Greenpeace Leaders Discuss Environmental Activism and Protest With Cambridge Students
Areeba Hamid and Will McCallum, new leaders of Greenpeace UK, addressed topics like direct action protests, partnering with for-profit corporations, and changing the conversation around climate change.
By Jonathan Marrow
On Wednesday, February 23, the Cambridge Union hosted the executive directors of Greenpeace UK, Areeba Hamid and Will McCallum, for a wide-ranging discussion about climate change and public activism. Hamid and McCallum, who began their tenure in October 2022, are the first joint leaders of the fabled environmental organisation. They have extensive experience campaigning for marine conservation and forest preservation, among other issues. With the UK hosting the COP 26 conference just over a year ago and new forms of dramatic activism pursued by groups like Extinction Rebellion, climate change activism continues to be a hotly debated issue, and the two executives addressed issues around disruptive protest, cooperating with corporations, and advocating plant-based diets.
Responding to questions about Extinction Rebellion’s recent moves away from direct action in the face of public controversy, Hamid suggested that although direct action is part of the organisation’s “DNA,” Greenpeace is also a “broad church” in which activism can take many forms, such as targeting oil rigs rather than impeding traffic. Yet she also suggested “if hurling soup cans at Van Gogh paintings” helps move the needle, they will pursue it. The two leaders elaborated on the idea of Greenpeace as a “Swiss Army knife,” with various tools at their disposal, from lawsuits to public investigations to direct protests, depending on the scenario, issue, and actors in question.
McCallum suggested that despite oil and gas companies’ public rhetoric that implies they are wholeheartedly moving towards renewable energy, these corporations nonetheless still invest vast amounts of money in fossil fuel development, in search of short-term profits. McCallum argued that experience has shown that the most “surefire way” that unwilling companies change these practices is when their own rank-and-file employees raise questions and objections about their commitments.
Some students asked questions about the effect of emotional vs logical appeals to the public to build support for changing both corporate and governmental policies. McCallum argued that emotion is key to changing people’s minds and that the cute “polar bear” argument can motivate public support for change, even though it’s an imperfect way to mobilise support across all issues. Ultimately, companies will only change behaviour when they feel there’s a public mandate to do so. Hamid suggested that even at a policy-focused organisation like Greenpeace, “more than anything else, what we want to have an influence on is culture because that’s what sets the agenda.”
In response to questions about the current political climate for change, the two executives noted that Greenpeace is an organisation with “no permanent friends or enemies” and not a party political one. McCallum declared that the current conservative government “hasn’t shown us that they care one iota about the climate crisis”, yet Labour is not necessarily an obvious alternative, since their approach to biodiversity issues is also lacking.
On the issue of plant-based diets, which McCallum argued is crucial to making environmental progress, the two noted that Greenpeace doesn’t advocate fully vegan diets, only moving gradually towards plant-based alternatives, whose price and affordability are improving dramatically each year. Despite worrying rhetoric, they suggested there are several other bright spots on the horizon, from how the war in Ukraine has shown people the dangers of excessive reliance on gas to the progress of organisations like McDonald’s, who have begun to partner with Greenpeace on issues like soy farming in the Amazon and overfishing in the Bering Sea. Ultimately, they feel their fight is about pace: while even gas giants like BP and Shell speak the same language as Greenpeace, the key difference, Hamid and McCallum, is “pace.”
The two ended on a note of hope, suggesting that Greenpeace — and other environmental groups — need to move away from a rhetorical style of “doom and gloom” to “a world of hope” because hope should be the primary goal of any activist organisation.
Written by Jonathan Marrow. Jonathan is an MPhil in American history student at Homerton College, University of Cambridge.
Edited by Neelkabir Varsha Kapil.
