John Passacantando, Executive Director, Greenpeace USA.
July 2008

VYS: You've been described as a "one time" conservative. What was your personal "aha" moment that took you on this activist path?

JP: It was a couple of things. I grew up hiking, fishing, canoeing and camping with my family in Northern New Jersey and Maine in the summers. I loved the big wild from an early age. While in college during the Reagan years I felt like I had missed the era of great movements, especially the Civil Rights Movement which I loved to study and still read about today. Coming back from college I saw development rolling over my old fishing holes at the same time I was selling Go-Go economics analysis to big institutional investors. A great friend of mine was giving me used books (I’ve always read voraciously) and they comprised the environmental cannon: Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Ed Abbey, John Muir… This stuff was quite at odds with the research I was selling and the graduate work I was doing in economics at NYU.

The “aha” moment was probably seeing a newspaper article on an Earth First action, one image was of the image of the crack they had rolled down Glen Canyon Dam. The other was a gas mask draped over the Mount Rushmore image of George Washington to protest air pollution. It all came together, a great and worthy movement, defending the big wild and activists who used some zany tactics and humor. I wanted in. 

VYS: What were the compelling factors that led you to start OZONE ACTION and how did the merger with Greenpeace come about?

JP: I had a great job running a foundation, the Florence and John Schumann Foundation and one of the issue areas was the environment. From that job I could see an inch deep and a mile wide, an amazing perspective of an environmental movement that was healthy and diverse and was inspiring to me as what I had read about the Civil Rights Movement. But I wanted into the trenches, I wanted to campaign against the polluters and I wanted fight against the biggest threat of our times, the global ecological threats, especially global warming. Working on this seemed like my generation’s equivalent of fighting Hitler. 

 VYS: What people or events have most influenced your own journey as an activist?

JP: It’s people more so than events. My parents are tops. They gave me all that early exposure to the big wild, taught me to respect it and gave me a love for the written word which lets you access the minds, philosophies and landscapes of a thousand lifetimes. Friend Martin Rapp gave me all those environmental books that I read, high school earth science teacher Neil Holzman started showing me how this physical world fit together and then a bounty of friends and allies within the philanthropic community and the activist community. And then it’s mentors. I’ve had more great ones than most people do in a lifetime because I learned early how to seek them out. Seek out the people you admire, people you want to be like when you grow up, people who inspire you, then start asking them big questions. Some of them will turn into great mentors. Then of course return the favor when people come to you with questions. It’s an age old secret.  

VYS: On the Greenpeace website you say, "IN THE END PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT IS ABOUT VERY CLEAR CHOICES." What do you believe is the single best 'clear choice' we can make to help reduce our environmental footprint?

JP: I didn’t write that. Somebody smarter than me must have. The choices are not all that clear to me. Lots and lots of choices is more like it. Buy a Prius? Not if you are a single person living near a train stop. Got nine kids in the mountains? You probably need a big SUV. So we need first to care about stopping this global ecological wreck and then ask lots of questions about how we can best engage, farmers market or supermarket organic? River cleanup or write your congressman? What are your spheres of influence? Ask questions about the things you love and then figure out how you want to engage. Environmental groups can give you lots of answers, but you have to ask those questions first.  

VYS: In April 2001 you presented a speech "Global Warming: Building a National Movement," where was that and of course 9/11 followed but has that message changed since then? If so, how?

JP: I give lots of speeches and have no idea where I gave that one but the challenge remains the same, only we are closer to a real movement now on global warming. Bill McKibben and the Middlebury students showed deep interest across the country to engage on global warming. Corporate leaders, governors, mayors, students are diving in. There was only one role 9/11 played in this. It gave the Bush Administration and its corporate backers a five-year window to ignore global warming and delay action while they scared the country about the terror threat. The country has awakened from this manipulation finally and we’re back in business. Only now immediate action is even more important. We lost five years to ExxonMobil.   

VYS: Please address the perception of labels given to environmentalists: from the more benign "tree huggers" - to fear provoking "terrorists" -- is property destruction in name of environmental justice ever a legitimate political tool as demonstrated by such groups  ELF and ALF ?

JP: I gave a talk at the National War College once, a senior program from emerging leaders from all branches of the military, CIA, USAID and others to get appropriate graduate level training for the next stages of their careers. One high level military fellow called me a terrorist. I responded by saying, “You’ve got the right of free speech, you can call me that if you want to. I just want to make sure you understand what you are saying. Greenpeace has been operating around the world for 36 years and we have a perfect record of never causing harm to people OR property. Do you still want to call me a terrorist? What then is your definition? You want to brand me a terrorist because we engage in free speech, peaceful blockades, exposing polluting corporations.” He looked grumpy but he backed down.

As for property destruction, NO, it’s not a legitimate tool, it scares people, drives away the base we need to organize. Property destruction gives the government an excuse to shut down your activities. It’s totally counterproductive. Terror is what lazy, angry, disempowered people engage in. Love is the force more powerful. Gandhi and King taught us that.

 VYS: Is there any single action from past initiatives that you would do differently if you could?

JP: I voted for Ralph Nader in 2004 and even though I voted in Virginia, not a close state, it’s still pretty stupid. It’s not that I think the Democratic Party is so much better than the Republican Party, it’s just that when it comes to politics in America, it’s a two-party system and if you are going to mess around with reformers, which always intrigues me, you better make sure it doesn’t give you a fascist like George Bush as a consequence. We’re gonna be paying for this president for generations.  

 VYS: I often see the street teams of volunteers in NYC asking people for signatures or donations - how effective is this?

JP: Hugely effective. These guys raise us money which runs our operations. Remember, we take no government or corporate dough, so finding people one at a time gives us complete independence. It’s very hard work but it enables us to talk with thousands of people every day, find great talent to come into all parts of the Greenpeace operation and NOBODY can call me and say, “Stop this campaign.” We’re independent.  

 VYS:  What has been the most difficult for you aside from managing so many people? How do worldwide chapters interact?

JP: Greenpeace offices around the world are coordinated through Greenpeace International in the Netherlands. It is tough to develop comprehensive global efforts that we can roll out across dozens of countries. It’s also the Holy Grail of global environmental protection so it is worth all the effort.   

 VYS: Do you think the film INCONVENIENT TRUTH has helped to wake up this country to the treacherous path we are on?

JP: Hell yeah. I think it was McKibben said the twin hurricanes of Katrina and Gore broke through to the public on global warming like nothing else in the last decade.  

 VYS: Are boycotts an effective tool? Can you give us any concrete examples since both Exxon and Kimberly-Clark have been targeted yet Exxon just announced the greatest profits margins?

JP: Corporate pressure certainly works. We just moved Apple to promising greener products, The Rainforest Action Network and Forest Ethics do this stuff exclusively. Actually going to a boycott is only effective if you can really pull it off and it has been threatened, more like bluffed, too many times. Exxon is still rolling in the dough but they now have a permanent problem given that our research shows it to be the key player funding the front groups that try to downplay global warming, even confusing the public on the science. You can see all our research at: ExxonSecrets.

VYS: You have many accomplishments to your name while at Greenpeace, what are you most proud of? What are most important initiatives for the coming year?

JP: There are many campaign efforts that I have loved having our teams take part in, fighting for the Cape Wind farm off Massachusetts, making Apple a greener company, protection for the Amazon and dozens of others, but I am most proud of our efforts to find and train new recruits for these efforts, specifically a semester long program called the Greenpeace Organizing Term where college students come and do a semester with us and learn a whole range of advocacy skills. Campaign victories last until the bad guys roll them back and you start all over. A successfully trained new activist keeps fighting their whole career. 

 VYS: Since Laura & I are vegans, we are often asked about how the cattle industry contributes to global warming - can you shed some light on this issue?

JP: I still may not be mature enough to answer this question with a straight face, we’re talking about cow burps and farts, not to mention the ills of hormones and antibiotics used in industrial farming.   

 VYS:  What have you learned the most from your years of leading Greenpeace?

JP: The best laid plans go to hell when you least expect it, you win when you shouldn’t, people are nearly impossible to manage but can be led when you are not an asshole, the less seriously you take yourself the more useful you are. The ancient Chinese philosophers had all this stuff figured out 2,500 years ago but it may be our lot to make a hash of things trying to relearn all this stuff.  

 VYS: As fathers, I know we both think about how our actions influence our children to care for this planet. Can you tell us about your own daughter's first steps in following your example of environmental activism?

JP: My daughters inspire me in this work because, just like the poets say, you can see God in the eyes of a baby. I really don’t want my girls to follow in my footsteps, I want to support them to follow their own hearts. But my eight-year old  Mollie was inspired to get people to write the Fish and Wildlife Service to push for listing of the polar bear as endangered after reading an article in Time Magazine for Kids. She created a blog, spoke at a rally and got close to two hundred letters submitted. She was determined and inspirational and all I did was spend 30 minutes showing her how to set up a blog on google. All her stuff is here for you to enjoy.

VYS: How does the internet impact your work and those of all activists?

JP: The internet is simply a new platform, that happens to be global, for people to engage, create and expand their social networks. Think of it like a giant old boys club, quilting club, fraternity or garden club. Information goes both ways, it’s not a television. It’s a whole new way of engaging with people but it challenges us to “engage” not “tell.” There are a number of marvelous examples out there but it really is the wild west, constantly changing, no fixed rules yet for what works and what doesn’t. My favorite philosopher for understanding the web is Marty Kearns co-founder of the Green Media Toolshed who teaches organizations about this stuff. Much of his thinking is set forth in his essay, Network-Centric Advocacy.

VYS:  Franklin Roosevelt once said, "government by organized money is as much to be feared as a government by organized mob."  Again, big business pushes a relentless assault on green issues and basically owns this administration - leading to calamitous consequences. Do you think most voters understand this and simply refuse to cross party lines because of loyalty? How else can you explain that even conservative Christians, who do care about the planet, remain committed to this administration? How is it possible that people and politicians in particular can claim that caring for the earth is a matter of being on the left or right?

JP: To a great degree I think the left/right, blue/red, conservative/liberal distinction is crap. The political parties have had these convenient litmus test issues like abortion or social security, remember communism, now its terrorists mostly designed to keep the public scared and disengaged while corporate interests loot the planet with the help of politicians from both parties. Parenthetically, however, there are always some key independent leaders from both parties, Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer come to mind, so do Chuck Hegal and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But weak politicians are merely a reflection of a cowardly public. George Bush is a coward and a nation of cowards nearly elected him the first time and seem to have (unless the charges of fraud which look more real every day) elected him the second time. The take away for me is to keep educating and organizing, pushing and causing trouble and the American public will finally tire of having cowardly leadership.  

VYS: Do you think Iraq and Afghanistan constitute oil wars and are these the first of many or will we turn the corner on our energy addictions?

JP: They are both oil wars and wars driven by a neoconservative ideology, a Taliban like extremism that convinced itself, and the President that US values could dominate the world through force. The result? Bush is going to be the first president in US history to lose TWO wars and still the oil supply isn’t secure for the US auto fleet. We’re not turning the corner yet but we are closer. Maybe at five dollars a gallon we’ll make the turn. If a teetering nation like Saudi Arabia gets toppled one of these days we’ll have five dollar oil overnight and then we’ll be making the turn. 

VYS: In closing, is there anything I’ve left that you’d like to address?

JP: Activism can seem so tedious when we focus on bad politicians and greedy corporations. To me it’s simply about finding that which you love and then getting the skills to defend it from harm. You may ultimately be helping to get votes out of to cut a corporation off at the knees, but at heart it should be about protecting something you love, like our beautiful planet home, hence the expression, “labor of love.” 

The largest environmental organization in the world has its critics but can boast its great achievements.