Greenpeace - Fighting for a better world!

Sunday 19 May 2013

        

 Hey everyone! It has been a while, but since we are talking about environment I think this is the perfect time to bring up this topic. So, I don’t know if you know Greenpeace, but I’m pretty sure you do. This independent global campaigning organization is one of the biggest in the world. (To maintain its independence, Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments or corporations but relies on contributions from individual supporters and foundation grants.)  It all started in 1971 when a group of volunteers and journalists sailed into Amchitka, an area of north Alaska where the US government was conducting underground nuclear tests.

         There’s been a time where I was very interested in this organization and at that time I did lots of research about it, talking about environmental issues in our class led me to go and see what they are doing right know. As usually, there are plenty of problems which they are trying to solve. They mean to protect and preserve our planet by:

·         Catalyzing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change.

·         Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves.

·         Protecting the world's ancient forests and the animals, plants and people that depend on them.

·         Working for disarmament and peace by tackling the causes of conflict and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

·         Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today's products and manufacturing.

·       Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by rejecting genetically engineered organisms, protecting biodiversity and encouraging socially responsible farming.

We often believe that these non-violent campaigns don’t achieve anything, but that’s not true, in this link you can see for yourself some of  Greenpeace’s victories: www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/victories/.

Right now they are working in several issues. One that called my attention was the fight against General Electric, Hitachi e Toshiba, three of the most important technological companies which built the nuclear reactors of Fukushima. As you may know the natural disasters that occured in Japan in 2011 (earthquake and tsunami) led to the breakdown of these reactors, spreading nuclear radiation and its devastating effects. So far these companies haven’t paid a cent of the cost of the nuclear failure. The cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster is estimated at $250 billion US dollars.

If you are interested in some of these topics stop by the Greenpeace’s page: www.greenpeace.org! It has tons of information about their actions and campaigns. You may get to help some of them if you sign the online petitions, but don’t do it before reading all the facts!

See you around,

Inês Ribas