/IPS ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN/ GREENPEACE: ‘SmILE’ – it’s Environmentally Friendly

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 17 1996 (IPS) - Greenpeace rolled out its ‘SmILE’ Tuesday – a new energy-conscious automobile produced after two years of development by Swiss engineers commissioned by the international environmental organisation.

The car, basically a Renault Twingo, has been converted to a “Small, Intellgigent, Light Efficient (SmILE)” vehicle which consumes only half the orginal petrol consumption and has greately reduced exhaust emissions.

The performance of the Twingo SmILE provided a challenge to global car manufactures to produce similarly fuel efficient vehicles by applying the same design principles to all cars, a Greenpeace official said at the launch ceremony in Lucerne, Switzerland.

“We are not here to promote cars, but to demonstrate that the automobile industry is obstructing feasible technology which would help prevent dangerous climate change,” said Greenpeace International Executive Director Thilo Bode. “The carbon dioxide emissions of the car sector cannot continue to be ignored if governments are to meet their exisiting commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Twingo SmILE is capable of travelling 36 kilometres on a litre of fuel – twice the efficiency of the original. The two- cylinder engine developed by Wenko, a Swiss engineering company,so re-uses the exhaust to provide “supercharged” power.

While Greenpeace was providing yet another challenge to world industrialists, it was not all smiles within the organisation itself and some activists claimed the new car represented another step in the gradual transformation of Greenpeace from a radical protest organisation to a mainstream lobbying group focused on non- confrontational issues.

The launching of the SmILE came at a time when Greenpeace has dropped a number of protest campaigns against major multinational petroleum corporations, such as Chevron and Shell, causing several activists to leave the organisation.

The SmILE, intended to be a prototype for others to copy, also made its debut despite warnings from many scientists that it is time to switch to alternatives to fossil fuels, the emissions from which are one of the major causes of the greenhouse effect that is gradually warming the planet.

The launch itself appeared to have divided the organisation at the highest levels.

“We don’t agree with Greenpeace International on that (the car),” said Barbara Dudley, the head of Greenpeace USA.

“I understand that it is important to show that it is possible to make a car that is many, many times more efficient than what is on the streets – and it is possible today,” Dudley said. ” But what it is does not address at all, is the fact that public transportation is much more preferable.”

Since its founding 25 years ago, Greenpeace has made its name with eye-catching protests that included following ships carrying nuclear waste and sending professional climbers to scale buildings, such as the World Bank, to drop protest banners.

In recent years, however, the oganisation has quietly dropped a number of hard-hitting reports and campaigns apparently because of lack of money and fears of legal problems, environmental observers noted.

For example, Greenpeace played a major role last year in opposing Shell’s oil exploration activities in Nigeria. Working with Amnesty International, Trans-Africa and other groups, it protested the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Ogoni people who live in the oil-rich area.

This year the organisation dropped the campaign, despite the fact that other Ogoni leaders still faced the threat of the gallows because of their opposition to the destruction caused by oil exploration.

One Washington campaigner and another in London resigned from Greenpeace to protest the decision to halt the Shell campaign.

Greenpeace sources said a report on the potential environmental impact of Chevron’s oil exploration in the Kutubu highlands in Papua New Guinea, was never published nor was a report on Rimbunan Hijau, a Malaysian timber multinational, that controls 80 per cent of the logging concessions in the same South Pacific country.

The Australian and British researchers who worked on these reports have since moved to new, smaller organisations to pursue these subjects.

Likewise a massive report on seven major oil corporations, dubbed the ‘Seven Sisters Report’, has been dropped, and the author, who worked in the London office, has since left Greenpeace.

“The problem, and it is a tragic one, is that we don’t have any staff to support this. Our energy campaign is an awful lot smaller, but that is not because we don’t think it is a critical issue, but simply because our income has dropped since 1990,” Dudley said.

Some of the critical issues, on which Greenpeace continues to focus, are in conflict with the priorities and principles of other major environmental organisations, observers said.

For example, over the past few months the San Franscisco-based Earth Island Institute and other organisations have published full- page advertisements in major U.S. newspapers condemning new legislation that would allow tuna trawlers to kill a limited number of dolphins.

The ads indirectly criticised Greenpeace for lending its support to the new law, which is also supported by the governments of Mexico, Colombia, the United States and Venezuela. Earth Island Institute activists alleged that Greenpeace had compromised its principles in its efforts to play the international diplomat.

Some veteran Greenpeace campaigners, meanwhile, complained that the organisation now focussed solely on international issues.

“Greenpeace does far less domestic work today. There is a campaign on a new nuclear power plant in Tennessee, and some good work on fisheries and chlorine-based manufacturing, but this is very different from what it was five years ago,” said one U.S. activist who asked not to be named.

Instead Greenpeace is looking for more mainstream lobbyists to focus on international issues such as support for United Nations conventions on the environment and opposition to the shipping of hazardous waste outside national borders, he said..

“Radical boat actions are what made Greenpeace famous – they are done by teams of people who plan protests that bring front-page photographs by working in complete secrecy,” another ex- campaigner said. “But all of Greenpeace is run by such a secret system of internal politics and this now consumes a large part of the organisation.

“If I worked for a corporation, I would be rubbing my hands in glee at the amount of time they spend arguing among themselves.”

Greenpeace campaigners, who still work for the organisation, remained tight-lipped over the allegations of change.

“If we made our debates public then we might lose our battles,” said one Greenpeace activist who also requested anonymity. “The media does not need to meddle in our affairs because we can solve them ourselves.”