BANNER AD Adam Ensalaco wants YOU to become a member of the local Greenpeace chapter.

Photos: Nicole Radja

Greenpeace
(220 S State St, suite 324, 312-447-0159; greenpeace.org)
Mission End global warming, save the oceans and forests, stop nuclear-energy usage, end genetic engineering and push for toxin-free products
Victories Pressured Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush to cosponsor the Safe Climate Act in September 2007. (Rush was the last Illinois Democrat to cosponsor it.) Persuaded about 750 companies (some Chicago-based) and six major universities (including Columbia College Chicago) to cancel their Kimberly-Clark Kleenex orders because the company allegedly supports a practice that annihilates trees in sectors of ancient forests.
Methods Nonviolent direct action (sit-ins, lockdowns); online petitions

Photos: Shmura Campbell

Started in 1971 by a group of environmentally conscious activists in Vancouver, British Columbia, Greenpeace continues to fight for a greener planet, both nationally and in Chicago. Its activism often includes surprise protests involving banners, costumes and sit-ins. For example, last year Kimberly-Clark shot a commercial in a McDonald’s parking lot near Wrigley Field, asking passersby to sit on a couch, declare “how far they’d go for their Chicago sports teams,” then cry and use Kleenex to dry their tears. Local Greenpeacers disrupted the commercial by dressing up as bears and cubs (get it?) and distributing fliers to onlookers contending Kimberly-Clark destroyed the animal’s natural habitat.

That guerilla-style protest was one of the first for the new Chicago Greenpeace office, though most local efforts now focus on membership recruitment (i.e., those college-age kids clutching clipboards and trying to talk you into joining). Many of the organization’s current big-wigs started out canvassing, and the org credits it as an effective way to enlist new members (it’s substantially less expensive than commercials and garners much higher membership rates than e-mail campaigns).

But Chicago senior city coordinator Adam Ensalaco still sees peaceful protest as necessary to the chapter. “Protesting still matters and will always matter. Depending on how thin you want to slice the hair, protesting is democracy in its most fundamental sense,” he says. “There’s no amount of e-mails that are going to make that difference.”

—Alicia Eler

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