Resolute Forest Products, a Canadian company that employs 8,000 people, is suing Greenpeace.
It says it’s the victim of an ongoing “misinformation campaign” that is “malicious, false, misleading, and without any reasonable factual basis in numerous respects.”
Electronics retailer Best Buy was pressured by Greenpeace to stop printing flyers on Resolute paper. Many other former clients have similarly backed away.
Whether or not these third parties are persuaded by Greenpeace’s arguments, no one wants to become its next target – especially if they’re facing other business challenges.
Many feel intimidated and extorted. Threatened with boycotts and petitions, they take the path of least resistance.
Resolute’s legal complaint, the contents of which have not been proven in court, says it has cooperated with Greenpeace and others concerning the work it does.
But because Greenpeace depends on a steady flow of donations from an alarmed public, the lawsuit alleges that Greenpeace’s bottom line requires conflict rather than harmony and goodwill.
Resolute says Greenpeace has falsely accused it of unsustainable logging, falsely claimed it has harvested trees in prohibited areas and has used false maps to mislead the public.
The Greenpeace playbook, says the lawsuit, involves “sensational, alarmist, and false claims about impending calamity.”
A prominent company is then blamed for this calamity. Greenpeace activists have spent years calling Resolute a ‘Forest Destroyer,’ even though it has planted a billion trees in Canada’s Boreal forest while Greenpeace has planted none.
In court documents of its own, Greenpeace argues, on page after page, that whether or not its accusations are true, it’s all a matter of free speech which is protected by law.
But here’s the problem: for more than a decade, a Greenpeace website has loudly declared that free speech “does not apply to misinformation.”
The website, whose purpose is to bad-mouth fossil fuel company ExxonMobil, says that people who challenge the dominant climate narrative are not entitled to free speech protection.
The website includes an FAQ with this question: “Don’t the deniers have a right to free speech?”
Greenpeace responds: “There’s a difference between free speech and a campaign to deny the climate science…freedom of speech does not apply to misinformation…”
In other words, Greenpeace is a free-speech-for-me-but-not-for-thee hypocrite.
Read more at Big Pic News
Greenpeace is too radical its been taken over by radicals just like with many Eco-Wacko groups and they realy need to replace the Dove with a Vulture on the hulls of their ships
In many cases, and as is certainly true in this case, the amount of “Misinformation” directed towards companies who responsibly harvest natural resources can more accurately be described as “Defamation of Character”.
Clearly in this specific case Greenpeace has consciously chosen to cross the line, and enter into a non-peaceful legal war with the Paper Company. This question is why on earth would Greenpeace do this, especially considering the facts show they should loose this war? Very unfortunately the answer is because Greenpeace knows they will win this war!
Time and again these types of “Green” advocate vs. “Red” advocate legal battles are decided in the court of public opinion, and NOT in the court of legality.
I experienced this exact situation while working for a mining company in Idaho. This company surface mined Phosphate, which along which Nitrate, are the two most important, and by the way natural, components of plant fertilizer. Everyone understands that plants need water, sun, and nutrients to grow. Its a balance of these attributes that help plants / crops grow.
Too much sun, they bake and die. Too much rain and they flood and rot. Too much fertilizer and they are poisoned.
So the key is achieving a balanced amount of each component. There is a name for this process…its called farming!!!
Its why you and I are alive today. Nothing to eat, we die.
The phosphate mining company I worked for provided local farmers with needed phosphate to balance their nutrient poor soil. These farmers grew potatoes, darn good ones to. One summer while I was working at this company we received notice of a lawsuit by a high powered environmental government agency who had convinced local cattle ranchers and residents that the mining company was supposedly poisoning their water with mine water runoff containing high levels of natural phosphate and fluoride.
The governmental environmental group had completed a study in the mining area indicating that we were supposedly poisoning local water sheds with too much phosphate mine water runoff.
The suit quickly went to court and the mining company lost big time based on the supposedly undeniable data from the environmental study. Ouch!!
Soon after the case was decided we delved deeper into this whole affair. Shockingly we found out that the governing environmentalists had purposely withheld selected pieces of data and other evidence from their water shed study. We obtained a “complete” copy of the study and were absolutely shocked to discovery that the excess phosphate and associated fluoride in the water of the mine was NOT; of abnormal amount, excessive in magnitude, or related to mine water runoff.
Turns out that the environment study had examined the entire area of SE Idaho, not just our mine area. The complete study showed that all of the self enclosed basins in SE Idaho had high levels of Phosphate and associated fluoride. Furthermore, the study proved that the level of phosphate and fluoride in all of SE Idaho was perfectly normal especially considering that the area contained natural exposures bedrock Phosphoria Formation.
The Phosphoria rock which we surface mined was also naturally exposed in many other SE Idaho areas. This formation contains tons of natural phosphate and associated fluoride which naturally erodes from the exposed Phosphoria rocks and then flows into the streams and lakes of other completely enclosed / separate run-off basins of SE Idaho.
So…our mining company was NOT the cause of phosphate pollution as asserted by the environmentalists who wrote the study. Wow, talk about unethical. These folks take the cake. The; knowingly lied about their own study, swore to it in court, took the money and left.
Attempts to get our money back were useless because the money was gone! Absorbed into various minor environmental groups and numerous local residents. Too complicated too chase according to corporate lawyers. Double Ouch!
Moral of this long complicated story…in today’s environment…excuse the pun, “Green” always trumps “Red” for multiple reasons; the Court of Public Opinion needs “Red” but has been convinced to hate Red at all cost, the Money Shell Game effectively hides cash stolen in legal suits, and most importantly the inherent dishonesty of many “Green” groups. This is chilling, because these folks hide behind a cloak of integrity while knowingly and carefully releasing selected data that supports their predisposed notions
Very unfortunately this approach works perfectly. They get the money in the process destroy companies who responsibly harvest resources needed for human survival.
Triple Ouch.
Such tactics should be familiar by now. Lawyers defending against greenmail should be held accountable if they drop the ball.