need with his robin hood project and maybe is beef with fifty cent until then so that is it. activism politics in a cold place and a whole lot of media publicity what is greenpeace all about today because it is smug and self promoting for a brave environmentalist group opinions vary and at the very center of the debate surrounding organizations such as greenpeace is the question whether they have the right to operate outside the law. will. science technology innovation all the developments from around russia. the future are covered.

hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle activism politics in a cold place and a whole lot of media publicity what is greenpeace all about today is it is smug and self promoting bully or a brave environmentalist group opinions vary and it's a very center of the debate surrounding organisations such as greenpeace is the question whether they have the right to operate outside the law. to cross a greenpeace i'm joined by alexander mccurry us in london he is a writer on legal affairs and an analyst and a washstand we cross to marc morano he is the publisher of climate depot and

a former staffer of the us senate environment and public works committee all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime on alexander if i go to you first in london i was reading the daily mail a couple of days ago and they had an article about greenpeace and russia and the arctic oil platform and i must say that the article was what rather pro greenpeace and very anti russia and then i read the seventy or so comments at the end of the article and my goodness the article was very much out of touch with whoever wrote the article and the editorial line of that publication a lot of people thought that greenpeace has gone too far it's a publicity stunt they made sure there were so many different kinds of nationalities on that operation to get in. maximum media effect what do you think about this i mean because greenpeace is doing this for publicity obviously to what degree it's doing it for science and environmentalism we can discuss go ahead yes

what greenpeace is a direct action organization they've been doing these sorts of things to a very very long time what way back into the nineteenth certainties and i think it's true to say that he's always been controversial an awful lot of people both within and outside the ecological movement are skeptical about some of the things that greenpeace does and i think some of the things that you probably saw some of the comments you saw to that daily mail article reflect that having said that e.t.s. if you look he has always seen itself as being at the vanguard of ecological of the ecological campaigning and what he did in the arctic with the gas from platform is consistent with that and i go that this is the first time greenpeace has come in for this sort of criticism but perhaps what is rather more surprising is that the daily mail should support greenpeace rather than russia that's another story should support read piece on this occasion usually the daily mail isn't very keen on

greenpeace as well as on a well i can see the daily mail as you very rarely keen on russia mark if i go to you i mean it again you know of greenpeace it seems that in popular perception now the popular perception is that it is more of a action group political action group and less and less an environmental group yes it's chiefly know in the last couple decades now is just an environmental pressure group who's basically sole existence at this point are cheap publicity stunts and this kind of what you'd call you know you could almost border on eco terror is the phrase i would use or just trespassing and lawbreaking you know just it obvious they were then destroyed golden rice crops and i fell opinions they destroyed a whole trial test of them they don't have the concept of property rights they don't have the cards. of legality the former head of former co founding member patrick moore the ecologist has come out and basically said greenpeace is acting immoral and he left the organization back in the eighty's because greenpeace at

that point was opposed to chlorinated water and some of the greater public health advancements so i think given what's happened with greenpeace it's almost become even in our pop culture it's becoming more and more sort of the butt of a joke it's an x. it's known as an extreme organization among the environmental pressure groups it's probably known as one of the most extreme next to some of you know the other ones like the animal liberation front all that but it's getting out there and i think what russia has done hair is send a very clear signal that they're going to play a no nonsense game with greenpeace perhaps the pirate pirates charges are a little bit much but certainly not the other charges the trespassing and violations and it's very interesting to see greenpeace wet hair let's just hope that what happened with france a few years back france did not get sunk the original ship the greenpeace head but then they were forced by a tribunal to pay eight million dollars to pay for it let's hope that doesn't happen with russia stick to your guns here alexander i mean one of the things i

mean i guess kind of all of it all of us are kind of children of greenpeace when i look at our when we look at our ages here i mean i have nothing against you know greenpeace stopping people killing baby seals and protecting dolphins and porpoises i mean i all we all like that ok because we think that senseless here but isn't this really just a promotion and you have to go to the next extreme to get more money from donors it makes you feel good inside that you know you're helping these people that are helping baby seals essentially. what can i just say i think we should be careful what language we use our i don't think what happened in the arctic is eco terrorism or any sort of terrorism and i think i think we should be very precise about this now i agree the russian or thoreson is felt very strongly that they need to make a very strong point here and one can entirely see why development of the arctic isn't tar is very much in russia's economic interests russia is entirely within its rights legally to do what it is doing in its in the arctic and there's no question

at all in my opinion that what greenpeace did is it broke the law and greenpeace does regularly deliberately break the law and are not certainly someone who generally countenances breaking the law having said that greenpeace generally has been fairly careful to balance to know how far to go with these sort of things and i and i feel that with this particular incident in the arctic it again. when perhaps further than it should have been legally but it didn't really do anything particularly violent whole or extremely criminal and i think on the other side the russian authorities understand that perfectly well which is why i think each side now having made its point there will come there will be there will come

a solution and we will probably see the charges reduced possibly these people pleading guilty to these low let lesser charges and then this particular incident will close and we will move on mark i think it's a very nice try and personally and i tend to agree with mark you know i think another part of the story that is so missed in mainstream media and i haven't seen it really reported in any depth at all is that greenpeace did this in august two thousand to twelve also and that time on the platform they got almost no resistance that the oil workers here didn't know what to do there wasn't much security at all and they were there for fifteen hours with their posters and everything like that and then they finally left of their own volition and well what there's a learning curve here if they come and try to do that again we will show them what they can expect and i think this is part of the thing if i go to market i think this is part of the strategy as well mark because this is what the what happened before will not be repeated again and as was pointed out this is

a very important strategic industry for russia go ahead mark. yeah well oiled is strategic for everyone at this point and i think i want to agree with alexander i'm not alleging what they did here on this platform with the eco terror i'm referring to or what the co-founder patrick moore said what they did at the crops the golden rice crops in the philippines in august that is more along the lines of eco terror but yes i mean what greenpeace is getting a curve here what they've tried to do over the decades is pick cheap easy politically expedient targets where they're not going to get a lot of blowback and i don't think they counted on russia i don't think they count on your government being prepared and doing this to them and i think alexander try right again and at the charges will probably be dropped or at least they'll plead to lesser charges here and i don't think the piracy is going to hold but i think the idea of the message behind what greenpeace is doing is what patrick moore the founding member has said this is an anti human agenda oil is the lifeblood of our

modern civilization greenpeace is on record as trying to stop carbon based energy fossil fuels in the developing world where one point six or so billion people don't have running water electricity don't have access to this this is the real question why are wealthy white environmentalists and by the way a whole coalition of minority groups have accused greenpeace and other environmental groups of being largely white and being essentially exclusionary racist organizations why are they denying carbon based energy the lifeblood of modern developed world to the people at barely subsistence level and i think that's the larger question here sure it's a cheap publicity stunt to jump on a russian oil rig and make this point but why are they against oil and how does this do for the for the powerless people the developing world who don't have the voices don't have running water don't have electricity have high infant mortality rates have short life expectancy this is where greenpeace is on the wrong side of

history and on the wrong. morality alexander if i go back to you again i mean it's kind of a cheap stuff because these are these live pictures when you see these pictures of the oil rig and you know and you have the activists this is how they generate money isn't it this is what they get from their donors. well of course i mean that is the nature of an organization like this sort in a direct action organization has to perform direct action if it is going to continue to get support and continue to get money and i mean there are a lot of criticisms of what greenpeace does a lot of people feel that greenpeace does overstep the mark and in fact that the reactions that he provokes are actually negative for the ecological movement generally up i think there's two points i want to make firstly you are absolutely right to point out to the pre the previous incident the russian authorities are not

going to allow people like greenpeace to enter the arctic and harass the people who are doing their work there that that's absolutely clear and that's what the russian authorities were setting out to say on this occasion and they've done it very very convincingly and i think this greenpeace which is also any sophisticated organization will understand this now greenpeace has an ecological body wants to wants to argue that there are problems of development in the arctic that's a legitimate point or whatever view one has about oil and the necessity of oil and carbon and and the rest that there is or there is a delicate ecosystem in the arctic and they are they have a legitimate grounds to be concerned about that and think what has happened is i want to know how it is let me jump in here gentlemen we have got to work towards a very careful getting out of that ignoring we'll continue our discussion on greenpeace stay with our theme.

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more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are the day. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question for.

the i'm a celeb was terrible to say the i'm very hard to get a letter get along here is a plot that never had sex with the target there's no legs let's play. lists and le may limit. the.

welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing greenpeace. ok mum can i go back to you in washington i agree with what alexander had to say about being concerned about the environment in the arctic that's that's fair enough maybe it's the issue of tactics but you know why isn't a greenpeace more interested in like fukushima in japan or what's going on in the gulf of mexico i don't see they have a lot of activity going there or maybe they'd be afraid of the response of the governments involved and they learned a lesson i think we all would agree that you're not going to mess with russia when

it's doing its legitimate business operations in a particular part of the world go ahead yes you have not seen them with hugo chavez in venezuela you haven't seen them go after iran for nuclear you haven't seen them when saddam hussein was burning the oil fields you didn't see greenpeace activists in the one nine hundred ninety s. going into iraq and making any protests there they're looking for cheap easy points with a very little blowback unfortunately they may have picked the wrong target here and yes obviously the arctic is a sensitive environmental area but the point is greenpeace would oppose it whether it's the gulf of mexico whether it's in russia or whether it's in the arctic whether it's just about anywhere they're going to oppose this and the technology by the way for arctic drilling is dramatically improved and safer the footprints are smaller so the argument really isn't about they are arctic ecosystem for greenpeace it's about oil they're having a war modern energy and they want to remake our society into this so-called renewable energy of solar and wind and you don't hear greenpeace going. after

windmills that are slaughtering birds you don't hear them going after solar panels that are going into sensitive environmental areas like the mojave desert they are very politically careful where they do this and i think what i mentioned earlier that greenpeace is on the edge there's a poll here in america that says people even if they care about the environment don't like the image of environmentalists so they don't call themselves environmentalist and one of the large reasons is the antics of greenpeace is the face of modern environmentalism they pioneered it and people are turning off to it in these kind of tactics it's interesting alexander if i go to you in london i mean greenpeace itself is a corporation and it's not and it's not very it's not very transparent and it has many branches all over the world but some countries it's its finances are very very closed in the been under a lot of investigation in two thousand and five by the way the f.b.i. investigated them for having possible connection with eco terrorists not

a very open operation. i'm sure that i'm sure that's true. the question it seems to me. if we come back to this particular incident which is why is this. different from the sort of things that greenpeace has historically done and i don't really think it was what i think is really interesting about this particular thing is yes russia in some ways is now a vulnerable target for this kind of activity the reason russia is a vulnerable target that these these sort of activities is precisely because russia is becoming a legally legally orderly a fairly open society and you can't operate in countries which are dictatorships for fairly obvious reasons it can only operate in countries like democracies like russia and the important thing is that russia is responding to

this in i think a rather skillful and actually rather sophisticated way they say look we will not let our people be harassed at the same time we're going to actually use the courts and the law and counter to what some people say i would say that the actual legal case against greenpeace under article two to seven of the russian criminal codes is actually quite a strong one i can see that there are defenses there but it is a legal response to a challenge ok more mark if i go back to you i mean it certainly is a challenge here i mean greenpeace want to go either i with or with gazprom russia's energy company here and it looks like this time gas problem is one that's one out here under the under law and it looks like greenpeace here has blinked. calculated this time. oh i think they absolutely did the fact that they're still detained the fact that their boats been seized i think this is not what they

expected they expected a slap on the wrist to go about their business and this is all about their fund raising letters they want to send these modeline sappy appeals to people in the mail saying here's what we did we must stop this stop russian arctic drilling immediately people write a big check this complicates the issue makes greenpeace look like they may have overstepped so it's not the best p.r. thing unless they can try to demonize russia and claim they're at the hands of you know putin and they're being unfairly treated which i have you know i haven't seen yet the piracy charges i mentioned might be wrong but i think most likely and most likely drop yes i agree so i think what's going to happen here is greenpeace you know their president one of their executive directors just recently came out sure go ahead mark finish up go ahead. go one of their executive directors came out and said that this is going to put their lives on the line for climate justice in his words climate justice so they're sounding in some ways more defiant i was at the

keystone pipeline protest here in washington d.c. there were protesters with banners saying we will stop the canadian pipeline to the u.s. by any means necessary and i interviewed him so there's a strain of the environmental movement that's getting more and more radicalized against fossil fuels and i think russia taking these measures today to sending a message that at least i'm not going to take these p.r. stunts that greenpeace is doing because they may end up at sort of that slippery slope they may end up leading to more serious attacks by other more extreme green groups exactly alexander you want to jump in go ahead you see. yeah what i wanted to say is i think the point that mark mark is making about the carbon issues is actually an interesting one because i think part of what's been happening is that a couple of years ago five or six years ago a global warming carbon issue all of these things were very much at the top of the global political agenda with the economic crisis and with all kinds of other

problems going on around the world that's fallen back a bit and i think what we are seeing is a certain escalation on the part of certain sections of the ecological movement with greenpeace being somewhat in the vanguard of trying if you like to try to increase again the attention that this issue is getting and i think some of the overblown language in it is in fact consistent with that however one must always be careful to distinguish between what people say and what they actually do it's one thing for them to say we're going to do anything to stop something happening. provided they remain within the law. you know people will say things but one shouldn't go off to them unless they break the law if they go if they do great little then it is the law ought to be used to

deal with them which is what we see in russia now as i said i come back to this until the russians have handled this matter well and an extraordinary contrast if you like to what happened way back in the 1980's when the french responded yes he's a talented greenpeace by planting bombs in. boats and killing people and doing terrible things or if in some ways the russians would have been wrong to have arrested this ship before being on the high seas before they did anything they waited for them to do something they then acted and in fact they're acting in a legal way and i think that's something that we should note and commend and recognize you know market you know it's great piece in competition with these other groups because it seems to be you know there's a there's a limited amount of publicity you can get there and greenpeace is making a pitch for it because there are far more extreme groups being greenpeace out there

yet when the whole environmental pressure groups there was a recent analysis by david horowitz three point five billion dollars i believe annual is what the size of what we call the big green establishment is and that's a thirty seven to one advantage over your free market groups are seen as a collectively as a free market group sort of in a proposition so this is huge business there's a lot of money and a lot of intense competition so greenpeace has always had the edge of being willing to do the civil disobedience to do the stunts and by the way just a clarification on the french incident from years ago if they had planted bombs in the french government acted in extremely outrageous way i'm not defending what they did in saying that was good i was making a rhetorical point earlier about russia had better be careful that it doesn't happen but i think what greenpeace is doing this is a ball about fund raising it's all about media attention alexander go ahead in london jump in. you know what i was i was going to say i only of remove the mob was just a fun with me to the point to tease pieces fall into the very large ecological movement

there's a there's a big spectrum of groups within it and greenpeace has always been out in the. militant edge it is not as militant. as some groups and there are some people within the ecological movement who do go beyond the pale frankly i think greenpeace is actually clever enough to know how far to go most of the time and i think they will on this occasion to you know markedly in going further now only looking at the arctic and other areas here do you think that greenpeace is going to be a little bit more skittish in other groups when they confront countries or say we're going to stand your ground yeah i think they'll be careful i mean and the u.s. they have pretty much free rein they know nothing will happen canada i would say is probably similar any you know western democracy is going to be easy free rein for greenpeace and these kind of stunts the problem really is greenpeace activism has

led to things like the world bank now trying to put a moratorium on coal fired power plants in africa president obama is not going to support coal fired power plants people that need carbon based energy the most to rise out of poverty are getting it and that is to me is the most outrageous thing that greenpeace has done so they go after the most powerless people without a voice without energy basically and they could have the most impact there but i think they're going to continue to do what they do but i think they'll be a little bit more cautious because they don't like this kind of a hiccup especially depending on how it turns out p.r. wise again if greenpeace can demonize the russian government to the point where they were been unjustly and they could be the victim hair that may turn out for them in the end i don't think that's god i didn't we had only we were out ahead of time here about. greenpeace and fund raising here making and you might get some sun that is all good and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here

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the real fighting game. it's no good saying speed so off to a military service and you can expect some of the toughest training. in the press to send them up to. see. one of the new will strong arming allies and these college face i think sometimes you know alone. it was. a pleasure to have you with us here on our team today i roll researcher.

today larry. shares his story on how one man one from the streets of compton to rap superstar in their own drummer nor probably been misunderstood by people. now i would give i would give people the benefit of the doubt and say they know exactly who i was because that's what i gave them and now i'll just turn over a new leaf i will i wasn't really trying to you know infest the community or anything like that it was really a shock to survive plus you're only thirty three right and i love that say to you well and then my only other ties a little you that's all ahead on larry king now. have to selling millions of albums back to get ahead.