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Peru Indignant After Greenpeace Damages Ancient Nazca Site
HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that Peruvian authorities say Greenpeace activists have damaged the fragile, and restricted, landscape near the Nazca lines, ancient man-made designs etched in the Peruvian desert when they placed a large sign that promoted renewable energy near a set of lines that form the shape of a giant hummingbird. The sign was meant to draw the attention of world leaders, reporters and others who were in Lima, the Peruvian capital, for a United Nations summit meeting aimed at reaching an agreement to address climate change. Greenpeace issued a statement apologizing for the stunt at the archaeological site and its international executive director, Kumi Naidoo, flew to Lima to apologize for scarring one of Peru's most treasured national symbols. "We are not ready to accept apologies from anybody," says Luis Jaime Castillo, the vice minister for cultural heritage. "Let them apologize after they repair the damage."
"But repair may not be possible. The desert around the lines is made up of white sand capped by a darker rocky layer. By walking through the desert the interlopers disturbed the upper layer, exposing the lighter sand below. Visits to the site are closely supervised — ministers and presidents have to seek special permission and special footwear to tread on the fragile ground where the 1,500 year old lines are cut. "A bad step, a heavy step, what it does is that it marks the ground forever," says Castillo. "There is no known technique to restore it the way it was." Castillo says that the group walked in single file through the desert, meaning that they made a deep track in the ground then they spread out in the area where they laid the letters, making many more marks over a wide area. "The hummingbird was in a pristine area, untouched,". Castillo added. "Perhaps it was the best figure."
The Aliens will never find out where to land now
Silly sods. Greenpeace's whole ethos is to take the moral high ground against destructive activities of government and big business.
Well, their careless actions here have fucked that up big time. Once you throw away the "moral high ground", good luck getting it back.
The trashing of the Gulf was an accident and a mistake. This was a malicious ignoring of Peruvian law to access a sacred site to further their own egos. There was no mistake involved here.
The Nazca lines are human made, as we all know Greenpeace doesn't care about humans. They only care about the "environment", even though they often oppose things that would in fact help protect the environment.
Mistake? And not one of these environmental geniuses said to his buds, "Hey guys, this might be a bad idea" ?
You are a bigot; you think in terms of environmental damage without even considering the people who were insulted by Greenepeace's callousness. This has nothing to do with ecological impact, it has everything to do with irreparably damaging a world heritage site and something that is extremely important to Peruvian and South American culture. They didn't cause environmental damage, but they basically insulted an entire nation by being careless and thoughtless about their culture to make a message that would result in nothing.
Then their initial response was essentially a backhanded slap to the Peruvian people. From the Greenpeace Facebook page:
"Without reservation, Greenpeace apologises to the people of Peru for the offense caused by our recent activity laying a message of hope at the site of the historic Nazca Lines.
We are deeply sorry for this."
Which basically says "we're sorry people got offended by our message of hope." It should be reading "we're sorry we irreparably damaged this site and trod on your culture", so once again, callousness and carlessness.
Greenpeace is not a good organization. It's a bunch of people who make a lot of noise and act like thugs and morons, and often their positions are not supported by science or thoughtful discourse.
While I agree that this is an opportunity for politicians to discredit Greenpeace.. its not an issue of ENVIRONMENTAL damage.. its an issue of preserving National and World Heritage. The government of Peru is not worried about plants and animals in this case.. it is worried about keeping these ancient grounds for future generations.
What they did is the equivalent of pissing on the Mona Lisa.
In what universe is fixing up crumbling old downtowns and making them livable again an evil thing to do?
And the PC crapola you cite, including the Greenpeace organization and all its Luddite folderol, was a creation of the Boomers.
It seems to work. I suspect there is an x% of the population that responds positively to that sort of thing and it is purposely targeted for membership and fundraising in order to build up enough strength to push their agenda on the rest of the population.
Check out ISIS' "work". The more aberrations they cause, the more a certain cast of society supports them. The need to act out is greater than the cause for the members of all these groups (Greenpeace, ISIS, PETA, Femen, etc etc), and our society and legal framework is not adapted to deal with them.
Greenpeace doesn't care about the environment. They care about making themselves feel important. Their behavior is such.
They also would have to disband if they could acknowledge their mistakes like their stance against nuclear power which makes them partly responsible for global warming. Only idiots would think that we wouldn't burn more fossil fuels as our societies need for electricity continued to grow especially given the other techs available at up an til-recently. Also, green peace is trying apparently to bankrupt the very renewables they calm to love so much. They should have ask for investment in energy storage and that countries cut back on new renewable investments before the boom busts.
Nah, it was a genuine mistake. They've already laid down a new set of big yellow letters saying "We are truly sorry for disturbing your national heritage site. Greepeace."
Same goddamned thing that's "wrong" with every other generation ever. Greed, selfishness, etc. The difference in outcomes stems from things like cheap air travel, which makes it possible for local idiots to literally go global. I bet these Greenpeace activist could have never afforded to fly to Peru in say 1964.
Of course, the boomers and their Soviet counterparts came pretty close to inadvertently wiping out civilization during Able Archer, which no other generation has managed to repeat since then.
Green peace, Peta, and other "Groups" like them stopped being about the "issues" a long time ago and have since turned into ego trips for its members. It seems like a game for them to pull off the biggest stunt. Do they seriously think world leaders are "unaware" of renewable energy? Seriously?
That message wasn't for world leaders, it was a dick measuring contest with other activists.
A long time ago I might have supported organizations like Greenpeace and PETA on general principles, but the membership of both organizations have grown so outrageously batshit insane and arrogant that I feel differently now.
I feel like roasting a live cat over a pile of burning coal, frankly.
Way to win hearts and minds, idiots!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
To be fair, the BP disaster wasn't an accident, it was the result of negligence - they ignored well-established safety protocols in the name of (marginally) bigger profits.
So really, both acts were malicious.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Nah, it was a genuine mistake. They've already laid down a new set of big yellow letters saying "We are truly sorry for disturbing your national heritage site. Greepeace."
Unacceptable.Completely unacceptable. At the very least, at a bare minimum, they should have had the intelligence to know that anything they would do at a world heritage site, especially one that is as well known - and it's frailty as well documented as the Nacza plain, you simply Do Not Do That!
The problem with Greenpeace and other such organizations is they become stupid. They are so beholden to their cause, that nothing can get in their way. They apologized, but in their heart, they don't give a flying fig about anything but their cause. SMart about one thing, stupid about the rest of the universe.
No group in their right mind would ever do such a thing. It would be like say - Pepsi going up and re-arranging the stones on part of the plain in the shape of their logo. People in their right mind would have squashed the idea as soon as it came out of the idiot's mouth that thought up this ill advised plan. But they don't, because as zealots, they have given their cause priority over everything else, and nothing else matters. It is the same sort of mentality that gets people to fly into skyscrapers in the name of their religion.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If they really had no self-interest, as you seem to suggest, then the sign they left in the Nazca site would have just read "Time for change-The future is renewable" without mentioning "Greenpeace" in huge letters. You can't be so naive as to think that Greenpeace simply advocates issues of climate change, anti-oil, deforestation, etc. Their brand thrives on those issues and it's what defines them. Just look at their track record of getting people's attention with publicity stunts... How is that not self-promotion? In marketing terms they are brilliant.
The sad thing about this recent stunt is that Greenpeace is getting a lot of publicity out of it. Their so-called apology to the Peruvian people was a joke. Here's a direct quote from their official apology: "We fully understand that this looks bad... we came across as careless and crass." Looks bad? We "came across as"? They are apologizing that they stained their own image. They are sorry that the world now sees them negatively. In other words, they are expressing that they are sorry for themselves.... How far up one's own ass must one's head be for them to write something like that in an apology to the people of a nation? It should have read "We have no words to express the shame we feel for having acted the way we did." But that would be too humble.
If they are really sorry to Peru they would take part of their operating budget for the next few years to pay for all reparations and maintenance costs of the Nazca site.
As a longtime resident of a 'crumbling downtown' that is getting made 'livable again', I can tell you what's wrong with it. We have had a self-sustaining and functional community in my neighborhood for over 30 years. Everyone from outside called it the 'bad part' of town, and we always just accepted that, because we don't want any attention anyways. A few hipster breweries and barcodes set-up in shop a few years ago, and now rents have gone up between 50-200 percent, the cops are here all the time when those nice cars attract petty theft, there are drunken douchebags screaming, fighting, vandalizing low-income apartments and houses all hours of the night every night, and buildings that sold for 170k 10 years ago are put on the market for 1.5 million.
But but but think of the business!! Amirite??? We were a mixed use neighborhood, but mostly residential and parks, with a few bodegas, a 40 year old family grocer, a few small restaurants and a few pubs. In the last 7 years we have had the displeasure of becoming the home to 9 huge alcohol related endeavors. Business can go fuck itself. It's ruined a decades old community.
By far the worst part about it though, is having to listen to dips hits like you, that move in, live her for a year or two, and then say shit like "BUT LOOK WE CLEANED IT UP FOR YOU DERP".
Name one thing a Millennial - any Millennial - has done to improve America.
Edward Snowden (millennial) blew the lid on massive online surveillance (an invention of the boomers).
QED
Crimey
As usual, Jane/Lonny Eachus is wrong: "'The Greatest Generation' is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II, as well as those whose productivity within the war's home front made a decisive material contribution to the war effort, for which the generation is also termed the G.I. Generation."
Members of the "Greatest Generation" were born from 1901 to 1924, but Tom Brokaw was born in 1940.
So Jane/Lonny Eachus is wrong. Again. The "Greatest Generation" isn't a self-designation.