| This dissertation deals with the history of the international environmental organization, Greenpeace, from its origins in the American peace movement of the 1950s, to its founding in Vancouver in the early 1970s, to the consolidation of Greenpeace International in 1980. It analyses the various social and intellectual movements that are part of the organization's heritage---the radical pacifism of the 1950s, the New Left, the counterculture, and popular ecology---and argues that although the organization was born in Canada, it was conceived in the United States. It then focuses on the early years of the organization's history, examining how its most important traits---such as its use of direct action, its media strategy, and its identification with Native American mythology---were developed. It approaches this through the biographies of the group's early members, focusing in particular on how their arguments and debates served as the crucible for the development of Greenpeace's internal culture. The study then moves on to analyze the organization's campaigns against whaling and sealing in the mid to late 1970s. It argues that this was a radical departure from mainstream environmentalism and that Greenpeace served as the direct action arm of deep ecology and animal rights. There was, however, considerable tension between these two philosophies and these tensions are reflected in Greenpeace's campaigns. Finally, the dissertation examines Greenpeace's organizational development throughout the decade, arguing that various structural constraints and personality conflicts led the group to adopt an increasingly hierarchical and centralized structure that frequently conflicted with the grass roots values held by many of its members. Overall, however, Greenpeace provided a major boost to the environmental movement, helping to instill people and their governments with an ecological sensibility, as well as contributing to the emergence of a nascent global civil society. |
