Thorstensen Says Beder Was Bitter

Letter from Lynette Thorstensen, former CEO of Greenpeace Australia

I am very disappointed at the many inaccuracies in the Sharon Beder piece. As CEO of Greenpeace Australia at the time of the announcement of Sydney's successful bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics, I undertook literally hundreds of interviews in which I deliberately raised the issue of the dioxin-contaminated sites within the Olympics precinct.

I remarked again and again that the Olympics process, though far from perfect, would provide the momentum and the capital needed to genuinely remediate the contaminated sites on the Rhodes peninsula.

I was particularly passionate about these issues because, prior to my appointment as CEO, I was the national Coordinator of Greenpeace Australia's Toxics Campaign for four years. In fact, one of our early campaigns was to publicly expose the toxic contamination of Homebush Bay and the Rhodes peninsula to several media outlets as far back as 1990.

Sharon and I worked very well together on a number of toxics issues, and she was hired by Greenpeace to produce a number of reports. Unfortunately, Greenpeace's relationship with Sharon soured considerably when her lover, Richard Gosden, was sacked from Greenpeace. This has influenced Sharon's behavior ever since, and has meant that she has continued to attack and seriously misrepresent Greenpeace.

Beder has chosen to virtually ignore my many hundreds of hours of media commentary because it does not suit her purposes. I was without question the key Greenpeace spokesperson on the Olympics in 1993 and 1994, yet I am quoted only once in her piece and out of context.

As CEO of Greenpeace Australia, I signed off on all of Greenpeace's official media statements, yet Beder chooses instead to concentrate on Karla Bell, Robert Cartmel and Paul Gilding.

I'm afraid I don't make great copy for Sharon's theories. I'm not an evil consultant of some sort. No, I'm a humble stay-at-home mother these days, volunteering one day a week for the Wilderness Society. I consider myself a committed environmentalist. It is for this reason that I am offended at Sharon's many exaggerations, half-truths and attacks on hard-working activists. What is completely unforgivable, though, is that Sharon's unethical attack on a leading green organization hinders the cause of environmental protection.

This is exactly the kind of highly misleading "shit piece"--as we call them in this country--that should not appear in your publication!

--Lynette Thorstensen

Important Update In June 2000, it came to our attention that representatives of Greenpeace and the Australian Olympics have been circulating the above letter without including a reference to Sharon Beder's response. For the sake of fairness, therefore, we feel that it is important to state here that Dr. Beder vigorously rejects the claims made by Lynette Thorstensen. As the editors of PR Watch, moreover, we strongly deplore Thorstenson's statement that Beder's critique of the Olympics was written because her "lover, Richard Gosden, was sacked from Greenpeace." Not only is this claim demonstrably false and misleading, it is a classic ad hominem attempt at character assassination and guilt by association. Such attacks, we believe, have no place in debates over environmental or other public issues. Dr. Beder's own detailed response to the letters from Blair Palese, Kate Hughes and Lynette Thorstensen appeared alongside those letters in the print edition of PR Watch. Visitors to this online edition may read Beder's response at the following URL: http://www.prwatch.org/99-Q3/response.html Sincerely, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber