Facts vs. Factoids: Sharon Beder Responds

by Dr. Sharon Beder

Neither Thorstensen nor Palese has challenged the central point of my original article, namely that the Sydney Olympic Games are sited on a toxic waste dump that hasn't been cleaned up properly, and that to call them "the Green Games" is an exercise in greenwashing. My article was about how Sydney won the bid to host the Games by promoting them as "green." I argued that the Olympic bidders were only able to present the Games as "green" because Greenpeace supported the bid by also promoting the Games as "green."

Palese and Thorstensen do not take issue with any of this. They do not argue that I exaggerated the contamination of the Olympic site or that the site has been properly cleaned up. They do not dispute that Greenpeace endorsed the bid as "green" or claim that Greenpeace was unaware of the contamination. The fact that Greenpeace is now campaigning against the Olympic Coordination Authority (OCA) for its betrayal of environmental promises merely demonstrates my point that those promises represented greenwashing aimed at winning the Games rather than genuine environmental commitment.

As for Hughes, her response is at odds with the criticisms that Greenpeace Australia has belatedly made of the toxic cleanup at the Olympic site. Is she suggesting that toxic waste dumps can be cleaned up with bulldozers and a few leachate drains? Add some ecology programs as an afterthought and you have a "lasting legacy for nature and human communities"! This may be "a new approach to solving land contamination issues" from a PR perspective but it certainly does not solve the real problem of the unpredictable migration of toxic waste.

Far from being outdated and incorrect, the situation described in my article is still current. The toxic waste is still buried on site, and the Games are still being described by the OCA and by Greenpeace as "green." No amount of solar panels and PVC-free materials or even protest actions by Greenpeace will change that.

Palese and Thorstensen accuse me of numerous "inaccuracies," but fail to offer specifics. Palese's first point suggests that she was candid about the toxic waste issue with "numerous journalists" before the Olympic bid was decided. If so, why did none of those journalists report her comments at the time? What exactly did she tell them?

Thorstensen makes a similar point regarding her own media interviews in connection with Greenpeace campaigns to expose "toxic contamination of Homebush Bay and the Rhodes Peninsula." Readers should understand, however, that she is not referring to the Olympic site itself but rather to other contaminated sites in the neighborhood, the Rhodes Peninsula being kilometers away.

Palese falsely claims that I only contacted Greenpeace after my article was published. In fact, I interviewed two Greenpeace campaigners as part of my earlier research for that article, namely Karla Bell (then Greenpeace Olympics campaigner) and Robert Cartmel (then Greenpeace toxics campaigner).

Thorstensen stoops to a classic PR ploy--the personal attack--when she claims that I am motivated to attack Greenpeace under the influence of an embittered "lover, Richard Gosden, [who] was sacked from Greenpeace." This invention is a clever mixture of half-truths and scrambled chronology.

The truth is that I have been married to Richard Gosden since 1986. He worked briefly for Greenpeace in 1989 but felt unsuited to the corporate culture of Greenpeace and resigned after six months. A couple of months later, he was enticed to work for them again as a consultant to help get a clean waters campaign off the ground. He has had no involvement with them since, holds no grudge, and seems to have amicable relations with the Greenpeace people he occasionally encounters. Thorstensen doesn't know him, since she only began her employment at Greenpeace after he had left.

I did write a couple of reports for Greenpeace in 1990 and 1992, but these were both done after Richard Gosden's last involvement with Greenpeace. The fact that this was subsequent to his employment at Greenpeace and that I got along well with Thorstensen then (as she herself states) is proof that his experience had no adverse effect on me. My critical perspective is not based on some old grudge but rather on my research into the greenwashing of the Sydney Olympics and Greenpeace's evolving role as a pawn in the game of corporate PR.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of their response, however, is not an issue of fact but what they think I am saying. Palese accuses me of implying that Greenpeace's involvement in the Olympic Games is motivated by a desire for positive PR and increased donations. While Greenpeace may fear that people will draw that conclusion, I never made that argument. To the contrary, I have always been doubtful that labeling the Games as "green" would help Greenpeace to attract donations.

Opportunism may be part of the explanation for Greenpeace's role in the Olympics, but the real issue raised by my article has to do with fundamental strategy for the environmental movement. Like many groups, Greenpeace is at a crossroads. Will it remain a principled "green warrior," or will it become a deal-making, compromised collaborator with the powers that be? That question is the focus of my story titled "From Green Warriors to Greenwashers" in this issue.

Dr. Sharon Beder is a professional civil engineer and associate professor in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She is the author of several books, including The Nature of Sustainable Development, The New Engineer, Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing, and Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism, as well as numerous articles on environmental and other issues, many of which are available on her website at <http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/>.