GREEN MOVEMENT (GREENPEACE)

Green movement/politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism and democracy. It began taking shape in the western world in the 1970s; since then Green parties have developed and established themselves in many countries across the globe, and have achieved some electoral success.

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over 40 countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its work on world wide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling and anti-nuclear issues. Greenpeace uses direct action, lobbying and research to achieve its goals. The global organization does not accept funding from governments, corporations or political parties, relying on more than 2.8 million individual supporters and foundation grants.

Greenpeace evolved from the peace movement and anti-nuclear protests in Vancouver, British Columbia in the early 1970s. In a few years Greenpeace spread to several countries and started to campaign on other environmental issues such as commercial whaling and toxic waste.

On its official website, Greenpeace defines its mission as the following: Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organization that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by:

1) Catalysing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change.

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

3) Protecting the world’s remaining ancient forests which are depended on by many animals, plants and people.

4) Working for disarmament and peace by reducing dependence on finite resources and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

5) Creating a toxin free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today's products and manufacturing.

6) Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by encouraging socially and ecologically responsible farming practices.

Currently Greenpeace considers global warming to be the greatest environmental problem facing the Earth. Greenpeace calls for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak in 2015 and to decrease as close to zero as possible by 2050. For this Greenpeace calls for the industrialized countries to cut their emissions at least 40% by 2020 (from 1990 levels) and to give substantial funding for developing countries to build a sustainable energy capacity, to adapt to the inevitable consequences of global warming, and to stop deforestation by 2020.

Greenpeace is known for its direct actions and has been described as the most visible environmental organization in the world. Greenpeace has raised environmental issues to public knowledge, influenced both the private and the public sector. Greenpeace has also been a source of controversy; its motives and methods have received criticism and the organization's direct actions have sparked legal actions against Greenpeace activists. Recently there has been a lot of criticism that Greenpeace today is motivated by politics rather than science and that none of his "fellow directors had any formal science education".

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