Man Overboard
Rex Wyler discusses Greenpeace’s legacy and the future of environmentalism
INTERVIEW BY Micah Toub
Photography by Matt Herron
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but Rex Weyler might say it is more powerful still—that it can even change a thousand minds. Weyler came to Canada from the US as a Vietnam-era draft-dodger and found work as a photojournalist in Vancouver. In 1973, after meeting Bob Hunter and other members of the group that would become Greenpeace, Weyler stopped covering the environmental movement and joined it. He went on to become co-founder of Greenpeace International and served as director of Greenpeace Canada until 1982.
He returned to his trade to produce the 2004 book, Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and Visionaries Changed the World (Raincoast), but he remains an activist at heart and has plenty of experience and wisdom to share with those who would follow in Greenpeace’s footsteps.
Tell me about “bearing witness,” a philosophy you say in the book is one of Greenpeace’s early influences.
The Quaker idea of bearing witness is that when we witness an event, especially when we witness injustice, we become an agent of change. If you see injustice and you understand it as injustice, you almost can’t help but become an agent of change—even if all you ever do is talk about it or point it out or shine the light of day on it.
How did Greenpeace do that?
One of our innovations was to actively engage the electronic media and produce images that we knew and felt strongly would move through that media. For example, most people—when they thought of whaling at that time in the late ’60s, early ’70s—would have had a 19th-century version in their mind’s eye: little men going up against Leviathan, throwing spears out of boats. That was the image that people had of whaling from all the woodcuts and artwork of the Moby-Dick era. No one had ever seen a whale being dragged up on the stern of a factory ship, making it look like a little fish.
Greenpeace eventually made headlines all over the world. How did the group react to all that attention?
Everybody in Greenpeace in the 1970s struggled in one way or another with their own ego, because, as we became famous, there was this sort of rock-group phenomenon. And some of the players in that story were able to be more selfless and dedicated to the cause than others. Some got sucked into the rock-star image, the fame of it all. So there was a lot of conflict regarding who’s going to get the credit, who’s going to be made more famous, who’s going to accept the fame and who’s going to want the fame?
What is the best leadership structure for an activist group?
What you really want in an environmental movement—or any movement—is an ecology of personalities. You need people who will support the cause without getting trapped in their own ego needs, but you also have to have people who are driven to lead. This is one mistake that movements make today—they don’t want leaders. It’s a mistake. You need leaders, because not everything can be done by consensus. When there is no consensus something still has to happen.
Is Greenpeace still an effective activist group?
One problem is that when organizations get big and have lots of resources, they have something to lose and something to conserve. They become more conservative rather than more brave as a result of having more. I’m not saying that happens within Greenpeace, because they’ve done a lot of amazing actions even today. But in some cases, Greenpeace has become conservative around certain issues because they don’t want to alienate the public.
In the book, it’s clear that the early Greenpeace crew was a fun bunch. How does humour play into activism?
We believed very strongly that the consciousness revolution in human society had to be fun, had to be entertaining. You had to celebrate, have parties and get beyond your own dour assessment of how dark the culture is.
One time, a port was opening in Juan de Fuca Strait, between Washington and British Columbia. They announced that they would test the port by bringing in a supertanker. The next day, we announced a “test blockade,” and two days later we were out there in our boats, announcing to the media, “This isn’t a real blockade, this isn’t a real protest—this is just a test. The handcuffs work, now we’re going to go test the jail.”
