Rex Weyler

0:03Well, thanks, Rax. Appreciate you doing this. My pleasure. So how does a young man get themselves to be the founder of Greenpeace and dedicate their lives to such a good cause? Well I came to Vancouver as a draft resistor in 1972 and met Bob Hunter and Irving Stone and some of these people that started Greenpeace on the first campaign to M. Chica. We wanted to do a campaign that really talked about ecology. The first campaign that we did was in 1975. We sailed a fish boat right out of English Bay here, out into the Pacific to find the wailing fleets. We actually found the Russian whalers off the coast of California that summer and blockaded

0:53their boats and showed the world what they were doing. And that was always been the Greenpeace tactic is to shine the light a day on injustice and environmental stupidity and violence. It's been a 40-year tradition of standing up. So we have a bunch of people here behind us. It's International Oceans Day. You mentioned 1974 you blockade these boats. We're still here today fighting the same cause. We started the whale campaign blockading the Russian and later the Japanese whaling fleets. It's amazing that 35 years later we're still dealing with this issue of the whales.

1:39The whales were reduced down to about 5% of their peak in the 1970s. So we saved the remnants of the whale. Just the remnants of these marine mammals. So today Japan there's a moratorium on whaling and Japan is getting around this moratorium by claiming to be doing scientific research. So they go out and kill whales allegedly for scientific research. Although you'd be hard put to find any evidence of their scientific research. What are they killing them for then? Well they're killing them for whale meat. Okay. And they're selling the whale meat. And Junichi and Toru, these two Japanese Greenpeace members, confirmed and discovered the evidence that they were illegally selling this whale meat.

2:28They took a package of whale meat and they took it to the prosecutor in Tokyo. And instead of prosecuting the illicit selling of whale meat, they prosecuted Junichi and Toru allegedly for theft because they took this package of illicit whale meat and turned it over to the prosecutor. Well anyway, so they spent 26 days in jail without being charged. They were interrogated, strapped to their chair, which is brutal, nasty stuff. And so now they've been convicted of these charges and the prosecutors asking for 18 month jail sentences. These are young people with families, young kids, and throwing them in jail for really just normal civil disobedience. And you know, Greenpeace was founded on civil disobedience.

3:17And the United Nations recognizes that you and I have the right to stand up, to make a reasonable action to expose injustice. That's our right as citizens worldwide. It's recognized around the world. So, you know, we're here today to support Junichi and Toru for what they've done, to stand up to expose the selling of alien whale meat, but also just for the right of citizens to stand up and exercise their right to civil disobedience. We had a guy start yelling at you a couple seconds ago for whatever reason, whatever he believes in too, which as you say is allowed to be done, right? Does that happen often to you? The people who just come up and just start screaming at you, are you used to it at this point?

4:02Well, not only am I used to it, I think it's a thing. Do you like it? Do you thrive on it? Yeah? Because, you know what, it's like when you stand up for something, then other people feel inspired to stand up, right? And it inspires people. And the fact that, you know, this guy was seemed aggressive towards us. A little bit. The point is, is that when you stand up for justice and for what's right, other people get inspired and they do the same thing. I've noticed this, you know, for 40 years of peace activism and environmental activism. It's just the way it is. That's one reason why it's important for people to stand up for things, because it inspires your neighbors to do the same thing. Exactly. Green Peace is what? For people who don't know? Well, Green Peace is an organization that was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, right here.

4:50Right here. It's now a worldwide organization with offices in, I believe, 40 or 50 countries. It's got thousands of members all over the world, millions of members all over the world. And it's an organization which, the purpose of Green Peace is this. To shine the light of day on injustice, on violence, on ecological destruction, to expose these things so that the, so the society, civil society can change their, their ways. Green Peace has stopped nuclear testing by the United States and France and other countries. They've stopped dumping of toxins in the ocean. They want a more, we got a little problem with that right now though. We got a problem with that now, but you know, this is why Green Peace is necessary.

5:39I mean, we need, we need a thousand Green Peace's to tell you the truth. I mean, just in the Gulf, Mexico at the moment. Just in the Gulf of Mexico. But, you know, we keep, you know, for every step forward we make, ecologically, you know, we keep making steps backwards. And we think things are okay. We allow, you know, the Gulf of Mexico is a perfect example. You know, we've allowed corporations to run a mock and trusted them to police themselves, to regulate themselves. And what you get is what's happening in the Gulf of Mexico. Now right now the day we're fighting a battle here in Vancouver. They're running crude oil tankers right through the city of Vancouver. Most people in Vancouver don't even know about it. So they're running tankers full of crude oil right through the center of Vancouver.

6:27If there was an oil spill in Vancouver Harbor or even out in Georgia Strait, it would devastate this region. I mean, the tides wash in and out, you know, it would devastate the marine ecology, would devastate the fishing industry, shellfish, businesses, local business, it would ruin our reputation as a city. So, you know, these things go on and on. We're fighting the potential oil spill right here in British Columbia. I know you're an oil expert, but what would your suggestion be to President Obama right now? If he said Rex, what do I do? Just shut him down? Yeah, I'd say shut BP down. I'd say absolutely make BP pay for every penny of the cost of the restoration of the Gulf Coast.

7:12Can it even be restored though? Is that something that's even possible at this point? No, this is the point. No, not completely. I mean, that oil is going to impact that coast for centuries. It'll be there forever. I mean, you know, Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez dumped its oil, is, you know, still the impact is there. You dig down in there, you find this layer of oil, you know, in the soil, in the sand there in Prince William Sound. You know, it's a devastating thing, but I don't know what to tell Obama, except get tough, you know. He's responsible also for allowing these companies to continue unregulated and to claim to be policing themselves,

8:02claiming to be green, you know, notice British petroleum changed their logo from the shield to this like sunflower. Yeah. You know, this is what they do, you know, they change the paint, you know, and they put, they paint little green leaves on the oil pumps at the gas station, you know, and they call this being, you know, ecologically green. You know, so we have to continue to fight these battles, goes on and on. One last thing before I let you go, electric cars, do you think that's the future? Is that what we need to do, or is the energy that you need to get to even power the electric cars detrimental as well? Yeah, they want to occupy 800 watersheds in British Columbia to get electrical energy. We don't need electric cars, we need public good public transportation. That's what we need. I mean, I've lived in places with good public transportation where you get go, you get on a street car, you go to the Central Station,

8:52get on train in Europe, you can go anywhere, any other. Right, with the light speed rail. I've been in India, you can travel anywhere on the trains. So we need good public transportation. Electric cars, hybrid cars, this is just another consumptive process. You know, if we trade the entire fleet of cars right now for hybrids, for example, will that make us sustainable? No, because you have to mine the resources for the cars, you have to mine the rare earth metals for the batteries. We need to consume less stuff. And I think ultimately, this is where the direction our society is going to go. Public transport, simplification. This idea that we each need our own little machine to drive around, this is nuts.

9:39One day, one day we'll all live in a peaceful world. Thank you. Appreciate it.