At Last. Greenpeace is Facing Racketeering (RICO) Charges
Writing about Greenpeace, lately, I made it sound like the mailed fist of environmentalism with a mission to smash all that is not “natural,” which means, for example, genetically modified organisms (GMO), but, more ambitiously, modern industrial society and economic prosperity, as such, whether in industrialized countries or, like China and India, countries striving for industrial revolution to lift their populations out of poverty and famine.
The aggressive Resolute lawsuit, charging Greenpeace with racketeering, in a U.S. court of law, reflects a kind of outrage by Resolute at having been so “green” and still defamed by Greenpeace.
This is an accurate characterization of Greenpeace. Its co-founder, Dr. Patrick Moore, built the fledgling organization for 15 years, but then went into opposition, declaring “Greenpeace and much of the environmental movement were declaring humans the enemies of the earth … I had to leave.”
Now, he is against Greenpeace and all its works, including its blocking use of GMO Golden Rice, which could save millions of children in Africa and Asia from going blind, then dying, of Vitamin A deficiency. Some 107 Nobelists in science agree with Dr. Moore, signing a letter addressed to Greenpeace that pleads with the organization to stop blocking Golden Rice.
You sure would not know any of this if you visited the Greenpeace Web site. Greenpeace purrs like a kitten about peace, a healthy world, a green future for our children. You scarcely would know that they have an enemy. I caught myself with the admittedly sexist thought that this tone might reflect the new leadership of Greenpeace: CEOs “Bunny” McDiarmid and Jennifer Morgan.
Not to worry, Greenpeace raises its $250-million-dollar annual budget, making it one of the world’s richest nonprofit organizations, by painting a landscape of peaceful green forests, pristine oceans, and happy, smiling indigenous peoples.
You cannot accept the fundamental premises of your opponents and expect to win the argument.
But that is not Greenpeace.
In 2013, Resolute Forest Products, a Canadian company that is the world’s largest producer of the newsprint upon which all newspapers, magazines, and book publishers depend, filed a defamation suit against Greenpeace in Ontario, Canada, Superior Court, which is still making its way through the court system there.
Then, as recently as May, the company filed a federal racketeering suit against Greenpeace in the United States. In a September 16 article in Investor’s Business Daily, publisher and former U.S. Presidential candidate, Steve Forbes, commented on the case:
“…environmental activist organizations have unfairly inflicted huge economic harm on businesses by spreading misinformation and unfounded fearmongering. They are engaging in economic warfare on an international scale.
“…too often businesses have made the strategic mistake of avoiding engagement to limit the damage of the attacks. It is time businesses go on the offensive and use every lever available to expose and stop this massive, well-coordinated and dangerous fraud…”
In its lawsuit charging Greenpeace with racketeering, Resolute alleges that “Greenpeace and others working with it have aggressively targeted Resolute’s customers with extortive threats and other illegal conduct. To identify those customers, Greenpeace employees and agents have impersonated Resolute employees, its customers, and others to illegally misappropriate proprietary customer and supply chain information.”
Resolute President and CEO Richard Garneau said: “We have an obligation to our business ethics, and our many shareholders, customers, partners, and stakeholders to draw the line after all other means have been exhausted.”
Forbes points to the way that companies attacked by Greenpeace have “ceded the battle in the so-called court of public opinion and allowed the activists to frame the debate.”
Resolute has made an extraordinary effort to respond to environmentalist concerns. It has received many distinguished awards for doing so. That actually may explain the Greenpeace attack. Resolute has proclaimed in every way that it shares the premises of environmentalism. In the Web site created to keep the public informed of its racketeering suit against Greenpeace, Resolute says—and I am going to quote at some length because, in effect, Resolute is pleading that it is the perfect environmental forest-products company:
“Resolute has planted well over a billion trees in the Boreal–which is a billion more than Greenpeace–and is responsible for virtually no permanent lost forest acreage. The complaint also demonstrates that Resolute also has not impaired the Boreal’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases, and, instead, has improved that ability through harvesting and forestation as recognized and encouraged by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Nor has Resolute abandoned, exploited or impoverished First Nations or other communities within the Boreal forest, but instead–and again unlike Greenpeace–has created and sustained substantial benefits for these peoples through shared economic participation in the forestry business. The complaint also details how, to support its false accusations, Greenpeace has fabricated evidence and events, including, for example, staged photos falsely purporting to show Resolute logging in prohibited areas and as having harvested areas that were actually impacted by fire.”
Greenpeace raises its $250-million-dollar annual budget, making it one of the world’s richest nonprofit organizations, by painting a landscape of peaceful green forests, pristine oceans, and happy, smiling indigenous peoples.
It is piteous, really. Notice that Resolute in trying to defend itself has reinforced all the arguments and demands that keep Greenpeace going. Resolute is pleading that they have done all that Greenpeace could want, complied with demands of environmentalism on every front. How could Greenpeace now be moving in to dictate chapter and verse of what Resolute must do—and defame it for not going far enough? But you cannot accept the fundamental premises of your opponents and expect to win the argument.
Resolute has supplied the entire world with newsprint products for newspapers, magazines, books, and, doubtless, Greenpeace brochures; it has constantly invested in renewing its sources of wood pulp; and it has produced a profit for its shareholders. Its importance is not that it has toed the line for the UNIPCC or engaged in charity or community affairs. Those mean nothing to Greenpeace. That Resolute exists at all—that offends Greenpeace. You cannot compromise with your destroyer. Is your existence negotiable?
My hunch is that the aggressive Resolute lawsuit, charging Greenpeace with racketeering, in a U.S. court of law, reflects a kind of outrage by Resolute at having been so “green” and still defamed by Greenpeace. I see no hint of the racketeering suit on the Greenpeace Web site. It refers to its work with “forests,” but I click on that and the entire discussion is a paean to green forests for our children. Did I somehow miss their explanation to members why they are in court charged with racketeering?
Well, “a man may smile and smile, and be a villain,” so Hamlet learned.
About the Author: Walter Donway
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