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Greenpeace

Entry 473, on 2007-02-09 at 14:59:28 (Rating 2, Comments)

Yesterday I was stopped in the street by a member of Greenpeace who wanted a donation to support their activities here in New Zealand. I got into a conversation with this person and we talked about various Greenpeace policies, and why I supported some but not others.

Greenpeace are often criticised for having too extreme views and they no doubt lose some support because of that. I don't reject some of their policies because of how extreme they are, but because of the logic and science (or lack of) behind them.

For example, they are strongly against genetic engineering, but I think this is a technology with a lot of promise for the future. Unfortunately, it has a rather bad reputation, maybe due to people watching too many science fiction horror movies. I call it the "Frankenstein syndrome" and it refers to areas of research where people think science shouldn't interfere, because there could be "terrible consequences". While there is some justification in these beliefs, generally they are unfounded.

Nuclear power is another technology in this category and is also rejected by Greenpeace. I recognise that there are big potential problems with atomic fission, but I don't see a realistic alternative so we may not have a lot of choice right now, so I currently disagree with Greenpeace on that one too.

There are many Greenpeace policies I do agree with, and I have been a supporter for many years, but no organisation is ever going to get everything right, so I choose which issues to support them on and which to ignore, based on the facts. I do the same thing with political parties. No party has only good or only bad ideas, so I support the idea, not the party.

But it is important that all alternative ideas are made public, so I support the organisations which promote them. For example, I vote for the Green Party because I want their ideas to be part of our political system, not because I agree with everything they do. I don't know how good a government the Greens would be - and I'll probably never find out because they will never be a majority party - but their influence on bigger parties is important. That's the great thing about the proportional representation system we have in New Zealand: we get a good mix of ideas from various areas of politics.

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