h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Not long before I left the shores of Blighty to land here in Texas, I was living in west London, and the local branch of my bank was on Ealing Broadway. There were far too many days when walking from the bus stop to the bank there'd be a phalanx of Greenpeace canvassers, complete with clipboard, asking me if I could "...spare a minute to talk about Greenpeace". Twelve of them on one occasion - six on the way there and the same six on the way back (they must have a terrible memory for faces).

Four years and 8,000 miles later, I'm getting exactly the same treatment outside my local food store (a wholefood supermarket) by people who look exactly the same and who use exactly the same opening line (with a different accent of course).

That's why I will *never* be a member of Greenpeace, and I'm happy to tell them so (and why) each time they try to collar me. It goes something like this - "Do you have a minute to talk about Greenpeace?" "No, but do you have a minute to talk about why this face-to-face version of telemarketing has p!ssed me off to the extent that I'll have nothing to do with Greenpeace, even though I go along with many of their policies?"

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

I actually *don't* go along with a lot of Greenpeace's policies, which is why I'll never be a member. They're very good at pointing out pretty obvious problems but they don't seem to be able to entertain the idea that other solutions apart from theirs might exist.

Take the issue of GM crops for example: I am neither pro- nor anti-GM as a whole. I think that certain applications (aluminium toxicity resistance in poor soils, 'golden rice') are commendable, and others (the Terminator gene) stink. However, I am prepared to consider each application on a case-by-case basis. Greenpeace are not. They want a blanket ban, but sk them what they propose instead of third-world acountries adopting this technology and they come back with 'a fairer means of distribution of wealth'. it's almost like watching that Monty Python's 'Blue Peter' pisstake: 'How to Do It'.

It's this evident neurosis about matters of detail while simultaneously failing to engage with them on the appropriate level that I find most infuriating. They demonise because they don't understand, and they don't understand because it's easier not to. Pathetic, really.