spin and manipulation. Academic research, media commentary and internal reviews within the parties themselves all support this <a href="http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/20/2/205.full.pdf+html">dominant view</a>.</p>
<p>But if parties are dying, no-one told the volunteers in Carrum. If branch membership has been rendered meaningless, perhaps it was appropriate to repurpose the role into volunteer tele-campaigners. </p>
<p>Also, if parties’ reliance on large corporate donors and/or taxpayer generosity is problematic, the emergence of a new source of funding via social media is surely no bad thing.</p>
<p>On the other hand, perhaps the online campaign model provides a sense of efficacy that is illusory, even delusional. Can signing a petition make any difference to the real decision-making over, say, petroleum exploration on the Great Barrier Reef? Is scripted phone persuasion really the best way to communicate with our fellow citizens? </p>
<p>Are those who join an anti-racism campaign already more likely to embrace the cause than the <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/opinions/vilification-adam-goodes-damages-everyone">actual racists</a>?</p>
<p>Certainly, all the essential elements of the contemporary campaign model – the centralised direction and co-ordination, the managerial delegation, the training and scripting, the capital-intensive nature of the resource base – seem at odds with, and serve as an necessary antidote to, the emancipatory language usually associated with such campaigns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Political campaigns today are presented as products of bottom-up participation, not top-down direction. But even if a campaign appears grassroots-driven, it’s likely to be run from the centre.Stephen Mills, Lecturer, Graduate School of Government, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/527152016-01-08T13:43:09Z2016-01-08T13:43:09ZGM foods: big biotech is quietly winning the war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107169/original/image-20160104-28997-amiycq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rush and a push and the land is ours ...</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=1GRT-yNpLhTTVFK9Vr-ilA&searchterm=winning%20war&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=340682912">Memmore</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It must have been 1996 or 1997 when I first met someone from Monsanto. The anti-GM movement in the UK had by then already acquired some momentum and Monsanto was cast as the <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/1997/12/15/the-monsanto-monster/">prime villain</a> for seeking to import GM soya into Europe, though other seed producers were receiving similar treatment. I asked my contact why Monsanto allowed itself to be castigated in such a way. “It never occurred to us that anybody would be interested in plant breeding,” he replied. “They never had been in the past.” </p>
<p>Though hindsight is a wonderful thing, the industry should maybe not have been so surprised at the opposition when it <a href="https://theconversation.com/seeds-of-doubt-why-consumers-weigh-up-gm-produce-and-turn-it-down-50106">began to market</a> its insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops in the mid-1990s. Some readers might recall <a href="https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Bacterial_nucleation_in_pseudomonas_syringae">efforts in the mid-1980s</a> to delete a gene that made plants more susceptible to frost damage, which led to the development of “Ice Minus” bacteria. The <a href="http://modernfarmer.com/2014/05/even-first-gmo-field-tests-controversial-will-ever-end-fight/">spectacle of</a> scientists in moon suits spraying Ice Minus on strawberry and potato plants in California made global headlines. Despite the fact that the bacteria did improve the plants’ protection against frost, long legal battles with opponents concerned about the effects on the environment were one of the main reasons the project was abandoned. </p>
<h2>The rise of environmentalism</h2>
<p>You can trace the anti-GM movement to two things. First, increasing disillusion, especially in Europe, with the progress of left-wing ideologies in the former Soviet Union and its allies. And second, a growing awareness of environmental problems in the years following the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark attack on synthetic pesticides, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/dec/07/why-rachel-carson-is-a-saint">Silent Spring</a>. These created a breeding ground in which movements like anti-GM could flourish: as the socialist cause faded, environmentalism began to take its place. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usepagov/15011159418/in/photolist-oSu7Hq-5jwyYt-4DTVS2-6cRtyK-6cVBFm-9veNn9-6bEuaB-bachxH-iym7DN-h6NjWR-7oqAg8-eaGpGa-eaN3F3-eaN3BE-MFm45-4Kier9-c65jTW-5RxkRb-69rVmD-bF6VGg-dgdX68-67TovS-wu7wzZ-qzUe6P-qUWaNU-74gEJE-rcwaYg-qUW9Zj-eeJRYT-8K4ijo-9u85ns-9u84VY-9u54ZD-9u53F2-9u55wc-9u55SF-5JHHuo-as9mMP-6dxBMK-6Fkuod-7WJfjG-qfHmjT-bpWRVF-62Yt1W-4TNR5U-4TJBzR-4TNPdf-9gpSyK-pwQrd5-ehaHHv">USEPPA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Helping this along were scores of green politicians who saw political advantage in adopting postures which could frighten the population with threats to their food, and commercial interests such as the organic food industry which may have seen GM as a threat to their own brands and market shares – although it didn’t explain its opposition in that way. </p>
<p>This was the potential maelstrom into which agribiotech companies launched their first projects. The objections erupted primarily in Europe, reaching the US only ten years later (in the form of opponents seeking local GM bans and a <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/976/ge-food-labeling/us-polls-on-ge-food-labeling">nationwide campaign</a> for GM labelling). Yet even in Europe, the opposition was far from universal in the early days. Between 1995 and 1997, for example, GM tomato purée <a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-bans-on-gm-produce-in-british-supermarkets-51153">was sold</a> in two UK supermarket chains without incident. </p>
<p>It was only in 1997 when the anti-GM row really got going over the import of GM soya into Europe. At the time, some environmental pressure groups were in need of a new vehicle through which to channel protest – for example Greenpeace <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/greenpeaces-brent-spar-apology-1599647.html">had backtracked and apologised</a> for publicising a seriously mistaken estimate of the amount of oil left onboard the Brent Spar storage buoy. Accordingly, these organisations adopted a vigorous and at times violent opposition to all things GM, including imports and, above all, their cultivation on European soil. They frightened enough people to create a public outcry. The media became largely anti-GM, in Europe at least. Retailers <a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-bans-on-gm-produce-in-british-supermarkets-51153">began to</a> remove GM products from their shelves, although their approach was far from coherent. The seed producers battled on but to little effect.</p>
<h2>In from the cold</h2>
<p>Fast-forward 15 years and the environment has improved somewhat for GM in Europe. The UK media, for instance, now <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jun/13/gm-crops-environment-study">tends to be</a> more in favour than against. There is more pro-GM media coverage than there once was even in Germany, a country still generally more determinedly opposed than England (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-33833958">Scotland</a>, <a href="http://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/wales-bans-gm-crops-to-protect-organic-farming.htm">Wales</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34316778">Northern Ireland</a> also take a more anti-approach). </p>
<p>Supermarket opposition has softened in the UK, too. Recent changes to EU rules <a href="https://theconversation.com/gm-crops-an-uneasy-truce-hangs-over-europe-48835">have made</a> GM crop cultivation more likely in a handful of countries, including England, the Czech Republic, Romania and Spain. My sense is that much of the European public has become bored with the issue, even in countries whose governments remain opposed. GM is meanwhile <a href="https://theconversation.com/gm-crops-and-the-developing-world-opposing-sides-miss-the-bigger-picture-50479">very successful</a> in the Americas and parts of Asia and Australia, while growing perceptibly in Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Put a GM sock in it.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=Y9MXZdeIbCUFsBZnytGNXQ&searchterm=public%20bored&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=262932707">Jane0606</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through all of this, the major agribiotech companies have focused on quietly selling themselves to people prepared to listen, and publishing various accounts of their technical and scientific advances. In Europe, they work with the industry group <a href="http://www.europabio.org">EuropaBio</a> to represent their interests in the corridors and conference centres of the EU. In the past few years, the industry seems essentially to have given up on cultivating GM crops in the European countries where it is not welcome, focusing instead on the places that want the technology. But it is keen to maintain imports into Europe of GM products, particularly animal feedstuffs, which are widely used. </p>
<p>Agribiotech no doubt did make mistakes in the early days of GM by failing to anticipate the strength of the opposition. But maybe the need to commercialise the products made this unavoidable. Certainly the industry remains unpopular in some quarters: Monsanto in particular is still seen by activist protesters as a large and visible target. But whether the general public subscribes to such views, or ever really did, is much less certain. Ultimately that is the only thing that matters, even if there is still some way to go to persuade everyone yet. </p>
<p><em>For more coverage of the debate around GM crops, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/gm-food">click here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof Moses is Chairman of CropGen, a public information organisation in the UK originally supported by the agricultural biotechnology industry. He consults to the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, and has received funding from the EU as coordinator of three projects to explore the public understanding of and consumer attitudes to agricultural biotechnology in a number of countries in the EU and elsewhere.</span></em></p>Monsanto an other biotech companies got caught short in the 1990s. But since then, the GM argument has been moving in their direction.Vivian Moses, Visiting Professor of Biotechnology, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/521922015-12-16T10:56:36Z2015-12-16T10:56:36ZDoes it matter that Greenpeace journalists lied in order to expose academics-for-hire?<p>Earlier this fall, Greenpeace <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/09/greenpeace-hires-investigative-journalists-meiron-jones">announced</a> it was hiring a team of journalists and making investigations a pillar of its advocacy work. </p>
<p>Now the public is beginning to see the fruits of that investment, as well as some of the questions that get raised when advocacy groups utilize some of journalism’s more controversial reporting tactics.</p>
<p>Last week, the group <a href="http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/08/exposed-academics-for-hire/">published</a> a report showing how two American academics agreed to write papers in support of – and covertly funded by – the fossil fuel industry. </p>
<p>To get the story, Greenpeace’s journalists posed as energy company representatives and offered to pay the academics – who were both prominent climate change skeptics – to write about the benefits of coal use and carbon emissions. They also asked that the payments not be disclosed. The academics agreed. (You can read the email exchanges <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642398-Email-Chain-Frank-Clemente.html">here</a> and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email-Chain-Happer-O-Keefe-and-Donors-Trust.html">here</a>.)</p>
<p>In many ways, Greenpeace’s reporting nicely approximates journalistic ideals of watchdog reporting. It builds on previous work by <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fight-misinformation/climate-deception-dossiers-fossil-fuel-industry-memos#.VmtgTYR138F">advocacy groups</a> and <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming">news organizations</a> that has revealed the hidden ties between the industry and climate change skeptics. Where others have focused on the role of corporations in funding the work of climate skeptics, this report highlights the willingness of academics to lend their scientific credibility to support the aims of industry. </p>
<p>This reporting also represents a new direction for Greenpeace. Long known for its <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KNQNHYU0mDAC">savvy staging of media events</a>, the group’s journalistic efforts signal a desire to provide the public with credible information about an important issue. These efforts dovetail with similar work being done by human rights groups, including <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/">Amnesty International</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news">Human Rights Watch</a>. On all of these grounds, the report is a positive flashpoint in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-greenpeace-hires-journalists-its-a-double-edged-sword-47398">increasing role advocacy groups are playing in the provision of news</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, Greenpeace’s embrace of deceptive reporting practices raises longstanding questions about the acceptability of such tactics. These questions take on special importance in the climate change debate, which has seen efforts to discredit scientific experts by revealing their private communications. </p>
<p>Earlier this month, Representative Lamar Smith – chair of the House Science Committee and a climate change skeptic – <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/science/chief-of-house-science-panel-picks-battle-over-climate-paper.html">subpoenaed</a> the emails of scientists who have published research that Smith disagrees with. </p>
<p>Deceptive reporting is sometimes justified, and some of the best American journalism in the past century is the <a href="http://brookekroeger.com/undercover-reporting-the-truth-about-deception/">product of deceptive tactics</a>. Nelly Bly’s 1887 <a href="http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/i-behind-asylum-bars-nellie-bly-new-york-world">exposé</a> of conditions inside psychiatric wards required undercover techniques, as did the Washington Post’s 2007 <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html">reporting</a> about the poor treatment of patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.</p>
<p>The question, then, is not whether such deceptive reporting is permissible, but when.</p>
<p>Typically, arguments in favor of deceptive reporting center on the disparity between the small deceits required of reporters and the larger deceptions they reveal. Industry funds academics, but the very nature of the collaboration makes it difficult to evaluate its scale and scope. On this view, Greenpeace’s reporters broke the normal rules of reporting by lying about their identity in order to disclose the secret ways that the climate skeptics are funded. </p>
<p>A related rationale is necessity: There needs to be no alternative method of reporting that can succeed in exposing the issue. </p>
<p>In Greenpeace’s recent investigative reporting, it’s not clear if this is true. Previous reporting, some of which Greenpeace has been involved in, suggests that more patient, detailed analyses can shed light on the same issues – without engaging in deception. </p>
<p>Just this year, for example, <a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/a-deep-dive-into-what-exxon-knew-about-global-warming-and-when-1978-it-knew-it/">InsideClimate News</a> relied on leaks, lawsuits and freedom of information requests to carefully document when ExxonMobil knew about global warming (and what it did to prevent public action on the matter). </p>
<p>To be sure, Greenpeace is an organization with multiple demands and aims. Such detailed reporting may not have been possible at the moment, especially given the climate talks in Paris that served as an effective news peg for the story. But it’s difficult for the public to know why it chose to go undercover, given the group’s silence on its choice of reporting tactic. </p>
<p>This is unfortunate, because Greenpeace’s credibility is at stake when it engages in deceptive reporting. <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/171740/americans-confidence-news-media-remains-low.aspx">Public confidence in the news media</a> is low, in part because of the use of such tactics (and the broader culture of scandal reporting they create). Is this really a set of practices that advocacy groups want to replicate? </p>
<p>The question begets no single answer. As advocacy groups increasingly assume the role of journalists, questions like these are bound to arise. As they do, it will be important to ask not only about the quality of the information that such groups provide but also to investigate the methods they use to gather it.</p>
<p>Greenpeace rightly stands for openness in the climate change debate. As they embark on their journey in journalism, perhaps they ought to also stand for openness in their own reporting practices.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Powers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the public’s confidence in the news media wavering, it’s a tough line to toe.Matthew Powers, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/473982015-09-16T10:08:07Z2015-09-16T10:08:07ZWhen Greenpeace hires journalists, it’s a double-edged sword<p>Last week, Greenpeace <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/09/greenpeace-hires-investigative-journalists-meiron-jones">announced</a> it was hiring a team of journalists to make investigative reporting a pillar of its advocacy work. </p>
<p>The thinking goes that by bringing timely, insightful coverage into the public domain, the organization can boost its chances of pressuring corporations and governments into taking action on some of today’s most pressing environmental issues. </p>
<p>In fact, Greenpeace joins a growing number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) trying their hand at journalism. Human Rights Watch now assigns photographers and videographers to produce multimedia packages that accompany research reports. Amnesty International employs “news writers” charged with making the organization a compelling online portal for human rights news. And in the midst of humanitarian emergencies, Oxfam sends “firemen” reporters to gather information and offer analysis.</p>
<p>NGOs have long sought publicity, but the growth of “NGO journalism” stems from recent changes in the news media, advocacy and technology. </p>
<p>The news media’s <a href="http://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4985">financial woes</a> make it difficult to adequately cover issues like climate change, human rights and global poverty. Because many NGOs rely on credible reporting in order to have their causes taken seriously, they’re increasingly inclined to report on certain issues themselves, utilizing digital tools that reduce the costs of publishing and promoting articles.</p>
<p>But my research, which focuses on humanitarian and human rights groups, suggests that this development of NGO journalism is a double-edged sword. </p>
<p>On the one hand, by <a href="http://jou.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/27/1464884914568077.abstract">taking journalistic values</a> like credibility and fairness seriously, these groups are able to produce the sorts of coverage that news organizations would if they had the time and resources to do so. Moreover, by fusing their reporting with recommendations for taking action, these groups also provide the public with potential solutions to the problems they describe. </p>
<p>For example, a recent <a href="http://features.hrw.org/features/Unravelling_central_african_republic/index.php">multimedia feature</a> from Human Rights Watch about human rights violations in the Central Africa Republic was based on months of on-the-ground reporting. The report – which documents war crimes and their effects on civilians – nicely demonstrates the positive contributions advocacy groups can make by committing themselves to news production.</p>
<p>However, the entrance of NGOs into journalism presents complications. Advocacy groups produce information not just to inform and enlighten but also to boost donations and promote their brands. Sometimes, these latter aims lead organizations to sensationalize their coverage, which can, in turn, distort public perceptions about the nature of social problems. </p>
<p>NGO reporting about the prevalence of sexual violence during Liberia’s 14-year civil war offers an uncomfortable <a href="http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/49/3/445.abstract">case in point</a>. In an effort to raise awareness, advocacy groups circulated claims that 75% or more women in the country had been raped. Detailed surveys and interviews put that number at somewhere between 10% and 20%.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in their effort to produce journalism, NGOs can sometimes privilege speed and drama rather than analyze the underlying causes that shape issues like climate change, human rights violations and global poverty. In those cases, <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/11/simon-cottle-and-david-nolan-how-the-medias-codes-and-rules-influence-the-ways-ngos-work/">NGOs mimic</a> – rather than challenge – some of journalism’s least attractive tendencies.</p>
<p>So what measures can be taken to maximize the positive contributions of NGO journalism, while minimizing its less attractive aspects? </p>
<p>For starters, advocacy groups must have an incentive to produce information – not advertisements dressed up as news. In particular, <a href="http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/2517">my research</a> finds that organizations with secure long-term funding are more likely to be insulated from short-term pressures to exaggerate, as are organizations with strong research cultures that are cautious about risking their reputations just to garner attention.</p>
<p>News organizations have a role to play, too. The NGO sector includes organizations with annual budgets that rival those of small countries, yet many operate with minimal oversight. News organizations can help audiences evaluate the information that advocacy groups produce and to hold them accountable to the claims they make. </p>
<p>ProPublica did exactly this when <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes">they investigated</a> the American Red Cross’s dismal relief efforts in the wake of the 2010 Haitian earthquake, finding that despite raising half a billion dollars, the group built only six permanent homes. </p>
<p>Journalists can also make sure that a few leading groups – which historically garner the <a href="http://hij.sagepub.com/content/19/2/135.abstract">overwhelming share</a> of media attention – do not crowd out the claims of advocates with fewer resources. </p>
<p>The promise of NGO journalism is that advocacy groups will pick up some of the slack in media coverage, while deepening public engagement on pressing problems. The peril is that it will distract advocacy groups from their core aims and turn journalism into a platform for fundraising or misleading reporting.</p>
<p>It’s too early to know how Greenpeace’s new investigative mission will fare. But the growing presence of such groups in journalism provides an important reminder that solid reporting and heartfelt advocacy need not be polar opposites. At their best, they can be two sides of the same coin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Powers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>NGO journalists can cover issues that go underreported by cash-strapped newsrooms. But are they more likely to violate journalistic principles?Matthew Powers, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/463932015-08-28T04:24:32Z2015-08-28T04:24:32ZA billion acts of courage on 3.6 planets: a conversation with Greenpeace’s Kumi Naidoo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92498/original/image-20150820-32493-19f4unv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Outgoing Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo sees the struggles against political repression, poverty and climate change as intrinsically interconnected.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/15237218@N00/5398660622">flickr/World Economic Forum </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/shortcodes/images-videos/articles-democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Born in South Africa, <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/">Greenpeace International’s</a> executive director Kumi Naidoo became involved in his country’s liberation struggle at the age of 15. He has a deep and broad experience of democratic struggles for justice and sustainability across the world. Naidoo is a former Rhodes Scholar and holds a doctorate in political sociology. Edited extracts from his recent interview with the author follow. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EeR0QqETNps?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kumi Naidoo in conversation with Amanda Tattersall.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Growing up in apartheid South Africa, environmentalism was what rich white people did. It was something you participated in only if you had food in your stomach and a roof over your head. </p>
<p>However, after being the chair of a global campaign against poverty for several years, I learnt that, actually, poverty is exacerbated by environmental destruction. In fact, the struggle to end poverty and the struggle to avert catastrophic climate change can, must and should be seen as two sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>Decades ago, the feminist movement gave us a powerful concept – <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10572435/Intersectional-feminism.-What-the-hell-is-it-And-why-you-should-care.html">intersectionality</a>. If you want to advance gender equality, you need to know how gender intersects with race, class, ability, religion and sexuality. And so with Greenpeace. We are an environmental organisation and we won’t deviate from that. </p>
<p>But to be a good environmental organisation, we need to understand how our environmentalism intersects with other issues of inequality, gender, geopolitics, peace and the economy. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93005/original/image-20150826-1626-7mlusq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate change is affecting water supplies in South Africa and much of Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/newbeatphoto/3726821378/">flickr/Colin Crowley</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2002 the CIA and the Pentagon presented a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver">paper</a> to George W. Bush, reporting that in the coming decades the biggest threat to peace and security will derive from the impacts of climate change. Though my continent of Africa has been the least responsible for harmful emissions, we are paying the first and most brutal price for climate impacts. </p>
<p>The genocide in Darfur was the first major resource war brought about by climate change. <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/un-chief-ban-ki-moon-tells-climate-change-deniers-to-face-up-to-reality/story-e6frg6nf-1226133111349">According</a> to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Lake Chad, one of the largest inland seas in the world, has shrunk to the size of a pond. At the same time, the Sahara desert, which already covers much of North Africa, is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/12/senegal-great-green-wall">marching southward</a> at a rate of a mile a year. </p>
<p>This combination of water and land scarcity results in food scarcity, which is often the trigger that allows opportunistic politicians to lead us down the path to chaos and tragedy. </p>
<h2>The good news</h2>
<p>The good news is that we have won the argument. For eight years, Bush denied that humans caused climate change. But today, even Tony Abbott cannot claim that climate change is not real. However, our political and business leaders still suffer from an acute case of cognitive dissonance and inaction. </p>
<p>To avoid catastrophic climate change we have to ensure that our planet does not exceed two degrees of warming from the beginning of the industrial period (when we started to burn oil, coal and gas) into the future. Already, we are almost halfway. From zero to two degrees, we <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/11/23/climate-report-finds-temperature-rise-locked-in-risks-rising">sit at 0.8</a>. In the last decade we have had more than a 100% increase in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/27/extreme-weather-already-on-increase-due-to-climate-change-study-finds">extreme weather events</a>. </p>
<p>Abbott, along with all other political leaders from developed and developing countries, needs to realise that they are not going to get away with baby steps or incremental thinking in the right direction. We need significant and fundamental transformation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92499/original/image-20150820-32462-1wdhcsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than 30,000 people marched in Melbourne as part of a global climate protest for action.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Takver/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The balance of power</h2>
<p>Our political leaders need to understand that democracy is meant to balance a wallet with a ballot. The power of rich people is supposed to be equalised with the voices of the ordinary. But the bottom line is that too many of our political leaders act in the interests of a handful of powerful corporations to which they have mortgaged their souls. This is why they are not exercising the basic notion of democracy; this is why we are not making the right changes.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92532/original/image-20150820-7235-rgioau.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A flyer for the 2014 #FloodWallStreet protest in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ashoka Jegroo/Wikipedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those that are making truckloads of money every single day are resisting and holding us back. In too many countries we have the form of democracy without the substance. Many countries that claim to be democratic are not genuinely so – they are simply liberal oligarchies. </p>
<p>When the stakes are high, the need for courage is critically important. In this battle, we will need a billion acts of courage to win. </p>
<p>Greenpeace believes that the first act of courage is believing that another more just and equitable world is possible, even if it will be tremendously difficult to build. </p>
<p>We have to move from an economy that is driven by dirty brown fossil fuel to one that is based on clean, green, renewable energy. We also have to question the issue of consumption. If everybody in the world enjoyed the same levels of consumption as Australians currently do, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) predicts that we would require <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/people_and_the_environment/human_footprint/footprint_calculator/">3.6 planets</a>. </p>
<p>We have been completely led astray by big capital and an aggressive marketing industry that has convinced us that happiness comes from big houses and big cars – when in reality our facile acceptance of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/19/global-wealth-oxfam-inequality-davos-economic-summit-switzerland">gulf between the rich and the poor</a> is a fundamental statement of our absolute spiritual poverty.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93007/original/image-20150826-1631-ifdao6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1986, the first and only McDonald’s in Cuba came to the US base at Guantanamo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_McDonalds_at_Guantanamo.jpg">US Navy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Countries such as America and Australia that claim to promote democracy are failing us terribly, because their repressive practices offer a blank cheque to countries with weaker traditions of democracy. It allows them to say, “Well, if America has torture, Guantanamo Bay, racial and religious profiling and mass surveillance, we can have the same.”</p>
<p>We will not win the struggle against climate change unless we constantly try to recover our democracy and apply international law in an equitable way such that rich country governments are subject to the same accountabilities and vulnerabilities as poor country governments. If this were the case, Abbott’s decision to <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-an-offence-if-australians-pay-people-smugglers-to-turn-back-43054">pay people smugglers</a> to take refugees back away from Australia would have been trialed before the International Criminal Court. </p>
<h2>Climate injustice and civil disobedience</h2>
<p>How can we support the most vulnerable people on our planet who, ironically, are paying the gravest price for climate impacts despite being the lowest emitters of carbon?</p>
<p>We need to engage in peaceful, purposeful and creative civil disobedience because all of our political and business leaders, with few exceptions, seem to suffer from cognitive dissonance. We do not have a moral or ethical choice – we must fight as hard as we can so that we, along with the very imperatives of democracy and equality, can no longer be ignored.</p>
<p>If we don’t win in the global South and the developing nations, we have lost. If we don’t win in China, India, Indonesia and Brazil, where we are talking about substantial population sizes, we will surely lose.</p>
<p>All the contradictions of power differentials between rich and poor nations manifest themselves in global civil society, but it is important to recognise how we might, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, be the change we want to see in the world. To actually be different we have to equalise power between developed and developing nations.</p>
<h2>A renewable future for all</h2>
<p>If we did this right we could have a win not only for the environment, but also for the economy. <a href="https://theconversation.com/rather-than-make-energy-more-expensive-its-time-to-invest-in-the-technologies-of-tomorrow-45803">Multiple studies</a> show that the best chance we have for refreshing our economies and getting people into jobs is by engaging in a massive renewable energy revolution. We are already seeing growth in this industry worldwide, but the scale of our commitment needs to be greater still. </p>
<p>The solutions are there. Only the political will is missing. </p>
<p>Fortunately, political will is the most renewable of all resources. It is up to us to make sure that it acts in the interest of both current and future generations, to the point that not making the requisite changes will be condemned as undemocratic, criminal and unacceptable by the working class, the middle class and even those at the top of the economic ladder. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92530/original/image-20150820-7239-1nu9a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2014, Christian leaders delivered solar panels to Tony Abbott as a Christmas gift, which the Solar Council supplied and offered to install for free at Kirribilli House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kate Ausburn/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Greenpeace believes that it is within human creativity, ingenuity and innovation to turn the crisis of climate change into an opportunity. For far too long we have lived in a world of divisions – between North and South, East and West, rich and poor, developed and developing. </p>
<p>If we wish to secure the future for our children, we have to come together – and those who are capable must take the lead. Though it is unfair that the developing nations that contribute the least to climate change will be the first to go, the richer and the rest will soon follow.</p>
<p>The climate change struggle is not about saving the planet. If we continue to warm Earth the way that we are, we will perish while Earth remains. It will be bruised, battered and scarred by humanity’s crimes, but once we are gone the forests will recover and the oceans will replenish. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about the planet. This struggle is about us, and whether humanity can fashion a way to democratically co-exist with each other and nature for centuries to come. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This interview, <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/podcast-peace-people-and-power-social-change-from-anti-apartheid-to-the-climate-movement-kuminaidoo/">Peace, People and Power: social change from anti-apartheid to the climate movement</a>, was co-presented by <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/">Sydney Ideas</a>, the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a> and the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/events/peace-people-and-power-social-change-from-anti-apartheid-to-the-climate-movement/">Sydney Environment Institute</a>
in association with <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/">Greenpeace</a> at the University of Sydney on August 5.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Tattersall is affiliated with Sydney Alliance & GetUp.org.au.</span></em></p>The international executive director of Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, explains why he believes the big global challenges cannot be tackled in isolation.Amanda Tattersall, Honorary Associate, Department of Geography, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/327612014-10-11T09:00:21Z2014-10-11T09:00:21ZGreenpeace v Shell via Lego: the building blocks of a successful campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61289/original/nnnj9c6g-1412864549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stick 'em up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/me2_too/11849935206">Me2</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>October 9 2014 was a big day in eco-activism: Lego announced that it would <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/09/lego-ends-shell-partnership-following-greenpeace-campaign">not renew a product-placement deal</a> with Shell, following concerted pressure from Greenpeace as part of a campaign to ban Arctic oil exploration by attacking firms associated with such activities.</p>
<p>It is a common tactic of major energy companies to engage in collaborations with companies such as Lego as part of their quest for what they call a “<a href="http://socialicense.com/definition.html">social license</a>” to operate. That means winning local, national and international community support. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Did I mention I drive an Aston Martin?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunechaser/385846713">Andrew Becraft</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For its part, Lego benefits from the money that comes with product placement; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-james-bonds-relationship-with-product-placement-has-changed-2012-10?op=1">as per a James Bond movie</a>, the producers defray their costs well in advance of sales to customers by accepting funding from firms that want to be associated with a happy, friendly, trustworthy image. </p>
<p>In this case, the firm is Greenpeace’s sworn enemy, Shell. As a sub-plot, Lego has been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/lego-design-sustainability-circular-economy">boasting of its green credentials</a>.</p>
<p>On July 1 2014, <a href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/2014/july/lego-group-comment-on-greenpeace-campaign">Lego said</a>: “A co-promotion contract like the one with Shell is one of many ways we are able to bring Lego bricks into the hands of more children.” It went on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Greenpeace campaign focuses on how Shell operates in a specific part of the world. We firmly believe that this matter must be handled between Shell and Greenpeace. We are saddened when the Lego brand is used as a tool in any dispute between organisations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, <a href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/2014/october/comment-on-the-greenpeace-campaign-and-the-lego-brand">Lego’s tune</a> differs:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We continuously consider many different ways of how to deliver on our promise of bringing creative play to more children. We want to clarify that as things currently stand we will not renew the co-promotion contract with Shell when the present contract ends.</p>
<p>We do not want to be part of Greenpeace’s campaign and we will not comment any further on the campaign. We will continue to deliver creative and inspiring Lego play experiences to children all over the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is, surely, one of those moments when a big but pusillanimous multinational corporation withers in the face of critique from a gallant but small non-government organisation – when activism trumps business, ethics triumphs over size, and scale is helpless in the face of righteousness.</p>
<p>It has been <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/greenpeaces-biggest-victories-against-corporations-politicians-1469239">hailed</a> by Greenpeace true believers as “one of the most high-profile victories in its history” thanks to “guerrilla tactics”. The organisation itself immodestly announced in an email to its supporters that: “Today was a great day for the Arctic, and for people power.”</p>
<p>But was it? Perhaps this was a smart, sophisticated, well-heeled multinational marketing campaign, undertaken via a vast network, using the services of advertising agencies and borrowing trademarks and copyrights to make a political point?</p>
<p>Is this actually about what happens when multinationals fall out, when two vast companies (Shell and Lego) are separated by another powerful not-for-profit multinational (Greenpeace) revelling in the fantasy that it is David taking on Goliath? One version of these events might read: Greenpeace has not achieved very much in its critiques of Shell, so it went after a soft target. Lego caved in, the victim of a form of secondary boycott.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/how-lego-got-awesome-savethearctic-20141009">the charity argues</a> that its grassroots campaign and direct-action pranks were crucial, one might also say that “wot won it” was a couple of ingenious videos.</p>
<p>The first and most popular took music, words, images, and logos from one of the most successful films of the year, [The Lego Movie](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lego.htm](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lego.htm), to create a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbliUq0_r4&list=UUTDTSx8kbxGECZJxOa9mIKA">post-modern pastiche</a> aimed at the heartstrings. The second, artier and less direct, was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4I-VK9jew&list=UUTDTSx8kbxGECZJxOa9mIKA">targeted at parents</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qhbliUq0_r4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Everything: not awesome.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first, a brilliant video trope, worked magnificently and has become a case study for ad agencies. As the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/even-if-you-hate-greenpeace-and-love-lego-you-have-admire-gorgeous-attack-ad-158809">industry bible AdWeek put it</a>, Greenpeace took “a page from <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-chipotle-makes-magic-again-fiona-apple-and-dark-animated-film-152380">Chipotle’s marketing playbook</a> – haunting animation plus a distressing cover of a well-known song”.</p>
<p>Other actions, such as a few children building anti-oil Lego figures in central London, some adults climbing models at a theme park and fun Lego figures placed in protests across major world cities, were minor irritants at best, drawing predictably minimal press coverage but incarnating a grassroots legitimacy that appeals to donors and old-fashioned activists from pre-social media eras.</p>
<p>But even as the triumph occurred, Shell was luxuriating in <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/09/11/shell-enlists-pele-open-kinetic-energy-favella-football-field">Pele’s endorsement</a> of it for providing “the world’s first player-powered community football pitch in the centre of Rio Di Janeiro’s favela”.</p>
<p>It will take more than a sophisticated stunt by vanguardist apparatchiks to answer Pele. And it won’t be the action of a brave wee David against a big nasty Goliath – more a contest between rivals for multinational space and control. Greenpeace is well-placed to participate, thanks to its vast resources and smart links to ad agencies. But is people power one more marketing tool in this admittedly worthy struggle?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Miller is married to a Greenpeace campaigner and donates to the organization</span></em></p>October 9 2014 was a big day in eco-activism: Lego announced that it would not renew a product-placement deal with Shell, following concerted pressure from Greenpeace as part of a campaign to ban Arctic…Toby Miller, Professor of Media & Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/284842014-07-01T09:26:39Z2014-07-01T09:26:39ZBattle for hearts and minds on climate change will be fought across generations<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/52753/original/bmp57ntt-1404203580.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winston Churchill, not a man concerned about making enemies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winston_Churchill_As_Prime_Minister_1940-1945_MH26392.jpg">Cecil Beaton</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last week there was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-greenpeace-executives-commute-is-a-flight-of-fantasy-28368">bit of a hullabaloo</a> when it was discovered that the international programme director for Greenpeace, Pascal Husting, was flying to work from Luxembourg to Amsterdam a few times a month. Sensible arguments could be made for this arrangement and in the bigger picture this cannot be considered an important issue. And on some level, it just didn’t seem fair to single out Husting in this way. </p>
<p>It wasn’t fair. But politics and campaigning isn’t fair.</p>
<p>You cannot have a senior member of an organisation taking regular short haul flights for a group that has in the past asked its members to <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6a6_1204008968">break the law and risk limb and even life</a> to protest exactly against that. At some point someone should have paused for thought and asked: “I wonder what this would look like if it became common knowledge?” If they had, then Husting would have done much earlier what he has now committed to do: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/24/greenpeace-executive-to-commute-by-train-instead-of-plane">take the train</a>, and acknowledge that this was a lapse of judgement. </p>
<p>So now we can all move on. </p>
<p>Except some won’t because this incident will be used to further sharpen the axes wielded against Greenpeace. Greenpeace is by its nature a controversial organisation. If nothing else it confronts power, and power typically never cedes an argument lightly. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/10/newsid_2499000/2499283.stm">Nor does it play fair</a>. </p>
<p>In some ways that doesn’t matter. Nothing Greenpeace could ever do would mollify their hardline critics. As long as the organisation <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/victories/">campaigns against</a> nuclear weapons testing, spearheads anti-whaling, opposes clear-cutting of rain forests and argues for big reductions in carbon emissions, then it will continue to upset a large number of people. As <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14033.Winston_Churchill">Winston Churchill once observed</a>, that’s not necessarily a bad thing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Greenpeace’s fiercest opponents shouldn’t be ignored, but no sustained attempts should be made to change their minds. The battle lies elsewhere. And it’s a battle that will be fought over much longer timescales. </p>
<p>The expression “hearts and minds” was first used to describe the British and Commonwealth armies’ attempts in the 1950s to convince the indigenous people of Malaya that their best interests were served in co-operating with them, rather than the communists and separatists seeking independence from the British Empire. It was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7698055.stm">taken up with great gusto by US forces</a> that sought to pacify the South Vietnamese and turn their allegiances away from the Vietcong. US troops dug water wells, and distributed food and medicine. Neither <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071604">love bombing nor carpet bombing</a> proved to be successful strategies.</p>
<p>Current events in Afghanistan and Iraq show that billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure, education and political systems can produce a relationship with less commitment than a drunken one night stand. Hearts and minds are won as a result of significant and sustained actions. It may take years. Perhaps generations. </p>
<p>There are many long games played in the evidence-based policy field. When neonicotinoid pesticides were <a href="http://agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do?recordID=JP1996001555">first introduced in the 1990s</a> some expessed concerns at their use at the time. However it has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27980344">only been very recently</a> that the danger they represent to a wide range of species – notably bees – has been established or at least recognised by those with the power to do something about it. There is rarely a smoking gun, an irrefutable piece of evidence after which everything suddenly changes. Scientific papers establishing a significant correlation between smoking tobacco and lung cancers were first published in the 1920s. Since then, many millions of people have had their lives significantly cut short by the diseases that smoking can produce. </p>
<p>As little as seven years ago, crawling back into your clothes after a night in the pub could be accompanied by a strong waft of stale tobacco smoke. Nowadays, in the UK even hardened smokers wouldn’t consider lighting up in a bar, restaurant or cinema. When driving, you put your seat belt on without any real consideration, and you wouldn’t stand idly by and watch a friend drunkenly stagger to their car and attempt to drive it home. You don’t beat your children nor object to mixed-race marriages. I hope.</p>
<p>All these attitudes have changed over time. People convinced other people of the force of their argument. Somewhat less prosaically they often just outlived their opponents. To paraphrase Max Planck: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/107032.Max_Planck">science proceeds one funeral at a time</a>. Millennials have grown up in a world of social norms different from Generation X and the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/baby-boomers">Baby Boomers</a> before. </p>
<p>It is arguably this newest generation that is most important. They have their working lives ahead of them and in a few decades will be in positions of power and influence commercially and politically. Movements such as <a href="http://pushyourparents.org/">Push Your Parents</a> demonstrate that young people have an important role right now. Speaking to them, convincing them of the case for reducing our impact on the Earth’s climate, of valuing biodiversity, of building resilient and just societies should continue to be a central mission of Greenpeace and others invested in producing meaningful change. Opening the door to such change will never be easy and will at times be resisted forcefully by some. </p>
<p>But then, if it was already open, someone would have already walked through it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Last week there was a bit of a hullabaloo when it was discovered that the international programme director for Greenpeace, Pascal Husting, was flying to work from Luxembourg to Amsterdam a few times a…James Dyke, Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/283682014-06-24T04:35:47Z2014-06-24T04:35:47ZThe Greenpeace executive’s commute is a flight of fantasy<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/51967/original/bt57p5w6-1403546083.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do as I say, not as I do.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Greenpeace/PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A rich western businessman sips champagne as he cruises at 35,000ft and looks down at an archipelago below populated with subsistence fishers. In a few years these coastal communities will be washed away by a massive tropical storm. The intensity of this storm will have been influenced, in some part, by the carbon dioxide that pours from the aircraft’s engines. </p>
<p>Few activities touch as many environmental nerves as flying. Some argue it’s an elitist behaviour that blights the lives of those unfortunate enough to live near an airport or in areas destined to be affected by climate change. That while flying may not be wrong per se, every effort should be made to limit the apparently never-ending growth in aviation demand. That’s certainly <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/aviation/faq">Greenpeace’s position</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Firstly, we don’t want to stop people from flying. We do want to prevent the number of flights from growing to dangerous levels – the growth in aviation is ruining our chances of stopping dangerous climate change… The main cause of this massive growth in the UK is the proliferation of short haul routes – often unnecessary domestic ones.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So what are we to make of the news that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/23/greenpeace-defends-top-executive-flying-to-work">Pascal Husting</a>, international programme director for Greenpeace, flies to work from Luxembourg to Amsterdam a few times a month? That’s right: Greenpeace, an organisation that includes people who break the law and risk their liberty and personal safety to <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/greenpeace-campaigners-climb-ontop-heathrow-flight-20080225">protest against short haul flights</a> and also senior management who fly short haul commutes to work. </p>
<p>At this point you may suspect Pascal is really working for The Telegraph or Daily Mail, newspapers currently in the process of cranking up their outrage levels to 11 in reporting this story. The truth is rather more mundane. Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/23/greenpeace-losses-financial-disarray">explains</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pascal has a young family in Luxembourg. When he was offered the new role he couldn’t move his family to Amsterdam straight away. He’d be the first to say he hates the commute, hates having to fly, but right now he hasn’t got much of an option until he can move. He wishes there was an express train between his home and his office, but it would currently be a 12-hour round trip by train.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Aware that this explanation may not be sufficient, in a blog post the head of Greenpeace UK, John Sauven, <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/about/what-do-you-think-20140623">reasons</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For me, it feels like it gets to the heart of a really big question. What kind of compromises do you make in your efforts to try to make the world a better place?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’ll assume that those concerned with this decision conducted a cost-benefit analysis. Sure, Pascal’s flight would generate a certain amount of carbon emissions, but this would be more than offset by his performance for an organisation that, overall, seeks to make significant reductions in emissions. Presumably senior Greenpeace staff didn’t believe that this could be a publicity liability in terms of how this decision would be perceived. Yes, there may be a bit of sniping from the usual reactionary press, but once you look at the bigger picture and necessary compromises then no reasonable person could object. </p>
<p>Well I object. Agreed, I’m not particularly reasonable. And to be clear here, I don’t necessarily object to Greenpeace staff flying in order to do aspects of their job. Similarly I don’t object to the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/scripts/_calendar_template.php?wg=8">IPCC holding meetings</a> that involve many thousands of air miles or Al Gore travelling the world to highlight the dangers of climate change. </p>
<p>I object to the reasoning on display here that appears tone deaf to how it will be received by others. This reasoning, with perhaps some judicious use of <a href="http://www.orwelltoday.com/doublethink.shtml">doublethink</a>, is intended to explain away the apparent contradiction of a Greenpeace campaigner commuting via short haul flights so as to better campaign against short haul flights.</p>
<p>What this takes for granted are Greenpeace’s many supporters and staff and their contributions, fund raising and activism – running marathons dressed as cows, baking cakes, shaking tins in the pouring rain, not to mention lashing themselves to oil rigs or draping banners over the tailplanes of short haul airliners. What options did they have when deciding to get involved in environmental issues? What risks and hardships have they faced in being true to their values?</p>
<p>Have you heard the one about the Greenpeace executive flying to work? The only escape from this joke will be one which involves some serious soul-searching, and a sustained effort to build a collective sense of responsibility and solidarity with all of the staff, activists and donors that make up the organisation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A rich western businessman sips champagne as he cruises at 35,000ft and looks down at an archipelago below populated with subsistence fishers. In a few years these coastal communities will be washed away…James Dyke, Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/263102014-05-05T20:35:30Z2014-05-05T20:35:30ZBen & Jerry’s reef campaign shows that green groups are vital for democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47813/original/32b5qppq-1399272414.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Queensland government has called for a boycott of Ben & Jerry's ice cream over their support for WWF's save the reef campaign. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/avlxyz/5311193202">Alpha/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>US-based ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s recently caused a stir by siding with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Australian Marine Conservation Society’s <a href="http://fightforthereef.org.au">Fight for the Reef</a> campaign. </p>
<p>Queensland environment minister Andrew Powell suggested that Ben & Jerry’s signed on to WWF propaganda and <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/ben-and-jerrys-ice-cream-hurting-reef-qld-govt-20140429-37eg7.html">urged Australians to boycott the company</a>. But environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) and their campaigns play a vital role in healthy democracy. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the federal government is planning to <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/companies-to-get-protection-from-activists-boycotts/story-fn59niix-1226724817535">alter Section 45DD of the Competition and Consumer Act</a> so that environmental organisations and community organisations can no longer implement secondary boycotts as a protest strategy. Perhaps the Queensland government missed the memo. </p>
<p>While not strictly a secondary boycott – perhaps a “govcott”? - Powell has called on Australians to say “No!” to <a href="http://www.benandjerry.com.au">Ben & Jerry’s</a> ice cream. The Queensland government has since <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/business/lnp-refers-ice-cream-company-ben-and-jerrys-to-accc-over-barrier-reef-campaign/story-fnihsps3-1226901781884">referred the company</a> to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.</p>
<h2>Government and mining under attack</h2>
<p>Powell accuses Ben & Jerry’s of threatening the reputation of the reef and consequently tourism dollars and jobs. In his estimation, these doyens of the ice cream world are victims of WWF propaganda.</p>
<p>In 2013, Fight for the Reef ran a series of campaign ads featuring Bob Irwin. Could we infer some QLD government criticism of Bob Irwin? Now there’s a political gamble not worth taking. It might be viewed as a strategic PR move on the part of the Queensland government to confine its criticisms to the WWF.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, in the same week, Queensland Resources Council (QRC), the peak industry body for mining, minerals and resources launched their own <a href="https://www.qrc.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=3428">TV campaign</a> refuting claims, presumably from the “Fight for the Reef” Campaign, that the GBR is under threat from development proposals. The council may have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/great-barrier-reef-facts-tv-ads-ignore-dredge-dumping-risks-25899">stretching the truth</a> in some of its claims. </p>
<p>It is developing into a rather strange merry-go-round, in which the Queensland government and the QRC claim the state is under attack from ENGOs and ice-cream makers, who in turn argue that the reef is being attacked by government and industry. The claim and counterclaim don’t stop there, though.</p>
<h2>Green thuggery?</h2>
<p>WWF and Greenpeace have been <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/green-thuggery-is-holding-agribusiness-to-ransom/story-e6frg6zo-1226892624926">accused of “thuggery”</a> towards the beef industry, in seeking to hold farmers to account in their dealings with major buyers such as McDonalds.</p>
<p>Historically, WWF and other international ENGOs are effective means to bring local environmental disputes to international attention – and new communications technology and social media have brought substantial benefits to their campaigns.</p>
<p>Ironically enough given the Queensland government’s stance, boycotts have been hailed as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/boycotts-are-a-crucial-weapon-to-fight-environment-harming-firms-25267">crucial weapon</a> for environmental campaigners.</p>
<p>In the case of the Great Barrier Reef too, ENGO power is amplified by the willingness of the World Heritage Committee to consider their submissions and protests.</p>
<p>Indeed the most recent statement from the World Heritage Committee — which paves a way for the GBR to be confirmed as a World Heritage Site in Danger in 2015 — cites the WWF /AMCS or Fight for the Reef submission at numerous points. And then there’s the ice-cream…</p>
<h2>Protest goes global</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/mia/2014-issues#150">Recent work</a> by UTAS Professor Libby Lester investigating Japan’s 2012 withdrawal from Tasmanian Forest Industry products and in particular, from exporter Ta Ann Tasmania has some parallels here and is instructive if not prophetic.</p>
<p>Lester concludes that Tasmanian governments and the forest industry failed to recognise the legitimacy, and underestimated the influence of a “transnational community of concern”.</p>
<p>In the context of transnational communities of concern and international ENGOs, Australian government proposals to ban secondary boycotts look anachronistic, while the Queensland government’s stance against Ben & Jerry’s comes off as parochial.</p>
<p>We are now in an era of international protests in response to global environmental crises — occurring within a global system of market capitalism where reputation matters. </p>
<p>So appeals to nationalism, jobs and the domestic economy in defence of developments within the GBR World Heritage Area to assist the non-renewable resources industry will fail to appease international ENGOs and the wider international community. And that really could hurt the tourism industry.</p>
<p>Nobody wants to be the company which is killing the proverbial orang utan. And in an era of global capital and competitive markets, the edge may well be distance or boycotting developments which do not support a “green progressive” corporate image.</p>
<p>Just ask Australia’s major banks, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-28/leading-banks-accused-of-financing-unethical-companies3a-oxfam/5414114">recently accused</a> by Oxfam of banking on “shaky ground”, investing in companies where land had been acquired illegally or improperly.</p>
<p>In failing to grasp this bigger picture, Queensland is currently failing to see the reef for the coral.</p>
<h2>Changing boycott laws dangerous for democracy</h2>
<p>Regardless of their relevance though, efforts by governments to limit the strategies of ENGOs is dangerous ground for democracy.</p>
<p>While we can accept that ENGOs like the WWF may be characterised as “corporate” in their structure and operation and so subject to corporate law, they are also an organised and powerful forum for civil society participation. A healthy robust democracy is dependent upon civil society – a plural category where debate and contention are inevitable.</p>
<p>This does not mean that these international ENGOs should be without criticism. But given their proximity to civil society, should caution against legislated changes to limit their freedom to protest, to challenge and to question. Indeed, research evidence points out that ENGOs have had a very positive effect on industrial and regulatory innovation that has greatly improved environmental outcomes</p>
<p>At any rate, secondary boycott bans are unlikely to produce any silencing of ENGOs, rather as evidenced in the Tasmanian case, more likely to amplify international protest.</p>
<p>And it would seem that these international forums – be it the World Heritage Committee or the international reach of the WWF – are emerging as the most effective pressure points for global industry and markets, including tourism markets.</p>
<p>In Queensland, you could say that the whole World Wildlife Fund is watching.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>US-based ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s recently caused a stir by siding with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Fight for the Reef campaign. Queensland environment…Kerrie Foxwell-Norton, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, Griffith UniversityMarcus Lane, Dean (Academic) Arts, Education and Law, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/252932014-04-07T05:09:05Z2014-04-07T05:09:05ZThe key to a green internet lies beyond Amazon’s data centres<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45687/original/nymyk5tx-1396706132.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amazon data centres like these power the internet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eroc/5863167909/in/photolist-9W7gxT-dywNuP-9GC8KB-4Q8kcq-kY5Rcf-73KnaJ-73KRte-dnf1dp-dywiFP-b8ehq4-baS4Kn-b8n6Fg-4M7pV-4vMh8G-9xKFSJ-8npeKW-8ocGTG-8ocGXW-8ocGW5-8ocGUm-dattGS-gogc5u-A8zQK-7RBJx3-dAKH4M-dARaXA-dAKH4g-bWw3sz">Eric Hunsaker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Environmental group Greenpeace has slammed Amazon for its environmental practices in its <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/media-center/reports/clickingclean/">latest report</a> on the green credentials of the technology industry. </p>
<p>Greenpeace is concerned that Amazon Web services, which provides infrastructure for much of the internet, continues to run its data centres with dirty fuel.</p>
<p>Amazon data centres power some of the most well-known services on the web, including Netflix, Vine, Pinterest and Spotify but has fallen behind competitors in the quest to build a green internet, according to Greenpeace. </p>
<p>Apple, Box, Facebook, Google, Rackspace, and Salesforce have committed to powering their data centres with 100% renewable energy in the future, but the campaign group reports that Amazon has failed to be transparent about its own intentions.</p>
<p>Now that tech businesses play such a significant role in the world economy and green issues carry enormous political weight, reports of this kind take on new importance. Greenpeace points out that electricity demand will increase in line with our hunger for digital services but at the same time, focusing on how data centres are run is a narrow approach.</p>
<p>As the internet moves away from being a service we access on personal computers alone, we’ll need to think bigger about how to make it environmentally sound.</p>
<p>It is important that Greenpeace has focused on the policies of these tech companies rather than simply criticising the amount of energy they use. For Greenpeace to accuse Amazon of ignoring green issues is a strong assertion. Whether true or not, this is a core issue for measuring and defining corporate responsibility for the wider impact cloud providers can have in promoting efficient energy practices across all the industries they serve.</p>
<p>Video and media content accounts for <a href="http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/VNI_Hyperconnectivity_WP.html">60% of the world’s internet traffic at the moment</a> and demand for data centres and power is likely to increase dramatically, according to Greenpeace, because of the 25 billion objects that are set to be connected to the internet of things.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.smart2020.org/_assets/files/Smart2020UnitedStatesReportAddendum.pdf">Smart 2020 report</a>, published by the Global Sustainability Initiative in 2008 and updated in 2012, says that the ICT industry could make a significant difference if it helped to improve green practices across other industries.</p>
<p>The key issue is that cities, buildings, air and road transport are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/28/industries-sectors-carbon-emissions">significant users of energy and emissions</a>. Better IT can help reduce the toll they take.</p>
<p>Data centres tend to be located where there are high populations and demand for their services as well as discount incentives for energy and tax reasons. So they are part of cities and as such, should be come part of smart cities.</p>
<p>Better IT systems can make it easier to use smart systems to control buildings, cities, cars and air transport. Instead of assessing performance on an industry by industry level, as Greenpeace does, it would be better to look at how cities perform, or buildings or transport. </p>
<p>What’s more, we ought at least to use more nuanced measures if we are to highlight data centres in our environmental thinking. Data centres are sources of energy consumption for electricity and heat cooling but can also be used to regenerate energy with the by-products of heat removal.</p>
<p>The traditional metric for measuring a data centre’s energy input to usage efficiency, the PUE, or power usage effectiveness is often the quoted number for a “sustainable data centre”. But this is irresponsible and untrue as it does not reflect where the energy came from, the emissions produced or how much energy it is using for example.</p>
<p>New metrics have been developed that focus on green issues specifically. <a href="http://www.thegreengrid.org/">The Green Grid</a> is an international consortium of companies and individuals devoted to reducing power usage in data centres and have developed metrics that aim to expand the measurement of data centres to include green and renewable energy practices.</p>
<p>The Green grid has developed additional metrics: GEC, ERF and CUE. GEC measures the proportion of the facility’s energy coming from green sources, ERF identifies the proportion of energy that is exported for re-use outside the data centre and CUE is a metric to enable assessment of the total greenhouse gas emissions of data centre relative to its IT energy consumption.</p>
<p>Focusing on the big cloud providers like Amazon is one way to raise awareness but I’m not sure this is the right approach holistically. “Dirty” data centre practices should be improved and companies must take responsibility for this ahead of their commercial competitiveness and legislating to introduce targets is a good way to do this. We should welcome the Greenpeace report but in a world of multi-connected industries, we need to focus on the bigger industry questions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Skilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Environmental group Greenpeace has slammed Amazon for its environmental practices in its latest report on the green credentials of the technology industry. Greenpeace is concerned that Amazon Web services…Mark Skilton, Professor of Practice, Warwick Business School, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217932014-01-08T19:22:25Z2014-01-08T19:22:25ZGreenpeace’s Arctic 30 act on idea of a community of nations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38635/original/8yfr9jjr-1389147203.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian forces detained all those aboard Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise after activists tried to hang a banner from an oil platform. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Igor Podgorny/Greenpeace</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Should the Australian government require Colin Russell to repay at least some of its costs for acting on his behalf when the Russians imprisoned him and 29 other Greenpeace activists and journalists, known as the “Arctic 30”? Foreign minister Julie Bishop said the costs ran into thousands of dollars and <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/julie-bishop-may-pursue-greenpeace-activist-colin-russell-for-costs/story-fn59nm2j-1226794179490">questioned why taxpayers should foot the bill</a>.</p>
<p>Russell was a radio operator on the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/russia-moves-to-restrict-greenpeace-arctic-oil-drilling-protest-20130826-2smdp.html">Arctic Sunrise</a>, a Greenpeace ship that launched a rubber dinghy from which activists attempted to scale a Russian oil platform. This was in Russia’s exclusive economic zone but not in its territorial waters. The activists hoped to hang a banner on it. Water cannon and warning gunshots forced them to retreat. </p>
<p>The following day members of the Russian coastguard, wearing balaclavas and carrying automatic weapons, boarded the ship and forcibly took all on board to Russia. The activists were eventually <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-03/russia-charges-more-greenpeace-activists-with-piracy/4997748">charged with piracy</a>.</p>
<p>When even Russian president Vladimir Putin <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-25/greenpeace-activists-27not-pirates27-but-broke-law3a-putin/4981290">thought that to be absurd</a>, they were charged with <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/greenpeaces-arctic-sunrise-piracy-charges-reduced-by-russia-20131024-2w28z.html">hooliganism</a>, which carries a potential seven-year penalty. After three months’ imprisonment in harsh conditions, the Arctic 30 were granted amnesty and released. Presumably, the interventions of foreign governments had some effect and the brutish treatment of the activists and ruthless absurdity of the charges <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/russia-begins-closing-cases-against-greenpeace-arctic-30-activists-20131225-hv6tz.html">embarrassed even the hooligan Russian government</a>.</p>
<p>Russell claims that the Australian government did not do enough to free him. Bishop said the help given to him was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/03/greenpeace-activist-colin-russell-may-be-asked-to-pay-hints-julie-bishop">more “than is often provided”</a>. She added disdainfully that the activists wanted a response from the Russian government and they got one.</p>
<p>Many Australians would agree with the content and tone of her remarks. The claims by Russell and Bishop are not necessarily at odds. The government’s behaviour was consistent with its obligations to its citizens and with its contempt for Greenpeace.</p>
<p>For some years now Greenpeace appears to have decided that the consequences of climate change will soon be so terrible and the resolve of nations to ameliorate – let alone avert – them so weak, that direct, non-violent but sometimes illegal action is necessary. </p>
<p>It is therefore understandable that Greenpeace and its defenders often appeal to the concept of civil disobedience to justify such action. Despair about ordinary political processes motivated, and was often offered as justification for, <a href="http://www.activistrights.org.au/handbook/ch01s05.php">civil disobedience of the 1960s and 1970s</a>.</p>
<p>In the early 1960s, in Australia and elsewhere, there was considerable hostility to civil disobedience. Opponents claimed that it undermined the rule of law and democracy, which should be governed by persuasion rather than by demonstrations and sit-ins.</p>
<p>By 1971, when about 200,000 people marched in the second of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/33984.html">three moratoria</a> to oppose conscription and Australian involvement in the war in Vietnam, that changed. Most Australians were then prepared to entertain, even if they did not fully accept, the idea that civil disobedience had a fundamental role to play in democratic politics. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38638/original/gk5z2rnt-1389149182.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Vietnam War protests cemented a place for civil disobedience in democratic politics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">
ABC Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They also accepted that those who engaged in civil disobedience could show their respect for the political community whose laws they had broken by submitting to those laws and consenting to penalties they imposed.</p>
<p>The belief that any serious conception of a community of citizens required one to accept the legal consequences of civil disobedience against the laws of a legitimate, democratically elected government was dubbed the “classical” perspective on civil disobedience. Those who defended it often considered themselves <a href="http://science.jrank.org/pages/8660/Civil-Disobedience-History-Concept.html">heirs to a tradition</a> that runs from Socrates through Gandhi to Martin Luther King.</p>
<p>The classical position tried to harmonise the imperatives of conscience, the political obligation to direct action and the obligations of citizenship. The attempt to do this came up, on the one hand, against conservative opposition to any form of direct action and against radicals who claimed that conscience sometimes required one to support the enemy, even against a democratically elected government.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it forced on many people an appreciation of just how complex are the relations between morality, law and politics. It encouraged some people to believe that these distinctive realms of value cannot always be reconciled, even if they are always answerable to one another. </p>
<p>The heated controversy of those times of civil disobedience both expressed and forged a sense of the dignity of the political realm, which has since largely deserted us. The expressions <a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/video/2013/03/24/1364105218/political-dignity-raimond-gaita">“the dignity of politics”</a> and “the morality of politics” now strike many people as oxymorons.</p>
<p>By the 1970s, to suggest that if it were practicable, governments should charge groups that organised the moratoria the high costs incurred by the taxpayer would have betrayed political illiteracy. The reason is not that the responsibilities owed by and to taxpayers do not matter. Rather, it is that such a suggestion implies that their responsibilities to their fellow citizens are essentially to them as taxpayers.</p>
<p>It would also have been taken as a sign of political illiteracy, or of an abdication from the political realm, to defend civil disobedience solely by appeal to the imperatives of conscience. Without doubt the sober claim that this or that is a matter of conscience places an obligation on those to whom it is addressed to take it seriously. But, in the political arena, it is made not only to one’s fellow human beings to whose moral sense one appeals, but to them as fellow citizens.</p>
<p>Those who make an appeal to conscience should therefore acknowledge that they must try, together with those who oppose them, to determine the place of that claim in a serious concept of democratic citizenship. </p>
<p>If I tell my wife that conscience requires me to be a conscientious objector and ask her to accept the consequences for our family, then one set of considerations comes into play. If I ask my fellow citizens to accept the consequences for the political community, then another set comes into play. They overlap in important ways, but at times they come apart.</p>
<p>Discussion of the classical perspective and of dissent from it assumed that at issue was the role of conscientious, politically motivated disobedience to the laws of a democratic nation state. But as I understand it, though Russia was the direct target of Greenpeace, its primary aim was to address the international community, not in order to secure support against Russia, but in order to generate discussion that would deepen understanding what it means for the nations of the earth to constitute a community. </p>
<p>If that is true, then defence of those actions by appeal to the concept of civil disobedience is problematic. This is because, to the extent that it exists, the community of nations is not a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civitas">civitas</a>. It is not the kind of political constituency in which the concept of “civil” as it is used in the expression “civil disobedience” gets much purchase.</p>
<p>Greenpeace cannot argue to the Russians, or to any of the nations to which its activists belong, that its actions were justified because of the role they play in a democratic polity. Those who took part in acts of civil disobedience could not high-mindedly disregard their fellow citizens who opposed them. They had to engage them in political dialogue about the place of unlawful action in a democratic polity. </p>
<p>Similarly, Greenpeace and like-minded activists must engage the leaders and citizens of the nations of the world in a discussion about the place of direct, non-violent, but sometimes unlawful action in the community of nations.</p>
<p>The idea of a community of nations is rather thin, but it is not empty. Its core is that some acts are so morally terrible that their occurrence and prevention should concern the citizens of all nations. </p>
<p>Torture, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are obvious examples. The concept of a <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/about%20the%20court/frequently%20asked%20questions/Pages/12.aspx">crime against humanity</a>, for example, expresses the belief that those who commit this crime offend against the moral constitution of humanity itself. This is considered not only a constituency of human beings, but of citizens of the plurality of nations that comprise the community of nations. </p>
<p>The ideal of a community of nations expresses, in part, the hope that the leaders and citizens of all nations will freely render themselves answerable to international criminal law.</p>
<p>Russell said that he did not regret his actions because they were partly for the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-02/colin-russell-back-in-australia/5182850">sake of his children and grandchildren</a>. A concern for the well-being – including the moral well-being – of children and grandchildren is one that all the peoples of the earth readily appreciate. Together with our mortality, our sexuality and our vulnerability to suffering, it defines our sense of the human condition.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38634/original/zx4y7b4z-1389147163.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian activist Colin Russell said he acted for the sake of his children and grandchildren, a concern that speaks to our sense of a common humanity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source"> EPA/Dmitri Sharomov/Greenpeace</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have in mind the significance to all people of such big facts of human life when we express a sense of a common humanity by saying that all human beings are at bottom the same whatever their colour or nationality. </p>
<p>When such concerns enter the political realm, they are transformed from private ones into the common concerns of citizens. When they enter international law, they give content to, indeed are partly constitutive of, a sense of the community of nations: they are the principal elements in an elaboration of what such an idea comes to. The sense of a common humanity is a condition for any idea of a community of nations that is more than notional.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/its-true-97-of-research-papers-say-climate-change-is-happening-14051">Scientific consensus on climate change</a> is now such that one must accept that it is reasonable to believe – even if one does not oneself believe – that the effects of climate change will very soon be ruinous for life on earth and will create political instability and upheavals. The risks are greatest in poorer nations, which are victims of circumstances caused in large part by wealthy nations. Almost certainly such upheavals will be the occasion for an increase in war crimes and crimes against humanity.</p>
<p>The wealthy, mostly Western democratic, nations will be driven to authoritarian measures to deal with the dramatic effects of climate change as they become rationally incontestable, but are nonetheless downplayed by those who have interests in doing so. </p>
<p>At a certain point, refusal to take action that might seriously ameliorate the misery that climate change will bring to humankind will be seen morally, if not in law, as an offence against the political realisation amongst the peoples of the earth that they share a common humanity and the obligations consequent upon that fact. </p>
<p>If that is true, direct action whose purpose is to reduce the terrible effects of climate change must be distinguished from direct action whose purpose is to prevent whaling or further damage to the Great Barrier Reef.</p>
<p>The brave men and women who sail on the Greenpeace ship do so in the probably doomed hope of preventing environmental catastrophe that will destroy the sense of common humanity. They deserve better than the disdainful suggestions that they are morally self-indulgent burdens on the taxpayer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raimond Gaita does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Should the Australian government require Colin Russell to repay at least some of its costs for acting on his behalf when the Russians imprisoned him and 29 other Greenpeace activists and journalists, known…Raimond Gaita, Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Arts and theMelbourne Law School, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190212013-10-09T15:29:54Z2013-10-09T15:29:54ZJailing Greenpeace activists will harden attitudes to Russia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32753/original/r7jpgykb-1381327900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The not just cold, but troubled waters of the Russian Arctic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Will Rose/Greenpeace</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Russia’s overreaction in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24379908">prosecuting</a> Greenpeace protesters, including the two journalists, is set to unfold into an international scandal that will seriously damage country’s global reputation.</p>
<p>So far the situation is that 28 Greenpeace activists and two freelance photographers (one British, one Russian) will remain in custody in Murmansk for the next two months, on charges of piracy. The international reaction was muted at first. Despite worldwide public outrage, only the governments of Argentina and Ukraine voiced their protest. Finland, for example, while still opposing the charges of piracy, unofficially agrees the Finnish activist arrested (she was one of the few who actually made it onboard the platform) could serve her sentence at home.</p>
<p>Yet to what extent Russia is willing to yield to international pressure remains open. Domestically, public opinion is split on the matter. The state-controlled media has conducted a defensive campaign against foreign influence in Russia or any interference in the vital oil and gas sector, an industry considered sacred under the current state capitalism regime.</p>
<p>Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="http://en.ria.ru/russia/20131003/183927103.html">called</a> Sergei Medvedev, a professor at Moscow’s <a href="http://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/67402">Higher School of Economics</a>, a moron after he suggested turning the Arctic into an international nature reserve to save it from corporate and state interests. </p>
<p>The scholar responded in a <a href="http://www.colta.ru/articles/society/715">number of interviews</a>, emphasising the idea that Russian national interests are much wider than those of Gazprom or any territorial ambitions. But not everyone sees it this way. A recent, state-run public opinion poll <a href="http://wciom.ru/index.php?id=459&uid=114521">claimed</a> around two-thirds of Russians support the state’s handling of the Greenpeace activists. Even some Russian environmental activists have criticised Greenpeace for being too “pro-Western”. They argue the organisation fails to involve Russians, leaving the country to play the role of the “aggressive” country in the Wild East.</p>
<p>Another poll suggested Greenpeace’s stunt attracted the attention of only 1% of respondents, with <a href="http://www.gazeta.ru/comments/2013/10/04_e_5687469.shtml">other issues</a> seen as being of greater importance. In fact the government’s line of accusing environmentalists of violating Russia’s sovereignty while trying to impose its capital interests abroad is somewhat new in the country. A similar action in Russia by Greenpeace last year provoked <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/24/greenpeace-activists-arctic-oil-russia">almost no official reaction</a> – all activists were set free. Even in the recent crackdown on NGOs operating in Russia it was seldom environmental groups that suffered; human rights organisations are always first under fire. The president and government speak of the importance of environmental issues, yet whenever they conflict with economic issues, the former stand little chance of prevailing.</p>
<p>But it was different this time. Shortly after the Arctic Sunrise was boarded, state-controlled media (mostly television) launched blunt, anti-environmentalist campaigns that accused the ecologists of piracy, violating Russia’s territorial independence, or restricting the rights of Russia to work in the Arctic. Such patriotic, often defensive, “everyone’s against Russia” opinions are not uncommon.</p>
<p>According to various sources, diplomats are still trying to negotiate informally with Russia on the matter, but in the second week stronger steps have been taken. The Netherlands launched <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24395769">legal proceedings</a> against Russia for unlawfully detaining Arctic Sunrise, a Dutch-flagged vessel. Other international organisations have begun issuing statements in support of the Greenpeace activists, among them the <a href="http://eu-russia-csf.org/">EU-Russia Civil Society Forum</a>, and the European Parliament is expect to release a statement this week.</p>
<p>To what extent can international criticism influence domestic Russian policy? Experts claim Russian officials may well ignore international opinion and launch yet another show trial. Similar in many respects to the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/europe/russia-pussy-riot-trial/index.html">Pussy Riot case</a>, it sees a minor infraction answered with the full weight of the state-controlled legal system, once its “sacred interests” are hurt. This overreaction may in turn further fracture Russia’s already very fragile reputation and relationships abroad.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it could prompt a more open discussion inside Russia, among experts and citizens – on the balance of environmental and economic policies, short-term vs long-term priorities, openness to criticism, the role of civil society, and the future of the Arctic and other refuges - even a more engaged dialogue within Russia on its future and what governance people want in that future. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angelina Davydova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Russia’s overreaction in prosecuting Greenpeace protesters, including the two journalists, is set to unfold into an international scandal that will seriously damage country’s global reputation. So far…Angelina Davydova, Senior Lecturer, St Petersburg State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188672013-10-04T05:56:37Z2013-10-04T05:56:37ZGreenpeace piracy charges mock international law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32445/original/wdyysjtx-1380848984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian authorities boarded and detained a Greenpeace vessel for charges of piracy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-03/russia-charges-more-greenpeace-activists-with-piracy/4997748">All 30 crew</a> of Dutch Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise, including an Australian, have been detained and charged with piracy by Russian authorities, after attempting to board an oil platform in the Arctic. </p>
<p>Russian authorities allege that the Greenpeace protesters attacked and attempted to seize the platform, while Greenpeace claims that they simply were attempting mount a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-russia-greenpeace-20130925,0,4037935.story">protest poster</a>. </p>
<p>Piracy is defined in the <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf">United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea</a> (UNCLOS), and the activists would be charged in Russian courts depending on Russian interpretation of the Law.</p>
<p>The question is how the Law of the Sea is interpreted, and whether the Greenpeace crew have actually committed piracy. </p>
<h2>Private ends and violence</h2>
<p>This isn’t the first time environmental activists have been accused of piracy. In February this year the Sea Shepherd activists were found by US courts to have <a href="http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2013/02/25/1235266.pdf">committed piracy</a> for their conduct in the Southern Ocean, under the Law of the Sea. The case hinged on interpretation of <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part7.htm">Article 101(a)</a> of UNCLOS, which states that piracy is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft … on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I personally remain unconvinced of the finding of piracy in the Sea Shepherd case for reasons you can <a href="https://theconversation.com/arrrrrrrrr-the-sea-shepherds-really-pirates-12512">read about here</a>.</p>
<p>But in the Greenpeace case the charges of piracy have even less weight. The critical issue in the Sea Shepherd case of “private ends” isn’t even relevant. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFF0JTG2-Y8&amp;feature=youtu.be">Video footage</a> suggests that the violence requirement of Article 101(a) hasn’t been met.</p>
<h2>Ships and oil platforms</h2>
<p>Even if the violence requirement for the crime of piracy had been met, the Law of the Sea requires the crime must still be committed “against another ship”, not an oil platform. This makes it impossible for the Greenpeace action to be piracy under UNCLOS. </p>
<p>Another law that might be called into use is the international <a href="http://cns.miis.edu/inventory/pdfs/aptmaritime.pdf">Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation</a> (SUA), brought into being to deal with maritime violence beyond piracy, including hijacking. </p>
<p>SUA has the same problem as UNCLOS - it doesn’t include oil platforms because they are fixed platforms rather than vessels - however, the <a href="http://cil.nus.edu.sg/rp/il/pdf/2005%20Protocol%20for%20the%20Suppression%20of%20Unlawful%20Acts%20against%20the%20Safety%20of%20Fixed%20Platforms-pdf.pdf">2005 protocol</a> does cover acts threatening the safety of fixed platforms. </p>
<p>The protocol sets out a number of offences against the safety of fixed platforms, all of which involve some form of violence. But in the Greenpeace case there doesn’t seem to have been any conduct by activists that would violate this law. </p>
<h2>High seas</h2>
<p>When this is combined with the fact that the <em>Arctic Sunrise</em> was on the high seas outside of national jurisdiction, there doesn’t appear to be any legal ground for the detention of the vessel or her crew. </p>
<p>Had they been in Russia’s territorial sea then they would have been in Russia’s exclusive jurisdiction and subject to Russian law, tempered by the right of innocent passage (arguably the Arctic Sunrise would be found to not be conducting innocent passage). </p>
<p>But, as they were on the high seas and the ship is a Dutch vessel, the Netherlands had exclusive jurisdiction over the Arctic Sunrise.</p>
<h2>Russian law</h2>
<p>So much for international law. The same cannot be said for the two Greenpeace activists who allegedly boarded the oil platform. </p>
<p>UNCLOS <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part5.htm">makes it clear</a> that the oil platform comes under the exclusive jurisdiction of Russia. Therefore the activists who allegedly boarded the platform are liable for breaches of Russian law should they have committed any.</p>
<h2>Safety zones</h2>
<p>The Law of the Sea also requires that all vessels respect safety zones around artificial installations, and it’s possible that the Arctic Sunrise is in breach of that requirement through their protest. </p>
<p>There is also nothing to suggest that the Arctic Sunrise was boarded under suspicion of any of the conduct that the Law of the Sea provides a right of visit. The Arctic Sunrise was clearly not engaged in piracy, slavery, unauthorised radio broadcasting and was not a stateless vessel so there is no obvious right of visit for Russia to claim. </p>
<p>The Netherlands might in fact be able to claim damages under UNCLOS once the current debacle is resolved. But given the charge of piracy, seizure without adequate grounds would be more likely. </p>
<p>As Julian Ku <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/2013/10/03/russia-charges-greenpeace-protesters-piracy-dutch/">points out</a> the Netherlands could also take Russia to the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea regarding the legality of the detention.</p>
<h2>“A mockery of international law”</h2>
<p>As prominent piracy law scholar, Eugene Kontorovich points out “<a href="http://www.volokh.com/2013/10/02/russias-piracy-charges-greenpeace-mean-international-law/">the piracy charges make a mockery of international law</a>”. There is nothing in any of the reports to suggest that Greenpeace has committed piracy, no matter how you interpret the Law of the Sea. </p>
<p>The situation is made more ridiculous by previous cases of real piracy involving Russia. In 2010 Russia <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/05/pirates_have_all_died_russia_s.html">declined to prosecute</a> Somali pirates (where there was no question of applicability under UNCLOS) because the international law was too unclear. Instead, the pirates died adrift at sea. </p>
<p>Piracy under international law defines a set of conduct that any state can apply its own law to. Regardless of how clear the international law is, the crime is completely different everywhere in the world. </p>
<p>The crew of the Arctic Sunrise might be charged with piracy under Russian law but the charges and any future convictions amounts to a grave breach of international law. </p>
<p>How the Netherlands and the governments of the crew members will proceed should Russia continue with this farce is uncertain but I have no doubt they will continue to fight for the legal rights of their citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamsin Phillipa Paige does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All 30 crew of Dutch Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise, including an Australian, have been detained and charged with piracy by Russian authorities, after attempting to board an oil platform in the Arctic…Tamsin Phillipa Paige, M Phil (Law) Candidate, Sessional teacher and Research Assistant, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186832013-09-27T14:04:20Z2013-09-27T14:04:20ZCan Russia prosecute Greenpeace protestors over the Arctic Sunrise?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32032/original/kwmc847r-1380215542.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Off to cause trouble in the Arrrrrrctic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Ryan/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week several Greenpeace activists bearing ropes and posters <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/world/europe/seizure-of-a-greenpeace-vessel-by-russia.html?_r=0">attempted to board</a> Gazprom’s oil platform, the Prirazlomnaya, in the Russian exclusive economic zone. They did so in an inflatable craft launched from the Greenpeace vessel the MV Arctic Sunrise. They were soon arrested by the Russian Coast Guard (who <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/From-peaceful-action-to-dramatic-seizure-a-timeline-of-events-since-the-Arctic-Sunrise-took-action-September-18-CET/">allegedly</a> rammed the inflatable craft, threatened activists at knife-point and fired 11 artillery shots across the bows of the inflatable in the process).</p>
<p>The Russian Coast Guard boarded the next day, within their exclusive economic zone but outside territorial waters, the Arctic Sunrise (a Netherlands flagged vessel) and arrested those on board. It was first announced that Russian authorities were preparing a piracy prosecution (maximum sentence 15 years) against all those detained, at least until <a href="http://rt.com/news/putin-greenpeace-pirates-arctic-323/">President Putin</a> declared they were “obviously not pirates” but that their attempt to “take over” the rig clearly violated international law.</p>
<h2>Protesters vs pirates</h2>
<p>The incident raises several questions: did any of the protesters commit piracy? Did they commit a crime under international or Russian law? And was there any legal basis for seizing the Arctic Sunrise?</p>
<p>The answer to the first question is a simple no. The <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/closindx.htm">UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982</a> defines piracy as requiring “an illegal act of violence committed, for private ends, from a private ship or aircraft” that is “directed against another ship or aircraft on the high seas (or occurring in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state)”.</p>
<p>There is no evidence of violence by the protesters, and their actions were targeted not at a ship or aircraft but a fixed platform on the continental shelf. The fixed platform is also not a “a place outside the jurisdiction of any state”. If the platform within the Russian exclusive economic zone or attached to the Russian continental shelf it is subject to Russian law and jurisdiction.</p>
<p>There is also a commonly made argument that political protesters cannot be pirates because they have political motives and are therefore not acting “for private ends”. It is a view I think is mistaken. The point of the law of piracy is to prohibit non-state violence on the high seas (for example, the law of the sea says warships cannot commit piracy unless they mutiny). </p>
<p>The recent court case of <a href="http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/content/view.php?pk_id=0000000655">Cetacean Research v Sea Shepherd</a> was, <a href="http://www.ejiltalk.org/political-motivation-and-piracy-what-history-doesnt-teach-us-about-law/">in my view</a>, right in principle to hold that sufficiently violent acts of political protest may constitute piracy. Nonetheless, the point is not salient here. The actions of Greenpeace are not remotely colourable as piracy.</p>
<h2>Threats to safety</h2>
<p>Did the protesters commit other offences under Russian or international law? Quite possibly. International law allows states to declare safety zones of 500m around fixed platforms such as oil rigs and once aboard such fixed platforms you are subject to the law of the coastal state. The attempt to board the oil platform probably infringed applicable safety laws.</p>
<p>Going further than that, however, President Putin <a href="http://rt.com/news/putin-greenpeace-pirates-arctic-323/">has said</a> the protesters did try to take the rig over, thus violating international law. This should worry Greenpeace. An attempt to unlawfully seize or exercise control over a fixed platform by force, threat or means of intimidation is an offence under the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/conventions/Conv9.pdf">Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf 1988</a>. These are deemed to be offences of a “grave nature” punishable by “appropriate penalties” under the parent treaty, the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/conventions/Conv8.pdf">Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation 1988</a>.</p>
<p>It is fairly dubious that the protest involved force, threats or intimidation – but President Putin’s words could indicate an intention to bring serious charges based on threats to safety.</p>
<h2>Capture the flag</h2>
<p>Was there any legal basis for Russia seizing the Arctic Sunrise? Perhaps. On the high seas a state is generally subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of its flag state (the state under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed) and boarding by foreign law enforcement officials is only permitted in limited cases, including piracy.</p>
<p>However, offences committed within an exclusive economic zone are different. Where small boats go out from a larger vessel and infringe the laws or regulations of a coastal state, the law of hot pursuit allows that vessel to be pursued and arrested. The rule extends to safety zones around a fixed platform. Even if the Arctic Sunrise never entered the safety zone, so long as one of its inflatables was still present there, Russia had – potentially – a right of pursuit and enforcement. But the law of hot pursuit is quite technical and such a boarding is only valid if preceded by a visual or auditory signal. On <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/From-peaceful-action-to-dramatic-seizure-a-timeline-of-events-since-the-Arctic-Sunrise-took-action-September-18-CET/">Greenpeace’s account</a> the Arctic Sunrise was apparently boarded by helicopter without warning.</p>
<p>It is certainly open to the Netherlands, as the Arctic Sunrise’s flag state, to query the legal basis for the arrest of its vessel. However, it will have trouble raising such claims before an international tribunal as Russia has entered a (perfectly valid) reservation to UNCLOS excluding disputes concerning law-enforcement activities from the scope of the convention’s dispute settlement system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas has received British Academy funding to work on questions of maritime security.</span></em></p>Last week several Greenpeace activists bearing ropes and posters attempted to board Gazprom’s oil platform, the Prirazlomnaya, in the Russian exclusive economic zone. They did so in an inflatable craft…Douglas Guilfoyle, Reader in International Law, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.