Grünen Kapitalismus - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

progressive demands. At this point, we shall examine those which remain
clearly within the capitalist paradigm, leaving to our final section a
discussion of groups with a more radical vision. The one major organization
which resists such an either/or classification is Greenpeace. Greenpeace
has attained a mainstream presence, but it owes this essentially
to its visibility as a protest group; its modus operandi is direct action (in
some cases illegal) rather than lobbying. The political views of its leadership
appear to lie outside the capitalist consensus, but its campaigns nonetheless
have the single-issue character and populist rhetoric – lacking
structural critique – which have become routine and accepted in the political
mainstream. As an organization of militant activists, Greenpeace
could strengthen any radical environmentalist movement. In the meantime,
it serves as a reminder to policymakers of the unrest that might
await them – as in Seattle 1999, where Greenpeace was prominent – if
they fail to address ecological concerns.
Traditional environmentalism is epitomized by the Sierra Club, founded
by John Muir in 1892. It is a mass-membership organization which combines
the original recreational focus with lobbying and litigation functions.
In contrast to Greenpeace, it has no interest in demonstrations.
Its politics are generally liberal (in the US sense), although a sizeable
portion of its membership projects an older exclusivist tradition, as displayed
during a 1998 clash over whether to endorse an anti-immigrant
policy – a stance that was narrowly defeated in a membership referendum
(Faber 2008, 234). Perhaps even more revealing than the attitudes
of its members are the affiliations of its institutional leadership. Its governing
body, the Sierra Club Foundation, although presided over by a
professional scientist, has as its vice-president and principal link with
power-holders a retired bank-president with multiple financial ties who
is also a board-member of a conservative think-tank, the Hudson Institute.
192 A similar pattern emerges at the Natural Resources Defense Council,
which mounts regular court challenges – with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
as one of its lawyers – against giveaways of publicly owned lands to private
interests. The NRDC’s Board of Trustees is dominated by high corporate
management and corporate law partners. 193 The Environmental
192 The individual in question, Robert H. McKinney, is profiled at www.hudson.org/learn/index.cfm?fuseaction=staff_bio&eid=Brd19.
His organizational ties are mapped
at www.muckety.com/Robert-H-McKinney/18271.muckety.
193 The NRDC’s Board of Trustees is listed at www.nrdc.org/about/board.asp
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