Alarmist Begley seems to approve: How Green Activists Work the System | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com

...As CEO Thomas Falk began a speech to an executive-education program at his alma mater, the Wisconsin School of Business, two Greenpeace activists switched his PowerPoint for theirs. Instead of a primer on Kimberly-Clark's success, the audience saw photos of the Canadian boreal forests that supply the company's wood, with before (lush trees) and after (a clear-cut moonscape) shots followed by a smiling Falk declaring, "It's all business as usual." After panicked organizers ordered everyone out ("There are activists in the building!"), the attendees trooped into a cafeteria where Greenpeace had placed menus for such delicacies as "songbird stir-fry," noting that half the songbird species in North America migrate to the boreal forests that supply Kimberly-Clark. (A company spokesman notes that although it purchases wood fiber from boreal forests, its suppliers are certified by groups that require sustainable practices.) "It's a little like 'Animal House,' but in grad school," says Scott Paul, who directs Greenpeace's Forest Campaign.

The Greenpeace the public doesn't know operates somewhat differently...
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Greenpeace can't say for sure that the possibility of smokestack climbing (and worse) makes companies more willing to cave to the group's demands, but "what we hear over and over again, especially after a few drinks, is company people telling us, 'We wouldn't be talking to you if we weren't scared of you'," says Greenpeace research director Kert Davies. Even if the threat is merely implicit, pairing hard-core activism with opportunistic cooperation may be exactly what the environmental community needs right now. The world has been backsliding on climate change for decades...