The environmental group, Greenpeace, is not as popular in New Zealand as it would have others believe. For a few years after French agents in 1985 bombed and sank its ship, the Rainbow Warrior, while in a New Zealand port, it seemed that every other car carried a Greenpeace bumper sticker. It's a different story today; the bumpers are bare.
I guess we are simply following a world wide trend which has seen the fortunes of Greenpeace slump, causing it to retrench significantly. Unpopularity has arisen because it is now seen by most as an extremist group pedaling obsessions. Furthermore, its protest activities involving the private property rights of others are anathema to the good citizens of property owing democracies.
James Lovelock of Britain, one of the world's great environmental scientists, and winner of many prizes in his field, said it all in stating, "Too many Greens are not just ignorant of science, they hate science."
The tarnished image of Greenpeace in New Zealand took a big hit when it was revealed that the new Rainbow Warrior had discharged treated sewage in to Port Nelson a few days ago, while laid up there for repairs. As well as serving Greenpeace with a strong written warning over the incident, the Nelson City Council told the group it would have been fined had it been possible to determine the extent of the discharge.
And they have further worries because one of its founders, Dr Patrick Moore, has been sponsored by the pro-GE Sciences Network to make a submission before the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering, established by the socialist government to curry favor with green voters. Dr Moore, now a vocal critic of all environmentalists, has accused them of abandoning science. Thus, he is the last person Greenpeace wants to appear before a Commission it had hoped to dominate with the assistance of the neo-Marxist Green Party and other loony left luddites.
Lovelock said of Moore, "He was a founder of Greenpeace, but like me has an Orwellian view of the environmental lobbies as they are today."
November 22, 2000
Colin Robertson, a former officer of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, is a businessman and writer. He is working on a book on New Zealand’s race relations industry.
