Greenpeace

 Lauren Kett is currently in the Spring 2011 Greenpeace Semester in San Francisco. She is a sophomore at the University of Florida studying Advertising with a minor in Business and Art History.

 

Why Famima!!? Why now? When deciding if I support a campaign I like to know all the background information.

 

Famima!! is a convenience store with 9 locations in the greater LA area and is owned by Family Mart, the only Japanese retail sector that carries whale meat on their shelves and is the third largest convenience store in Japan. Greenpeace demands that Family Mart take this whale meat off their inventory lists. Famima!! does not sell whale on their shelves but they do support whaling by being a part of Family Mart who does. Famima!! has the opportunity to tell Family Mart that if they want to have successful expansion in the United States they need to stop profiting off illegal whale hunts.

 

So what is in the cans of whale meat? Minke whales. These gentle mammals are the smallest and most abundant of the baleen whales. Minke whales are very curious creatures, active at the surface of water and can be found investigating stationary boats, making them extremely vulnerable to attack. These slender whales have two blowholes and are seasonal feeding carnivores that spend late winter and early spring mating and migrating.

   

Newborn whales can instinctively swim within 10 seconds of their first breath and can stay with their mother for up to a year or longer. To nourish themselves they filter small plankton, krill, and small fish through their bristle like teeth as they dive on average for 6-12 minutes. Minke whales are not yet endangered because their small size didn’t interest whalers until recently- since the larger species have been over-hunted. Although Minke whales have a relatively substantial population this will not last long if illegal whaling continues in Japan. With the help of Famima!! we can stop convenience stores from stocking whale meat and one day stop the slaughter of whales altogether!

 

Now a quick lesson on whaling history:

First put into commercial practice when their body oil was in demand in the 19^th century for lamps and then into the 20^th century dawned the desire for their meat. The anti-whaling movement and International Whaling Commission formed in the 1970’s and after that, 95% of the population was depleted in several species.  A moratorium (ban) on commercial whaling was put in place in 1982 to stop commercial whaling by 1986 and has been in place ever since. Unfortunately there was a loophole- “scientific research”. In 1987 the Japanese sent out ships, equipment, and crew in the same locations as previously used for whaling, though now blazed with ‘Research’ painted on their JARPA (Japanese Research Program in Antarctica) vessels. 2005 came around and JARPA-II was introduced, increasing their Minke whale quota to 900 and adding the endangered Fin whale. Naturally, this caused an out roar from anti-whaling nations but has yet to make a true impact in stopping Japan from whaling. 

 

To this day the Japanese whaling industry continues. We have the opportunity to pressure Famima!! and tell Family Mart to stop selling whale meat. The launch of this campaign represents a huge step in the right direction to stop whaling internationally. We all can make a difference by spreading the word and applying consumer pressure by telling Famima!! US consumers Americans will not support a company that profits off illegal whale hunts.

 

Click here to find out more information on how you can help save the whales. 

 

Show your support for our campaign by following our twitter:

http://twitter.com/Fameana

 

 

From Mary Sweeters, director of the Greenpeace Semester:

As an activist, I’m a firm believer that people hold the power to make change in the world.  The cynic’s response to this is that only money or political gaming ever has any real influence on changes we see in the world.  And yes, those factor in, considerably, but we can't undersell ourselves. I truly believe that humanity’s willingness to stand up for what is right, to struggle in the face of adversity, and to persevere when the odds are not in our favor, are our greatest character traits.  These traits give us the wherewithal to change  destructive corporate practices that endanger people’s lives and destroy our environment; they spur the masses to fight back against despots and corrupt governments; they shape the world we’re giving to future generations.

As the director of the Greenpeace Semester, I'm also a firm believer in the power that young people have to make change.  And I'm talking real change, right now.  I'm grateful for and inspired by history's young people - students of the Free Speech Movement or the thousands in Tienanmen Square - but I am most excited and motivated by the youth of today who are taking real action on a large scale. 

The last six weeks have shown us what the youth of today are capable of doing.  They’re literally leading revolutions – sharing advice about demonstrations on Facebook and emphasizing non-violence - that are ousting decades-old regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

They're galvanizing support - for weeks on end - around the unions and people of Wisconsin who are fighting back against a corporate-sponsored crackdown on workers' rights in the name of balancing a budget.  

They're also standing up on their own, like Tim DeChristopher, with bold and direct action in the name of our communities and our environment - and in doing so, putting a fire under an environmental movement that is ripe for escalation. 

When I talk with the students spending their spring here in San Francisco with the Greenpeace Semester, it's clear they're ready to get back to their communities and campuses and get down to business.  They're smart, they're plugged in, and they're about to join their peers across the country who are already starting revolutions for the planet.  

The Greenpeace Semester students (pictured at right) are on the road as I write this, mobilizing to protect whales from being slaughtered for meat in convenience stores (hard to believe it, but this is a real problem). Look out for updates from them in the coming week and follow them on Twitter (@GPSemester).

 

Melanie Metal is in the current Spring 2011 Greenpeace Semester class here in San Francisco. She is a sophomore at the University of Florida and is majoring in Geography with a minor in Environmental Studies and Climatology/Meteorology studies. Check out her blog below!

 

 

If there is anything that I love as much as the environment, chances are it’s Facebook. So when I found out that the servers Facebook uses to support its massive 500 million active users are run off of electricity generated by coal—one of the dirtiest sources of energy and greatest contributors to global climate change—it immediately became hard for me to reconcile my two interests.

Online social networking has revolutionized our lives and the way we communicate. Facebook allows my generation to view each other’s lives in a way that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. People can post pictures, comments, and any thought that comes to their mind for their friends to see. So if Facebook is so revolutionary, why haven’t they revolutionized themselves and made the switch to clean renewable energy?

Greenpeace is calling for Facebook to go green and coal-free by 2021. On February 14, 2011 my Greenpeace Semester classmates and I were given the opportunity to kick off the “Unfriend Coal” campaign. Facebook’s workforce is young, smart, and exciting, and Greenpeace is willing to bet that they care about environmental issues just as much as we do, and wouldn’t want to work for a company that is contributing to global climate change. Here at Greenpeace we urge Facebook’s staff to encourage their company to use clean energy and go coal free.

We went to Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California to hand out Valentines to Facebook employees. Waking up at 5:30 A.M. suddenly became worthwhile when employees began to roll down their car windows to accept the heart-shaped lollipops we offered them. Each treat had a Twitter address printed on the wrapper, @GPheartsFB, which directed tech-savvy employees to an account designed to brief them on the “Unfriend Coal” campaign and what they could do as individuals to change their company’s policies.

 

 

Almost every staffer driving, biking, and walking into work accepted our Valentines! Not only was Facebook’s staff kind and grateful for their lollipops, they went so far as to bring breakfast treats and umbrellas outside to us on the street. As I stood at the top of the Facebook driveway, a few staffers approached my classmate Lauren and I to ask about our campaign and offer their help and take our photo. They were genuinely curious about what we had to say and wanted to know more about the dirty energy source their company was using and how they could help to quit coal.

Facebook is one of the most influential companies in existence today, which puts them in a unique and influential position. If Facebook goes green, they will set an unbelievable precedent for other internet-based companies to follow. Go coal free, Facebook, just think of how many more people will “like” you!

Support Greenpeace’s efforts in style in an Unfriend Coal tee shirt!

Make sure to take action today and "like" our "Unfriend Coal" page on Facebook 

Ren Ostry is a Greenpeace Semester alum from the fall 2010 class and a  current campus coordinator at Ithaca College with the Greenpeace Student Network.  Read her story below! 

The second largest palm oil company in the world has finally heeded to a global Greenpeace campaign that included Greenpeace youth, and I’m happy to announce that the palm oil branch of Sinar Mas, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), has agreed to stop deforestation in the Indonesian rainforest!

This win is not only huge for Indonesia, for our planet, and for our future, but for the youth activists at Greenpeace as well. The forest campaigns that targeted Burger King, Nestle, and Unilever were won with the help of dedicated Greenpeace youth activists who organized and demanded that these companies stop supporting rainforest destruction.

Last fall, I had the incredible opportunity to join this campaign with my Greenpeace Semester class. We went to Philadelphia to carry out a week of actions outside various Pizza Huts and insist that they join the ranks of Burger King and the others by cutting their contract with GAR. We collected hundreds of postcards, drove calls in to Pizza Hut Headquarters, made “Pizza Cut” props and uniforms, and dressed as orangutans that were protesting to save their brothers and sisters back in Indonesia.

We didn’t see Pizza Hut fold that week, but so many managers passed our message along that the company made plans to fly a regional manager in to find out what was going on! I was so pumped by our week of actions that I couldn’t stop there. When I got home after the Greenpeace Semester, I hosted a pizza party.  A local pizza parlor donated a few pies, and I took the opportunity to share with my friends and family what was going on in Indonesia. We pledged to begin eating more local and sustainable foods that are healthier for us and for our planet, and we made phone calls to companies that hold contracts with GAR.

The look on the managers’ faces in Philadelphia when they learned what their companies were doing, and the passion that erupted in my own community as people made the choice to be mindful and think globally about their purchases, inspired me so deeply. I have seen first hand through this campaign what we are capable of if we continue to inspire and educate each other!

I am now campus coordinator at Ithaca College for the Greenpeace Student Network. I’m grateful that I have this opportunity to continue to motivate and aggregate youth activists. I’ve seen directly through this campaign that if you take the time to educate and embrace a cause, others will follow suit. Our generation is one of reclamation, and we will not let the corruption, greed, and naiveté in this world continue. From saving the rainforests of Indonesia to demanding a coal-free Facebook, I can promise you that there are young people fighting for a greener and more peaceful future every day.

Camry Haskins is a student in the Spring Greenpeace Semester class here in San Francisco. She is originally from the bay area and is currently a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Her post was sparked after Casson Trenor, Greenpeace USA Seafood Market Campaigner, came to give a briefing to her class last week. Check out her story below!

On Monday, January 31st 2011, I found myself standing in front of the seafood counter at Whole Foods.  My attention was captivated by the transparent rating system that lets customers know which fish are the best and most sustainable fish to purchase.  What really struck me about one of the tags was that it read “not yet rated."  As I looked down the counter I quickly realized that around half the fish were labeled in this manner.  I don’t know about you, but in my life the use of “not yet rated” is rarely a positive thing.  It lead me to envision movies that lean in the direction of pornographic, children’s video games with graphic violence, language and abuse, and the power to keep selling something because you have yet to include a negative attachment.

So when Casson Trenor, the Seafood Market Campaigner at Greenpeace came to speak to my Greenpeace Semester class, I knew that I had to ask him about it.  I learned that my concerns were not unwarranted.  If the marking is unclear then you should just stay away.   Whole Foods is a store that ranks high on Greenpeace’s rating system.  In fact, they rate as third from the top.  This means that there are seventeen other stores that fall below Whole Foods in sustainable seafood purchases.  Now I don’t know about you, but in my opinion, if the third highest supermarket is confusing in their sustainable seafood options, then there must be room for even more improvement.

So who’s the highest in the ranking?  No it’s not Trader Joe’s, though it has recently risen to number five in the ranking.  Target is surprisingly perched at the top of the sustainability totem pole. Generally shopped at for its cheap household gadgets, electronics and clothing, Target now also boasts one of the most sustainable seafood selections around.  So next time you are casually shopping through Target and get a seafood craving you have no need to worry about driving to another store; just walk over to the grocery section and grab yourself some wild Salmon and feel good about the fact that you are taking a step in promoting sustainability.

Check out this Supermarket Seafood Sustainability Scorecard, but note that none of the supermarkets on the list rank higher than a pass rating.  This means that there is still a ways to go before we reach complete sustainability!  Before your next grocery shopping trip, check out which fish you should keep off your dining room table!