Thread: Greenpeace vs Land Rover

Saw this article while browsing the news sites today.



Early in the morning of 16 May 35 volunteers from Greenpeace Ltd., the UK branch of Greenpeace, shut down the Range Rover assembly line at Solihull, claiming the “gas-guzzling Range Rover 4x4s made at the site are wrecking the climate”.

The volunteers used safety shut-down buttons to cut off power to the assembly line before handcuffing and chaining themselves to unfinished vehicles along the 150m-long assembly line and branding it a “climate crime scene”. It's the first time anywhere in the world that protesters have shut down a factory making SUVs, said Greenpeace.

Greenpeace executive director and former Labour Party adviser Stephen Tindale, one of the volunteers who chained themselves to Range Rover chassis, said: "We've taken direct action to stop Land Rover making these gas-guzzling urban 4x4s. The company used to have a reputation for making working vehicles, but now they market themselves as the car company for people who love the wilderness while simultaneously producing cars that threaten our environment with catastrophic climate change."

Greenpeace’s release on the incident ended with a request that members of the public email the Prime Minister asking him to increase road tax for ‘gas guzzlers’ and offer incentives for people who choose to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Police arrested about 30 of the Greenpeace activists on suspicion of aggravated trespass yesterday afternoon, among them Mr Tindale.

Mark Foster, Land Rover's manager of corporate communications, commented yesterday: "The action taken by Greenpeace at the Land Rover Solihull plant is both regrettable and damaging. Land Rover is a leading British business that exports 70 per cent of its production and contributes significantly to this country's wealth creation, has 11,000 employees and supports some 50,000 other jobs in the supply industry.

''It also takes its responsibility to the environment very seriously," Mr Foster added, saying it was impossible to quantify yet the impact of the incident on Range Rover production.

A spokesman for the Trade and General Workers Union said it was "crass insensitivity" for Greenpeace to carry out the protest at such a difficult time for car manufacturing in the Midlands. (Sources: Greenpeace, DailyTelegraph)


Daniel

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>All these greenies are hypocrites. What causes more pollution, a 30 year old Land Rover on LPG or someone who over the last 30 years has gone through 6 cars (how many megalitres of water to produce 1 tonne of steel? how much land fill?) and who now buys a hybrid? How much pollution to make those batteries, to generate the power for them, to build a car that is only good for 5-10 years and then bury it?
[/b][/quote]

exactly what I've been saying for yonks !
not to mention the vast amounts of oil used for the plastics, the vast amount of electricity (using coal fired power stations) used to smelt the steel, it goes on and on.

Government and big business try to lay a guilt trip on 'consumers' to buy new 'energy afficient' vehicles to help the environment. The only truly 'green' approach is to keep repairing old bombs and keep driving them, and ban production of new vehicles, but I can't see that happening soon :wink:

It's all bollocks and a big con.

off my soapbox now.... [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]