KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Peter Wilcox

this is diane warren your host on the sustainability segment of mind over matter is i'm katie xt seattle ninety point the fm i'm overlap and on the web a k x p dido it my guest today is peter wilcox peter has been a captain for greenpeace for more than thirty years the most experienced captain in the organization he has led the most compelling and dangerous greenpeace actions to bring international attention to the destruction of our environment peter wilcox is here to tell us about his book greenpeace captain my adventures in protecting the future of our planet co authored with ronald lee wise and published in twenty sixteen welcome carey thank you to write your book greenpeace captain what is your purpose well i've had a great time i've had a great time doing some things that i hope i have made a difference and it because it's added so much to my life to work for things outside of my own immediate concern because it's made me a happier person wanted to share that with people to encourage other people to do the same thing what prompted you personally to become an activist like this i was

born into it both my grandparents and my mother were before the house un american activities committee i was going to political demonstrations there my first memories so that and being a sailor i'm really just doing what i'm supposed to be doing and how did you become involved with greenpeace life spent five years on the clearwater the boat pete seeger started on the hudson river in new york but taking fifty school kid so sometimes a hundred school kids out a day an environmental program old after awhile so i had read bob hunter's book tours of the rainbow on it absolutely intrigue by their techniques of non violent direct action and just as bright good time to emphasize that greenpeace is completely non violent we do not ever cross that line we also don't do any property damage to the object of the action we can trash your own boats sometimes get injured although we certainly try not to but we have to be very careful not to do that anybody else so i was intrigued by that i think because of my experience in the civil rights movement in the sixties

i felt and i still feel that if you try to change people's minds by alice is not the tool of choice is really that simple so i like greenpeace is now about policies and i liked doing something i like physically doing something so as i said i had read bob hunter's wears of the rainbow and when i read an advertisement the rainbow warrior was in the united states for the first time in nineteen eighty one well i was on board two weeks later what it is does drinking is focus on how i dress or the major issue now is climate change global warming will subduing fisheries issues toxics issues are more than i can remember it now but i think the main focus for everybody now has got to be climate change we already said a bit about this but what is the approach of greenpeace to address environmental issues well reviews became known and cry for the first or second actions of going somewhere witnessing it or in the case of the first wally actions doing in non violent direct action which explained what was going out on that action was of course taking the inflatable

between the harpoon gun and the whale only about twenty percent of what we do now is nonviolent direct action it's what i specialize in is what i spend a lot of my time doing greenpeace well when i started in nineteen eighty one it was a couple hundred people in half a dozen countries and you felt like you knew everybody that was doing everything now with over three thousand full time people and entities offices i guess and fifty five countries were quite a bit bigger and we have labs in england we have lawyers we have lobbyist i think we take it total approach to trying to affect an issue than nine hundred dashes is an important parts are public education tool but we do much more than that say more about what you see as the advantages of direct action well it's a public education dollars two things for it a direct action one it's a public education tool it makes people aware that something's going on as in the case of the whaling happening off the california coast or the dumping nuclear waste at sea or any of the

other things that we exposed quite often see which is where our people can get to them the other important part of non violent protests uses is that it motivates us and this is one of the things i've tried to get across to my book as i said when you do something outside of your own immediate concern especially with a group of people it makes you happier person it gives you a better sense of your role in the world i think in today's world of six billion people it's so easy to feel crushed an insignificant and that there's nothing you could do to make any change but yet we know that small groups are determined people can affect social change often as somebody said is the only thing that does make a difference it's been the experience in my life that it can make a difference and also makes a big difference in our lives we did get one brief overview of the environmental issues you're addressing by the direct action suit up as a greenpeace captain before we go into more

detail the very first one was offshore oil drilling which still seems to be a major issue today and that particular case we actually stopped or oil drilling and georges bank a hugely rich fisheries ground off the cape cod coast and we're successful i think as hard as we've worked for the last thirty five years we have had no other major successes with the offshore oil drilling what's usually seen as completely wrong of course there was the demonstration import one last summer where the greenpeace activists and other activists stop the shell icebreaker from going up to alaska that was a great action so i mean we've been doing offshore oil drilling we've done way and we've done toxic waste and toxic waste transport a third world countries we've done forestry issues and clear cutting issues in british columbia five months ago i was doing a fisheries campaign which can briefly be described by saying sense industrial fisheries have started

in the nineteen seventies or sixties we've removed three quarters of the tuna from the ocean no farmer would ever treat their property the way we treat the ocean the way we allow fishing companies to treat the ocean we hang the oceans are extremely important resource protein source for everybody on the planet and we have a moral obligation to use that resource to their best advantage were not against fishermen we want fishermen to be in business for hundreds of years but they have shown over and over again that they don't have the discipline to treat a species effectively that's another issue so this but what's that can remember it now when there's some examples of the met that you used in your direct action for greenpeace those inflatable of other print gun is one of the best sessions we've ever done it doesn't need a caption often what will do is hold a banner up which is not my favorite activity but it has dramatically good at sex sometimes bordering oil rigs something inside of ships we've done

that two years ago we boarded an oil rig in italy stayed on board for a day and a half which focused public attention on the issue of oil drilling in la so anything we can do to focus public attention to what we're trying to do is get issues and to the public discourse get people talking about something and hopefully we can explain why we're so concerned about an issue where better is not your favorite because the best action doesn't meet a banner explains itself by what you doing but so often i mean we are unable to come up with something to do that so sometimes banners are necessary i am guy and horn and my guest is peter wilcox cooperate with family wise of the book greenpeace captain my adventures in protecting the future of our planet and you are attuned to the sustainability segment of mind over matter is almost mccarthy eckstein it point three of them by marvel out and on the web add k x p nut allergy we do speak about your experience when your ship the

rainbow warrior was flown out by french government forces in nineteen eighty five nineteen eighty five was a year of protesting nuclear testing in the pacific we had just come from the us marshall islands where because of the testing program on to kenya we caught a group of marshall weighs had been intentionally radiated by the us military to test the effects and because their island was contaminated we move into a different one there's a lot more to that story it's still happening today but that was a major action for me personally to learn what my country had done and to see what it down to the people living there from there we went down to new zealander were re provision and head out the french polynesia or the french were testing at more or the french government was significantly nervous about us bringing a large ship to polynesia that they sent a team of divers agents etc upwards of eighteen people to new zealand i had moms on the

outside of the boat and in the process kill the photographer fernando pereira i was in nineteen eighty five we lost the schip than fernando the ages however were caught red handed or less plead guilty and years later when it came out that the orders for the operation were given personally by president matter and so was the operation started right from the top what were some of the direct action says the greenpeace captain to prevent contamination of the environment like toxics the year two thousand we get a six month two words of asia one of the actions was in the philippines where because the us had buried an enormous amount of toxic waste on its military bases which it then gave up people began dying what happened was the us gave up the bases i think it was in the late eighties and nineteen ninety one mount pinatubo exploded in several villages were destroyed in the lava so people move to this park air force base because the air was so dirty because the water was so unsafe

people began getting sick when we got there there was one young girl who had been drawing pictures for our arrival and cruz elle she was in the last stages of some type a leukemia and as she died but she was on board the ship and that was directly because of the waste the us have left on the bases which it knew all about the epa wrote survey in the early nineties detailing what would have to happen on the bases to clean them up that it wasn't very much but it never happened so we went to clark air force base collected a large transformer filled with pc bees boxed it up put it in a very small shipping container and pushed him up against the gates of the us embassy and asked them to take it back course we are arrested but because of that action it was the first and that may be the only time that the philippine senate officially requested that the us clean up the bases and so as that but it was the us that was toxic waste to what extent have your actions as a greenpeace captain

inspired others to take action so my kids into action where we by katie us destroyer carry nuclear weapons coming into denmark and we stopped in the harbor for about seven hours nuclear weapons were banned from denmark at the time that was danish law we're finally taken away by the police but by the time they lifted the anchor up about fifty danish people to jump in the water the dike and stop the destroyer again that's a kind of perfect example of action we're able to motivate people to help you out the most recent action which was just so fantastic for us to say the demonstration import one last summer where the greenpeace activists and other activists stop the shell icebreaker from going up to alaska and i have such high praise for greenpeace usa who i don't always get to work with because i'm on the ship shortly for international but greenpeace usa broke injunction they kept climbers on the bridge and local activists were

inspired by this and inspired by the fact that shell wants to drill for oil in the arctic say that they helped us blocked the icebreaker from coming out and that was wonderful that was just great and i was in a good action that gave a lot of us hope what are some examples of actions that contributed to changes in government or international policy well one of the first was actions that had been happening it was nineteen eighty two we're up on the ice flows of canada and we were lobbying in europe and doing actions against the coding of a baby harp seals there basically skinned alive on the ice in the first couple weeks of life because as sealy point they had this brilliant white coat that used in the fur industry they had not been imported to the us for many years because of the marine mammal protection act that we had been lobbying in europe to get them to band from there and it was in nineteen eighty two that they were banned so that was so clear a clear victory for the stimulus what do you think about your help in the

evacuation of rubble out in nineteen eighty five in the marshall islands you alluded to that earlier but would you go into more detail well in the late nineteen forties and then they can go back even before that in that the us was given the marshall islands after world war two is a strategic trust which meant that it was overseen by the security council were the us has veto power unlike germany which was given to the us france russia and united kingdom as a general trust which ms it was overseen by the general assembly say the us gave itself carte blanche to do i never wanted but the brief was supposed to be that week protect the people build their economy educate them bring them into the twentieth century instead what we did was we made the marshals are testing center for nuclear weapons and we blew up i think over fifty bombs in the northern marshall islands between bikini in a new week that now for the first bombs the atomic bomb tests the people wrong go up atoll which is about a hundred and fifty miles from bikini we move them off from the letters we didn't want

them caught in the fall out and nineteen fifty five the years exploded a bomb which was one thousand times more powerful than the bombs landed at hiroshima nagasaki the people and ron go up a hundred fifty miles away could hear the sound and feel the heat now to remind people listening that most intercontinental ballistic missiles carry six to eight of this size warhead twenty megaton warheads just one of these could be so ault a hundred and fifty miles away and within hours it snowed inches of radioactive fallout but the people were completely unprepared for that have no clue there drinking the water out of the open systems and landed in the children were playing it is if it was snow by the next day they're all suffering first degree radiation sickness us came that day look to the people and the next day they move them off the island because they realized if they didn't they'd all died so they moved them down to quiet on and monitored their health or their background radiation levels fell lower and lower but after three years they move them back to run a

lab for their radiation levels again started climbing and the people started experiencing more severe health risk all the people who were exposed and rifle out that thyroid cancer one hundred percent couple died of leukemia there were many instances of premature aging deform children i would say that the people that suffered most were the women and their reproductive health children were born retarded and deformed women had multiple six seven eight miscarriages before they're able to conceive and they even had things called jellyfish babies which was a completely unformed embryo that appeared to live for maybe an hour or two after birth and it was years before you found out about that because the winner or so embarrassed that after generation of this in nineteen eighty the people of rondo up appeal to their government anti as character please move them because they were concerned about the health of their children when green peas

bottom boat there in nineteen eighty five i should explain that the us government refused to move them i think mostly because the us had to spend a hundred million dollars on a completely futile effort to clean a bikini and they didn't want to go through that again when we brought the ship there in nineteen eighty five they appealed to us and we did move them about a hundred and twenty miles outside the fallout zone to learn what my government had done to see what happened and then to help them in such an obvious way it wasn't a typical greenpeace action it was more basic than that it was more humanitarian if you will it had a profound effect on me something i'll never ever forget and today we're still putting it to the marshall is in terms of how we treat them quiet shalit is still our star wars splashed down range the us scientists live on the biggest island where there's a nine hole golf course they get the marshal is a local people are now out to guard acquired delano lesser domestic servants

it's just a horrible situation and one that moved me deeply you attended a sustainability segment of mind over matter is and t x t seattle ninety point three of them by mobile app and on the web a k x p dowd orgy i'm diane warren and my guest is peter wilcox co author of untrammeled be wise of the book of greenpeace captain my adventures in protecting the future of our planet juno speak about your anti oil drilling action in the arctic in twenty thirteen and the arctic thirty what was the reason for the direct action there the reasons that that ash is quite simply that russia's oil fields are drying up its siberia and what it expanded to the arctic ocean and continue pumping out oil and also removed minerals from the seabed floor scientists tell us today that he will mitigate the damages of climate change most effectively if we do leave the fossil fuels in the ground don't bring them up it all leave the colon the ground leave the oil in the ground beneath the gas in the ground

and switch to renewables so russia's plan for their future i love moving their whole world infrastructure to the arctic sea we thought was a really bad plan is the only way i can say it politely we went there in two thousand twelve and inaction a banner action where people climbed up this issue should have one or over there it's entirely steel saw i did write down to the bottom and about a hundred and twenty feet a water because in the winter it's massive ice flows into thousand calls the crew kind of the side that took pictures at a demonstration and when a way there is no reaction and i'm not sure why but when we went into thousand thirteenth and really there's machine gun fire the coast guard in their own foibles began cutting our inflatable sup with knives they took the climbing ropes of two of our climbers are on the side of the trade and pulled them way out from the side of the regular them slam back in running the aggression love on their part was dramatic more than we ever expected and

i have to remember that my first direct action russia was nineteen eighty three i had done others between myself and the rest of the crew we thought we had a pretty good feeling for how the russians would react they did this one morning and it was until the next afternoon thirty hours later after things had moral us calm down two of our climbers were under arrest on the coast guard boat river hoping that there a transfer than that say that about dinner time the next day a helicopter hovered over us and new soldiers repel down ropes and restless they pushed everybody into three or four cabins and search them they stole everybody's blues and drank it which i thought was where is the funny and then they told his back two more mass now this is something has been done before this didn't create much nervousness on my part at all rule surprise when the orders to go ashore that evening when we arrived in murmansk of this adobe ensure for two or three hours then you'll come back to the show ok but as soon as we get into the investigators officers said were charging you with

piracy which was ten to fifteen years in jail now the way the russian judicial system works is really that once you've been put into detention you're found guilty at trial there's not really much of a trial there's a show but they always find people guilty ninety nine point nine nine percent of people are found guilty more support and attention that made us very nervous i never really thought that i would be in russia for ten to fifteen years in jail doing hard labor but this is what everybody around has told us and it was a month before i was able to meet with a warrior or call my wife at home and try to find out what was going on after six weeks and when we knew within a few weeks there greenpeace was doing everything it could it never entered my mind that they would and i had full confidence a greenpeace would react inappropriate way they did they had it more people outside the jail and romance in the dead inside and there are thirty of us inside people came from all over the world to supporters including a friend a mine that runs the amazon campaign but after five or six

weeks they added the additional charge of hooliganism which is one of the pussy riot was charles forest i went everybody in russia's church with when the government just doesn't like what you're doing that was a good sign for us they never dropped the piracy charges but if they convict innocent hooliganism we could conceivably be sent home to do the sensor was one to seven not ten to fifteen then at the end of our two month attention we had another hearing for another three month attention this is the way the system works but we were given bail another very unusual thing in russia were held in st petersburg from montpelier city arrest and then the duma pardoned us this amnesty i think that whoever ordered our arrest in the first place had in mind that the duma would release us after two or three months every ten years in russia there's a general amnesty for some political prisoners and some people are war criminals and i think that they knew very well that they could include us in that and that that's what will happen

also we were looking at sochi coming up and i was quite sure that they didn't want any of them stations around the world about the arctic survey will sochi was going on you know we were treated not badly and president it was not fond of fruit was not very good although in the way worse in russia is your friends are allowed to send you in food which helped a lot but i was glad to go home so would you consider the end result of your anti oil drilling actually of well if somebody had asked me when i went at the end of the summer going to go up and entire the bow to the arctic and somebody said you know you might get two months in jail but the boy is going to really increase public awareness about the dangers of offshore oil drilling in there as a great if somebody had told me yeah you might get ten to fifteen years in jail well i'm not getting out of bed for that that's way over the top for me two months was not a problem and has have served two months and been part of a campaign that did make so many people around the world much more aware of the dangers

of offshore oil drilling you have to remember that every year as a routine way of doing business the russian oils industry spills five times the amount that bridge petroleum spilled in the gulf in two thousand eleven every year there are five gulf oil spills all over russia we were convinced them are still convinced that is only a matter of time til they have a huge blowout in the arctic air which they can clean up plus the fact that this is not a time to drill for more oil this is a time to stop drilling oil sometimes stop pumping it so that we can mitigate the damage is that climate change is going to cause which are feared iraqi actions are you the most out of all i think marshall islands no question no question what i learned there what we did there was amazing that than others or we had more fun we didn't action in nineteen eighty three in siberia over whaling that was a lot of fun you know one of the things i can i wanna point out that actions are

very positive experiences for us doing them they had to our life and this is why i wrote the book i would love people to somehow get involved whether it's with recycling with any environmental group with any group doing anything if you volunteer for something if you work for something outside your own concern it make you feel much better about your place in the world and it makes you feel better about yourself and i think that's the lesson that i want people to come away with that if they read the book what are your plans for the future i'll be back to work in our guest maggie and i my wife are meeting the boat in the mediterranean and we'll be doing climate change work in lebanon turkey so i have no intention to slow down i spend about half the year at sea working on the boat i think it's really important that we keep going in his ascension critical time the more we can do now the west worse climate change will be working so much for being here peter thank you very much you're just listening to peter

willcox cooperate ronald b weiss of the book greenpeace captain my adventures in protecting the future of our planet published in twenty sixteen by thomas dunne books an imprint of st martin's press sustainability seven interviews are available as podcasts along with the excuse music podcast no it can demand and then podcasting i'm diane warren thanks for listening and be sure to turn into the sustainability segment again next week and listener powered ninety point three of them by mobile app and one k x p not know it