Greenpeace

I wrote this on 10/29/02:

The last 24 hours were a lovely lesson in not judging delays and inconveniences as bad. I missed my flight from Baltimore on Sunday – no great loss - we (the Greenpeace USA team) had woken up at 3:45 in Luxembourg, taken taxi and 3 trains to get to Frankfurt, Germany and then flew to Washington DC. I would have had to take a bus, 2 metros, a train and a bus to get to Baltimore to catch a flight to JFK and finally to Oakland - but the timing was off, so I stayed an extra night in DC with Ginger (kick-ass activist and scorpio sister). Last night I got to Baltimore extra early to be sure I made the flight - and in the bookstore found a copy of "The World is Not For Sale" by my hero Jose Bove the French farmer and activist. I was sitting there reading when the announcement came that the flight to JFK was delayed, endangering my flight to Oakland. "I can't miss work tomorrow!" I told the lady at the counter - and so she put me on a flight to San Francisco via St. Louis that was boarding immediately. In the St. Louis airport I ran into my dear friend Lori and we snoozed together on the flight to SF. Meeting friends in strange places is a great benefit of traveling.

Today I went to Oakland to retrieve my luggage - but only one piece was there. The lady at the counter discovered they had sent the other one to SF. Oh well. As I walked through the terminal - a man walked up to me and said "Hey - Greenpeace!" I was wearing a Greenpeace t-shirt... but the way he said it made me realize that he was on the inside "I just came back from Luxembourg." I told him. He beamed "Great! Who are you?" "I'm Jennifer – the Activist Network Regional Organizer. Are you John?" It was - I met the Executive Director of Greenpeace USA in the Oakland Airport by pure synchronicity. I love it when spirit is conspires to give you a great experience. A funny thing happened on the way home from Luxembourg...

Yes... Luxembourg. It's the tiny country wedged between France, Germany and Belgium... why was I in Luxembourg? Greenpeace called and asked if I wanted to possibly get arrested in Europe. I didn't even know where I was going until I arrived in DC on Monday - Greenpeace is excellent at confidentiality - and all I knew was that I was going somewhere to do something that might get me arrested. Trust - it's one thing that keeps you away from apprehension. And there is no time for fear or hesitancy when there's a planet to save.

This was the largest action that Greenpeace has ever done. Over 600 activists from 31 countries, speaking 19 languages converged on Luxembourg to shut down every Exxon (called Esso in Europe) gas station in the country. We shut down 28 stations for over 12 hours. We converged on them at 6am - locking the pumps together with kryptonite bike locks and handcuffing ourselves to the pumps. Climbers got on top of the station roof to unfurl banners that read "Esso - Number One Climate Criminal" in various languages. We caution-taped off the station - set up banners and signs to block the entrances - and then proceeded to hand out leaflets, stickers and lollipops that said "Esso Sucks". There were people in Tiger costumes (the Exxon mascot) and George Bush masks - and at our station there was a 15 foot high Statue of Liberty with a smoking torch that said "Freedom to Pollute".

America is the number 1 polluter in the world - and the most resistant to pollution regulation. That's why Greenpeace has singled out Exxon – they have derailed the international agreement on global warming (the Kyoto Protocol) and wrote the useless alternative that Bush proposed. They told Bush (in a letter leaked to the press) that he should not attend the UN Earth Summit in Johannesburg because it would give credibility to the “Anti-freedom environmentalists". Exxon has not put one dime into renewable energy, has abused human rights in Indonesia, is building a pipeline through Tibet, and has attempted to discredit the environmental movement for speaking out against climate change.

Europeans are very savvy about climate change - this summer there were huge floods in Europe - submerging vast areas of Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic. The photos of glaciers from 100 years ago show the change in black and white - yet Exxon still produced a report signed by 17,000 "scientists" (including the forged signatures of scientists like The Spice Girls, bugs bunny, etc) that stated that global warming has nothing to do with humans. Bollocks. Exxon are in the Axis of Evil - they have GW Bush in their pocket and they only care about protecting their profit margin. So we shut down all their stations in Luxembourg. No profit that day. It's like Lysistrata (no sex til you end the war, boys)...No money unless you behave!

Luxembourg was an excellent target - not only is the country tiny - but it also has the cheapest gas in Europe - so truckers go out of their way to fuel there. The largest Esso station in the world is there - and Greenpeace shut it down for 14 hours. Most of the people and police were nice and supportive - Europeans know Greenpeace and respect what we do. They hate GW Bush's bullying tactics and realize that the corporate monster of America is killing the planet. We got lots of smiles and waves - even from truckers. At our station, the manager just closed the shop and did inventory - he even let us use the bathroom.

The day before the action I was at the convergence center doing check-in at the front door. It was very much like Seattle - the energy was high, it was raining and the people were diverse as they come. French men with handlebar moustaches, Romanian kids with dreadlocks, long haired Lebanese hippies, elegant Dutch ladies and Finnish punk rockers. That night we split into our groups and got the plans and the checked out our materials. It was also very much like an AIDS Ride - passenger vans and trucks full of gear - and the vibe of doing good against all odds. The big difference was that EVERYONE smoked. Europeans smoke like crazy. Like coffee and sugar cane, it's the Native curse that haunts the colonial cultures. I kept telling the Greenpeace activists that Phillip Morris is the 2nd most evil corporation in the world. Duh.

I love the work that Greenpeace does - they are the greatest non-violent direct action organization in the world. If you aren't a Greenpeace member yet - go to www.greenpeaceusa.org/join/ and if you would like more info on how evil Exxon is go to www.dontbuyexxonmobil.org and download the Denial and Deception report. It's shocking how immoral these corporations are - the Karma Banque will be foreclosing on them soon. There's no doubt. Check out www.karmabanque.com - it's up to us to stop these evil corporations from destroying the planet in the name of their personal gain. And it's also up to us to have FUN while doing it!

Buy locally, eat slowly, dream big, dance all the time and don't succumb to the convincing illusion of grimness.