Blather on the Rainbow Warrior

Dave Walsh is on board the Greenpeace flagship, in New Zealand…


Notice that I have been quiet recently? I’ve been busy travelling… I’ve been in Amsterdam, and am now departing from Auckland, New Zealand, working with Greenpeace on a Rainbow Warrior expedition. My job is to write the weblog for the ship, detailing the day to day experiences of the crew.
For more details, check out the Rainbow Warrior weblog »

daev
Chief Bottle Washer at Blather
Writer, photographer, environmental campaigner and "known troublemaker" Dave Walsh is the founder of Blather.net, described both as "possibly the most arrogant and depraved website to be found either side of the majestic Shannon River", and "the nicest website circulating in Ireland". Half Irishman, half-bicycle. He lives in southern Irish city of Barcelona.

8 comments

  1. I have a question. Is Greenpeace an enviromental group or a political group. I live in a rather liberal community with many smelly hippies that are allegedly members of Greenpeace, and I routinely question them about their activities (at gun point mind you) and everytime they go on about the enviroment they eventually go off on a tangent about ‘globalization’ the ‘government’ and ‘corporate’ greed. They very rarely possess any knowledge beyond governmental conspiracy theories and know next to nothing about the enviroment. They don’t know for example that genetically modified foods are strictly tested and regulated, my Greenpeace neighbors point out every chance they get that the ‘Government’ doesen’t test genetically modified foods and that in fact the ‘government’ is putting them in our supermarkets now. They then load their 4 dogs into their SUV to drive to someplace pristine and go camping. They return usually an hour later after they realized while they brought the dogs, they lefty their baby behind. I’d have to say that my personal experience with ‘eco-warriors’ does not inspire the slightest bit of confidence.

  2. Dang, Jaguar! For a moment, I thought you were my neighbor. But we only have three dogs. And it’s a minivan, mind you.
    Anyhoo…have I plugged this link over here lately?
    http://www.themeatrix.com/
    And I throw Greenpeace fifteen greenbacks a month. Don’t spend it all in one place, kids.

  3. Maybe you’re the lesbain up the road? She has three dogs. Come to think of it all the lesbians in my neighborhood have at least three dogs and a pickup truck. What’s the deal with lesbians and dogs?

  4. Had you said good looking car, instead of good looking girlfriend, it would’ve been me. I haven’t kept a girlfriend for more than 2 days in years. I give them the heave-ho right around the time they say something like ‘why are you in the garge all the time?’ or ‘I don’t really care for Jaguars’ or ‘you know, Camaros are really hot!’ or ‘ I’m going to buy an SUV’
    Danged chicks.

  5. Hi Jaguar…
    Dave here, from blather.net. I’m posting from the Rainbow Warrior, but just want to disclaim that the following email illustrates my opinions only, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinions of Greenpeace as an organisation.
    I’m not about to start answering for any of the several million people around the world who support Greenpeace, or start apologising for their personal hygiene, choice of vehicle, pet, or lack of political knowledge. Are you saying that these people are financial supporters of Greenpeace, volunteers, activists, employees, or what? Your neighbour don’t sound very hippy to me…
    And to be honest, since I got involved in Greenpeace, I haven’t met anyone even vaguely hippyish. In fact, I’ve surprised and delighted to find that everyone – for example, the 24 other people on this ship, are some of the sharpest, savviest, media-savvy, technologically adept and professional people I’ve ever met.
    And on a small ship, being smelly would not be tolerated!
    But to answer your question (I assume it was a question)… ‘Is Greenpeace an enviromental group or a political group’?
    Can’t it be both? Can’t it be more than both? My understanding is that Greenpeace uses *actions* relating to the environment, war, humanitarian disasters, etc. to inspire both the public and the media, which in turn has an influence of related politics.
    An example from yesterday:
    After several years of *recent* campaiging about the annual killing of 500 Minke whales for ‘scientific purposes’, the Icelandic government has announced that they will be hunting just 25 this year. The reasons:
    – Lack of export market for the meat
    – A larger local resistance in Iceland than expected (due to increased public awareness)
    – Positive pressure of the Greenpeace Iceland Pledge, where tens of thousands (I don’t have the numbers to hand, being on a ship in an undisclosed location) of people pledged to consider a vacation in Iceland *if* whaling ceased. Given that the average visitor to Iceland spends in surplus of $1000 while there, the potential increased profit from tourism (including whale watching etc.) has overtaken any potential profit from whaling.
    Now, was that environmental, or political?

  6. Enviropolitical.
    My neighbors look like hippies ( i.e. long shaggy hair and beards, even the women, baggy disheveled clothes , vague smell of burning..you know, whenever they pass by.)
    On the back of their Honda Passport is a giant ‘Greenpeace’ sticker, when I asked them about it they said they were ‘active members’ and that if I loved the planet I wouldn’t vote or eat meat or throw anything away ever.
    I asked them to wait while I got my gun (they didn’t) and when I returned they weren’t around for any more (Dick Cheney style) ‘questioning.
    Needless to say that here in the US (in my neck of the woods anyway) the Greenpeace advocates that protest in front of supermarkets and steel mills look like the audience from the last Grateful Dead concert. I don’t listen to incoherent, smelly, unkempt rabble, which is why I never gave Greenpeace a second thought. Then I started reading Blather , and you seem educated , objective , reasonable and (from pictures) relatively clean.
    The difference was remarkable and seemed worth asking about.

  7. Funny, just been reading exchanges on p45rant about the anti-bush demos in Ireland. There seems to be a kind of person who distances themselves from any kind of political or environmental responsbility based on how bad they think certain organisations dress or smell. There’s bound to be folly there somewhere. There’s several million greenpeace members – no need to tar us all with the same loofah.
    So you don’t support responsible, sustainable behaviour because you don’t like how your neighbour smell? I’ve got a pig farm down the road from my house, so I don’t like how my neighbours smell either.
    Still, if the Deep Sea weblog changed your mind.
    Care to elaborate on your own pristine personal hygiene regime?

  8. Well now, I never said I was against responsible sustainable behaviour, I simply said I was against the certain type of people that accost me while I go about my daily business and tell me that I’m murdering babies in the third world because I use plastic bags.
    I recycle, I don’t dump my motoroil or anti-freeze down the drain. I use them light bulbs that last 5 years. My objection is that when confronted by enviromental activists pushing their solution, they have no answers when I ask them questions. Once again to use the genetically modified food bit (it’s been big in my area recently) again, I always ask ‘what is bad about genetically modified food?’ the answer is always that the government does not regulate it and it’s not tested for safety and I may as well join the Nazi party if I don’t buy organic foods.
    I then point out that ‘organic’ foods are certified organic by the USDA and the FDA ie the government! Why would the government trick me on genetically altered foods and then turn around and be honest about organic foods? I then point out that without modern farming methods (chemical fertilizers, insecticides and such) that agriculture would only be able support 2/3rds of the people we have now, who’s volunteering to get the planet? We need one third to go away before we decide that everything should be organic!
    Generally my questions go unanswered and I am denounced by neighbors as a ‘rightist agitator’ simply because I ask for facts, that they don’t have.
    I also shower every morning and have impeccable dental hygiene and I always smell lovely. I take special pills that make my bowel movements smell like freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and I generally am against whaling, over fishing, chopping down old growth forests and I hate Phish and I’m glad to see they are ending their idiocy.
    I would also like to point out I wasn’t tarring all you eco-warriors, I was just pointing out how differently abled you seem compared to the ill-educated lack-wits that I seem to encounter, and I was simply registering my suprise.
    I wil also state for the record that I am against alternative fuels and hydrogen powered cars and stuff. If any law is ever passed that makes it illegal to fuel up and drive any one of my stable of Jaguars, I will kill every person I can get my hands on!Twice!
    I’m very bored at work today.

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