BREMEN, Germany — The gleaming green schooner in Bremen's shipyard says everything about how Greenpeace has grown up through the years. Three decades ago Greenpeace acquired a converted fishing trawler for $40,000, painted it green and set out to bump hulls with Japanese whalers and disrupt nuclear weapons testing; the first Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French intelligence agents in 1985.
In early October, with a traditional bottle of champagne, the movement christened Rainbow Warrior III — a $33 million marvel, part helicopter-capable warship equipped to do battle with "environmental criminals" and part high-tech PR vessel, with widescreen conference facilities and state-of-the-art communications.
Like the ship, environment activists of all stripes are showing hallmarks of maturity. The public image remains true: young idealists parading in polar bear outfits, climbing smokestacks of coal-burning power plants, hoisting a global-warming protest banner on Mount Rushmore.
Read the complete story by The Associated Press at The Standard-Times.