Greenpeace

Last Friday I went to New York to attend the release of Forever Princess, the final book in the bestselling Princess Diaries series.  Okay, so maybe I don’t meet the demographic typically associated with its fan base, although I do have an eight-year-old daughter who is just beginning to read them.  But that’s not why I was going.  I went because the author Meg Cabot is donating all of her worldwide proceeds from her latest novel (entitled Ransom my Heart) to Greenpeace.

Well actually, if you ask Meg, it’s not her novel.  Ransom my Heart was allegedly written by Princess Mia, the main character of the Diaries series, in the final book during her senior year of high school.  If you’ve read the series, you’ll know that Mia is a big fan of Greenpeace, at one point dreaming of spending her gap year working for Greenpeace and riding motorized inflatables to help save the whales.  My daughter, for whom Meg signed a book with a personal note that proclaimed her “a true princess!”, came to me the other night very excited, having just read that “Princess Mia supports Greenpeace and is a vegetarian!” (which my daughter, an animal lover like the princess, is as well).

Don’t think too much about the book inside a book thing.  It tends to lead to contemplation of paradox and the like, and that’s a silly place to end up after starting from a young adult book.  

Or is it?

Anyway, the event was held in the New York Public Library, which is an impressive place in and of itself.  What better way to promote a series adored by young readers than in a library, and a beautiful one at that!  It was great to see kids lining up around the corner of a library over a book, instead of camping out at the mall for the latest version of PlayStation.

I was there with two of my Greenpeace colleagues, and we arrived early to meet with Meg and thank her personally for this amazing opportunity.  Upon meeting her we liked her instantly.  She’s warm, welcoming, funny, charming, and a kindred spirit in her love of the environment.  And the tiara was a great look for her.  Not a lot of people can pull off a tiara.  She did it easily.

Our visit with her went fast, and all too soon it was time for Meg to head for the stage and address the packed house, most of whom were young fans of the Diaries books and sporting their own princess wear for the occasion.  They were a captive audience, as Meg delighted them with stories and anecdotes that clearly showed she was one of them at heart.  To our delight, she also took the opportunity to talk with her young loyal readers about Greenpeace and our work to protect the planet.

Their planet.

Which was probably the most poignant part of the evening for me.  As a father of two, around the same age as many in the room, it reminded me why I do this work.  Because children – all children – deserve a future with a healthy planet.  It’s probably a big reason why Meg loves Greenpeace as well.  The Princess Diaries series was so successful because she understands, relates to and loves the children to whom the books appeal. And by supporting Greenpeace, maybe that's her way of helping to ensure their kingdoms will be healthy and vibrant for many generations to come.

Today marks the 37th anniversary of Greenpeace.  It was at 4:00 pm on September 15th, 1971 when the original Greenpeace crew of 12 hoisted a green triangular sail bearing the peace and ecology symbols on their boat the Phyllis Cormack, and set out from Vancouver, Canada.  Their destination was the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska, where the US government was scheduling a nuclear test blast on the tiny island of Amchitka.  Their intent was to sail the boat into the test zone to keep the bomb from going off.

The Phyllis Cormack was an old, 80-foot fishing vessel that had more than its fair share of mechanical troubles.  But the hull was seaworthy, and after spending 13 months trying to find something better the crew felt it was their best and only option.  After nearly two years of planning, hard work and fundraising (including a benefit concert featuring Joni Mitchell and James Taylor) the first Greenpeace mission was finally under way.

Bad weather and trouble with the boat kept them from reaching Amchitka, and the blast went off as planned.  The despondent crew sailed back to Vancouver thinking they had failed.  As it turned out, however, the spirit and inspiration of their action set off a wave of international protests that ultimately made it impossible for the United States to continue testing in the Aleutians.  The crew returned to a hero’s welcome in Vancouver, the tiny island of Amchitka was designated a wildlife sanctuary, and Greenpeace was born.

The other night I went to the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium for the first time, on a beautiful summer evening for a game.  Upon taking in my first view of the facility I was immediately impressed.  I was especially charmed upon discovering that it was a LEED-certified “green” ballpark, the first of its kind in Major League Baseball.

I proceeded to my seats on the first base side, with a great view of the playing field.  I was taking in the sights and sounds of America’s favorite pastime, when I looked across the field and saw it.

The ExxonMobil brand, plastered on the left field wall.

Mr. Richardson, your beautiful carriage will now be turning into a pumpkin.  And the magic castle in which you find yourself is about to turn to sand.

Part of my sinking disappointment can be traced to the boyish naivete with which I hold major league baseball as something pure and inherently good.  Anyone who reads the papers knows that such is far from the case.  But I somehow manage to keep such realities locked away in a separate compartment as I avidly follow the sport year after year.  

That said, I can only block out so much.  

Exxon is the proverbial final straw, the worst of the worst.  They boast a long list of corporate deadly sins, from abetting human rights abuses in Indonesia to ripping up Canadian old growth forests so they can squeeze oil from sand, to funding front groups who misleadingly question the scientific consensus that global warming is real.  To see their logo plastered on a major league ballpark, and a “green” one at that, was like finding a tragic tear in an otherwise beautiful work of art.

But the childlike baseball fan within me is strong and wields rationalization as well as anyone, so I managed to put Exxon aside once the game began and became consumed by the play on the field.  It was a tight game midway through the 7th inning, which any good baseball fan knows is the part of the game marked by a traditional break in the action known as the seventh inning stretch.

At which point the loudspeakers blurted, “This seventh inning stretch brought to you by ExxonMobil”.

My inner baseball fan has just been ripped out, beaten senseless and unceremoniously kicked to the curb.

If you think about it, though, it actually makes sense.  Who better to sponsor this aspect of the game than the corporation that’s turned stretching things out into an art form.  For 19 years, Exxon has managed to stretch out the lawsuit brought against it for the 11 million gallons of oil its tanker the Valdez spilled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989.

It all came full circle yesterday, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision regarding punitive damages for the spill.  The high court (interpret that as you wish) effectively rewarded Exxon’s 19-year stretch by slashing an original $5 billion punitive damage assessment down to $500 million.  So the fishermen and other adversely affected Alaskans will get roughly $15,000 each as restitution for having their livelihoods shattered almost two decades ago.  While the richest corporation on the planet (in February Exxon posted the highest quarterly profits in US corporate history, to the tune of $11.7 billion), is being forced to pay the ratio equivalent of a speeding ticket.  

If Exxon can stretch out a lawsuit brought on by disenfranchised Americans and save itself $4.5 billion as a result, it can definitely sponsor a seventh inning stretch at a baseball game.  It’s like the Bush administration sponsoring a dance competition called the Texas Side Step.  Exxon’s getting plenty of help these days, with the Supreme Court’s error, the legal system’s forced play to keep the underdogs from scoring and the bad call at the plate by the Nationals organization when it let Exxon’s sponsorship contaminate its stadium.

Looks like the fix is in.

A review of the current week shows that it’s been a busy one for the environment. Since you might not know this given the way Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace has dominated the headlines, here’s a quick recap.

Monday’s newspapers highlighted a new study asserting that the world must bring carbon emissions down near zero to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures. Okay, so it’s worse than we thought. At least maybe lawmakers will start taking the issue seriously.

Then again, Spitzer probably eroded any last remaining faith you might have in elected officials. Fair enough. A decorated prostitution ring fighter like Spitzer getting caught hiring a prostitute would be similar to finding out that an environmental champion like Ted Kennedy opposes an offshore wind farm because it’s slated to be built near his family compound on the Cape.

Oh yeah, that happened as well.

Back to the environment. The same day science was making headlines on climate change, a group of Southern Baptist leaders announced their denomination has a "biblical duty" to stop global warming. If this comes as a surprise to you, then it’s worth noting they’re about three years behind the evangelicals on this. And while we’re talking religion, the pope recently released a new slate of seven deadly sins, effectively providing the first update to the original list in over 1500 years. Turns out polluting the environment is New Deadly Sin #1.

George Bush is supposedly a man of strong religious convictions. Do you think this got his attention? Maybe there was a time when he and his band of oilmen cronies could wave off such sentiments as a faction of the liberal agenda. But last I checked, the Southern Baptists aren’t exactly part of the radical left.

Unfortunately, other events this week clearly show the example provided by the religiously ordained didn’t get through to the White House. Monday represented yet another missed legal deadline by the Bush administration about whether to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. While the Department of Interior drags its feet to protect our furry friends from the north, whose population is rapidly declining because global warming is melting the Arctic sea ice critical for its survival, they’re wasting no time offering new leases for oil drilling in prime polar bear habitat. 29 million acres since the first missed deadline in early January, to be exact.

Which brings me to the final environmental event of this week worth mentioning. Greenpeace joined the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council in a lawsuit against the Bush administration to force their hand on listing the polar bear. If the Baptists and Catholics can’t sway him, maybe the courts can.

I guess even Providence finds itself waiting out the term of history's worst environmental president.

Jerry moved, Bobby spit, and two days ago I felt truly excited about voting in a presidential election for the first time in my life. 

I won’t tell you whom I voted for, since Greenpeace is non-partisan and doesn’t endorse candidates. I will say I voted in the Democratic primary, which probably isn’t a huge shocker. Not that being a registered Democrat is a given for a Greenpeace staffer by any stretch. Many of my colleagues are registered outside of the traditional two-party set up, officially listed as Green, Independent, Socialist, Progressive, Whig or Skateboard Punk Rocker, to name a few. Certainly an approach to voting I respect and in many ways agree with in principle. I could go on all day about the shortcomings of the two-party, winner-take-all system we currently employ. But I’ll save that for another day.

On Tuesday, though, I felt a bit sorry for those who weren’t registered as Democrats. Because it meant they couldn't vote in the primary.  A primary in which I was actually excited about casting my ballot in a way I haven't felt since I started voting 24 years ago. How great was it to stand in front of the ballot box perusing my options, and know that my two main choices were a woman and an African American, both of whom are exceptional candidates with strong platforms on most issues. In addition to having a rare slate of inspiring choices, it was a great benchmark for where we’ve come as a country.

So often when voting in presidential elections I have felt like I was more voting against someone than voting for them. I cast my ballot with great passion in 2004, but that was primarily a vote against George Bush and the insolent/imperialistic policies that have marked his presidency since he stole the election almost eight years ago. They could run pretty much anyone against Bush (with the possible exception of Roger Clemens - is he lying or what?) and I’d vote for the challenger every time.  Only Bush and his stooges can make someone like Hanna Montana look like a legitimate presidential candidate, for no other reason than she'd be running against him.

But this time around feels different. I feel like we have real choices, who bring the promise of changing the destructive course our country has been on these past eight years. It’s still politics, I’m still inherently cynical and I'm not annointing any slam dunk saviors here. But despite all that I can't help but be inspired this time around. All I can say is that it felt good to actually be voting FOR someone, instead of simply picking the lesser of two evils.

Feels like help is on the way.