Synopsis

In 1975 a ragtag band of Canadians calling themselves Greenpeace set sail to hunt the Russian whaling fleet. They are not the first to try to save whales. But no pressure has been able to stop the slaughter. So Greenpeace activists decide to put themselves between the whales and the harpoons. They come upon the Russians in the midst of a hunt, and face them down in tiny inflatables. Suddenly a harpoon flies past, inches away, and plunges into a whale. Caught on film, that horrific act catalyzes popular support for saving the whales. It becomes one of the biggest issues of the era. It also launches Greenpeace on the wildest ride of any environmental group.

Next Greenpeace protests against the baby harp seal hunt. The first year they compromise and refrain from dyeing the pelts; Paul Watson, whose idea it was, is furious. The next year he chains himself to a pile of pelts, whereupon he is dunked repeatedly in icy waters. He’s thrown out of Greenpeace for breaching their ethic of non-violence – a pretext really, for a power struggle. Watson the prodigal son re-emerges as the Sea Shepherd Society founder, gets his own ship and starts hunting pirate whalers. He rams and sinks the most notorious, then clears the entire Atlantic within a year. However it takes everyone – radical and mainstream, Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd – to force a moratorium on whaling. A three-fourths vote of the International Whaling Commission is required. Both sides pack the IWC and the result is stalemate until the US uses economic pressure to break the impasse. Watson scuttles the Icelandic fleet soon after the moratorium takes effect; and he battles the Japanese to this day. Still, saving the whales remains one of environmentalism’s great successes.

Act 3 also looks at visions of a greener future and those who are living the change. It explores debates between people going back to the land and future technologists.  Renewable energy - from its roots in wind and solar in the ‘70s, to getting run over by cheap oil- leads us to Amory Lovins and the resurgence of energy as a central concern of environmentalism.

Interviewees ACT 3