The below copy & paste job reflects the contents of 2 emails I sent to Greenpeace recently, which I never received any answer to.
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This store is actually in Sherman Oaks just south of Van Nuys.
Sent from Joomi Lee
On Jan 23, 2016, at 4:26 PM, Joomi Lee wrote:
After walking out of this grocery store 2 of your young people, white skinny young female and tall white young male, were working outside the front door of Gelsen's Market.
It was mostly the young passionate woman that spoke to me. She obviously thinks Greenpeace is the best non-profit out there. In fact, she even told me so.
She had the good sense not to attack my Bible based beliefs. I have noticed that Greenpeace workers tend to be anti-religious.
However, she made a number of verbal mistakes with me. I will only list the ones I can remember:
1. She falsely accuses a water non-profit I still support to this day via the smile.amazon.com web site of receiving corporate funding. I told her the reason I know 100% of my donations to this water non-profit goes where it's supposed to go is because the founder of this non-profit is well connected financially speaking. His wealthy friends promised to fund all administrative costs for the life of the non-profit. This is not the only reason I support them. Water is far more important than anything else. All lifeforms need water to live, plants, animals, and humans. Without water you would die in less than 7 days.
2. She claimed Greenpeace supports all types of issues, not just environmental but also animal welfare rights, humans welfare rights, and so forth. Yet, she didn't even know who the ASPCA was! She was born and raised in this country but I wasn't!
3. She told me 82% of donations to Greenpeace go to advocate for better laws but that the rest goes to administrative costs and to pay for employees like her and the young tall male. Before she told me that, I had wrongly assumed that all your workers were unpaid volunteers.
4. She kept interrupting me and she was a lousy listener. I told her why I no longer support Greenpeace during the middle of the conversation and at the end she asks me why I don't support Greenpeace anymore!
I have only made one donation at the GlobalGiving.org web site and it was for 2 reasons:
a. The project promised to be self-supporting, which it now is.
b. I closely identified with the project.
I have greatly reduced many distracting variables in my life and one of them was Greenpeace. I still donate here and there to different types of non-profits but only because I still believe in them. I no longer believe in Greenpeace. Whatever little credibility Greenpeace still had in my mind was totally blown away by your young female employee yesterday afternoon in front of Gelsen's Market in Van Nuys, CA.
I don't even give anymore money to my mom's religion, Christians of the Jehovah's Witness variety, as of July 2014 because I no longer believe or trust the Governing Body (top religious leaders of the Watch Tower organization). I still attend meetings at my mom's local kingdom hall "church" here or there but I quite often walk out early before the meeting is over. I didn't even bother to attend last year's big summer convention. I am also considering skipping out on this year's Memorial (The Lord's Supper: The biggest JW religious event of the year, sort of the equivalent of the Roman Catholic Easter). I believe the Governing Body only cares about my money or cares more about my money than anything else about me. They don't care about me as a person but only in regards to how obedient I am to their NON-prophetic words over the prophetic words in any Bible translation/language I own in my bedroom. They claim to love me as a neighbor but I don't believe them. They are mostly a bunch of old white men. What can I say?
Thank you for understanding me better now.
Joomi Lee
I remember as a kid backpacking Europe, I went to a beach full of syringes and litter and a local said, "no worries, it's an American tourist beach -we clean it up right before they arrive for the season". I realized how deep our problems are, and that America is even worse, but we have the money to hide it better than any. Then I saw one of the Greenpeace ships and asked to sail with them. They didn't take me seriously, but when I got back to the states I immediately joined their ranks. I've committed my life to environmental education ever since - now going on three decades.
Having worked for Greenpeace for nearly 5 years (a long time ago), I can share that they are all hard working, dedicated, passionate people who put in 24 hour days, 7 days a week to protect the little left of our clean, wild planet. Not only are they pioneers, but they are state of the art. Through direct action they attract and thus use media, which is free, to advertise the issues the public should know about so that the public can then get involved (see, those actions aren't silly, they're good business!). They educate on issues to help the public learn the topics - the cause and effect. If negotiations fail, they fund raise to pay for materials, lawyers and other essentials needed to win campaigns. Mostly, they are fearless. Holding a Quaker philosophy of "bearing witness", they believe that if you see harm, you are responsible to get involved/act. And they are peaceful. While they will trespass they will not harm people. All this is why they live on as one of the greatest environmental organizations: they inspire. Thanks, Greenpeace!
Greenpeace is an action-orientated organization. They have the boots on the groud to do the things that other organizations won't do.
If we want to save the planet we can't just sit at desks and write reports. Someone needs to communicate directly with the Big Polluters and Greenpeace is all about action.
Review from Guidestar
In my humble opinion, Greenpeace and organizations like them, should look to promote the sustainable uses of our natural resources. For example cutting trees. Many or all of us own or use many things that come from trees whether directly produced or as byproducts. For example, in our homes there is generally a frame made from wood, many of us have cabinets, furniture, doors, wood moldings, flooring, etc. In our daily lives we uses paper in many different forms such as printing, kleenex/toilet tissue, and many others. Our school children use crayons, pencils, cellulose tape, glue, and many other products that come from wood or the byproducts of wood. In athletics we have hardwood floors for basketball, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and much more. The most important thing is to look at the statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We have 50% more forest land now than we did in 1950. Clear-cutting and leaving town is a thing of the distant past, and yes, organizations like Greenpeace are part of the reason for this change, but now we are in an era where sustainability means just as much to the companies (most of which are family owned multigenerational businesses) as to activists who say no cutting trees for any reason. On that note, a densely populated forest is much more likely to have intense fire (see California) and spread diseases that lead to large scale destruction of our forest lands. If a tree is cut and processed then the manufactured product stores the carbon of the tree for decades until it goes through the rotting process, which for trees that are disease reddened or burned happens much sooner. So my request is that we all, as Americans, support the use of one of our nation's greatest natural resources and industries the lumber industry.
Review from Guidestar
GREENPEACE is a joke. Sea Shepherd has saved 1000's of whales during the past 5-6 years, while Greenpeace has saved ZERO. Why aren't they sending their ships to the Southern Oceans to protect whales?
Greenpeace works incredibly hard and gets RESULTS. They train their staff better than any organization I've seen - coming out of that training I was and am ready to take on any activist pitch, get up on any stage, talk about causes for hours. The administrators are super dedicated. I think the hardest thing is just the stress of pounding the pavement every day wears people out. There isn't really a good way to retain talented people in positions that are more long term.
While I'm not personally someone who subscribes to the more-radical tactics of GreenPeace -- and I really can't stand their endless clipboarding-on-the-sidewalk strategies -- the end result of their work is always attention-getting and, therefore, priceless. They are dedicated to their cause with no holds barred, and they deserve some kudos for that in a world of watered-down and smoothed-over nonprofit tip-toeing. Regardless of their obnoxiousness at times, it's truly refreshing to see organizations like this continuing to push the boundaries.