Can This Man Save the Planet? WSJ profiles Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo

[bananas]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576500641559480306.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

* AUGUST 25, 2011
Can This Man Save the Planet?
Is the South African head of Greenpeace the Nelson Mandela of the environment—or is he selling out the movement?
By ADAM SPANGLER

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The idea of saving the environment held little meaning for young Naidoo in his native South Africa. His mother committed suicide when he was 15. His father, a bookkeeper who ran local soccer and cricket associations from their home outside Durban, took care of Naidoo and his three siblings. As a young teen, he was drawn to anti-apartheid protests, for which he was expelled from school, reinstated and expelled again. By the time he was 18, Naidoo had been arrested, beaten, thrown in the back of a van with a can of tear gas. "One day we felt empowered," he recalls. "Other days we were terrified. I felt like I was living on borrowed time. Too many friends died in the struggle to think I wouldn't be next."

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In January 2009, Naidoo helped lead a 21-day hunger strike to protest the South African government's position on Zimbabwe's despotic ruler, Robert Mugabe. Exhausted and emaciated, he saw his hair turn gray from malnutrition. On his 19th day without eating, a recruiting firm called to see whether he was interested in the top job at Greenpeace. He brushed off the offer—it wasn't exactly the best timing—but his daughter convinced him to reconsider. (Naomi is now 19 and studying ethics, religion and philosophy at the University of London.)

The new consensus among eco-activists is that environmentalism is now a matter of life and death, especially for people of color living in poverty, who are bearing the brunt of climate change. "Climate apartheid" is a term Naidoo uses to connect environmentalism and human rights. "The old paradigm, where we can pretend you can either care about people or you care about the planet and don't worry about both at the same time, is starting to break down," says Van Jones, a former environmental-jobs adviser to the Obama administration. "Someone like Kumi, who has such impeccable human-rights credentials, says that protecting the people and the planet are twin duties. It showed a lot of foresight on Greenpeace's part to hire someone with that background."

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For years he traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos to campaign about issues of poverty and climate and couldn't get a single meeting with a CEO. In the past two years, Naidoo couldn't accommodate all of their requests. One CEO told Naidoo, "My colleagues are very keen to get you to the table, so that they are not on your menu." In a battery of informal half-hour meetings with companies across a range of industries, from energy to telecom to chemicals to electronics, executives asked how they could avoid Greenpeace's wrath, whether it's a ranking on a polluter's list or being subjected to direct action.

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[SpiralHawk]

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