In 2007 alone, Greenpeace’s ocean fleet belched out as much carbon dioxide as the emissions created in powering Greenpeace’s offices worldwide for nearly a century. And now it’s promoting pole and line-caught tuna, a practice that would force tuna fleets to use more fuel and generate additional carbon emissions.

While the seafood community has its problems with Greenpeace, it should be noted we’re hardly the group’s only critics. In the most recent edition of Cosmos, acclaimed science writer Wilson da Silva writes, “Greenpeace was once a friend of science, helping bring attention to important but ignored environmental research. These days, it’s a ratbag rabble of intellectual cowards intent on peddling an agenda, whatever the scientific evidence.” Its current campaign against canned tuna is another effort in which it ignores the science and refuses to participate in sustainability work with other responsible, mainstream environmental organizations.

da Silva also writes that Greenpeace “was once the most active, independent and inspiring civilian group for the environment.” He now describes them as “intellectual cowards.” How far they have fallen.

Did you know the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation is a partnership between global tuna canners and environmental leaders from around the world? The group reviews information and provides analysis as part of ISSF’s on-going international tuna sustainability efforts. Those efforts include a three-year at-sea global bycatch reduction project.

The group reviews information and provides analysis as part of ISSF’s on-going international tuna sustainability efforts. Those efforts include a three-year at-sea global bycatch reduction project.

Did you know Greenpeace has been invited to join this group but refused?  That’s right. Instead of joining the coalition, it has chosen to attack tuna companies worldwide as part of its own fundraising scheme. Greenpeace claims it’s interested in more than just begging for donations, but when presented with the opportunity to do more than threaten retailers it refuses.

Greenpeace’s dirty little secret is that it’s not really interested in tuna sustainability. If it were, it would pull up a chair with the other adults at the table and get to work.

The USDA’s new nutrition guidelines state unequivocally that Americans need to eat more fish. But if Greenpeace has its way, there won’t be enough canned tuna to go around.They want tuna companies to fish with poles and lines, a method that only produced 4 million cases last year. Meanwhile, Americans ate 50 million cases of canned tuna.

Greenpeace is good at preaching to the choir. They love to tell their supporters what they think they want to hear. But Greenpeace’s latest video attacking canned tuna isn’t getting high marks from supporters who write the checks that underwrite the group’s gonzo activism.

The comment string on YouTube is full of criticisms like “childish,” “poor taste,” “disturbing,”  “uninformative,” “disappointing,” and “propaganda.”

It doesn’t stop there. Other supporters commented that it was “time for something new” and that the video is “not worth forwarding.”

When YouTube viewers take the time to let you know they think your work is “a low-brow attempt to garner support” you know you’re out of touch with mainstream consumers—something we also demonstrated in the video we posted yesterday where we spoke to consumers who aren’t buying Greenpeace’s distortions about canned tuna.

In the U.S., Greenpeace’s tactics are recognized for what they are: cheap publicity stunts designed to raise money, not to protect the environment. There is no canned tuna crisis. Rather, it’s a vehicle created by Greenpeace that will only drive up the price of canned tuna and make it harder to find in your local grocery store.

Recently, we traveled to the Georgetown waterfront to ask real people what they thought about canned tuna and Greenpeace’s campaign to get it removed from store shelves. We got some very interesting answers.

With the launch of Greenpeace’s latest campaign against canned tuna, the eco-extremists have launched headlong into overt distortions. It’s a practice they’ve admitted to in the past. Instead of calling it lying, they call it “emotionalizing the issue.”

The truth is tuna stocks used in canned tuna are not in peril. There is no canned tuna crisis. There is, however, a mountain of rhetoric and distortion that Greenpeace hopes will help raise a lot of money… for Greenpeace.

One of Greenpeace’s main talking points that you may have read is, “FADs [Fish Aggregating Devices] increase bycatch in the skipjack tuna industry by between 500 percent and 1000 percent when compared to nets set on free-swimming schools.”

Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? Five hundred to 1,000 percent is a big number, isn’t it?

Bycatch from FAD fishing averages around 5% of the entire catch (which is about the average or a little less than most fisheries). Bycatch from FAD-free fishing is around 1% of the entire catch. So, we’re actually talking about a change of about 3 or 4 percentage points.

Regardless of the picture Greenpeace paints, the reality is its campaign against canned tuna is simply part of a scare story. A scare story it’s shopping to consumers that it hopes won’t have all the facts. This effort will do nothing for tuna sustainability, but will needlessly drive the price of can tuna up for hardworking American families.

Greenpeace is a $300 million-a-year international fundraising giant. It needs to raise over $700,000 per day just to keep the lights on, but somehow still found $32 million to spend on a new boat complete with a helipad.

Although Greenpeace spreads misleading information about the world’s tuna stocks, Americans just aren’t listening. They’re still enjoying canned tuna. Read Full Post »