It’s not hard to become enamored with Greenpeace if you don’t look below the surface. Save the whales, protect the forest, defend the earth-great goals. But what about distort the facts, destroy the property and misappropriate the science-not great tactics.

This week IntraFish lauded Greenpeace’s seafood sustainability efforts saying its “rooftop rally” approach was an effective tool for change. What it didn’t mention is that rooftop rallies are also known as trespassing and are often accompanied by vandalism. Unreported by IntraFish is the fact that Greenpeace signed an Accountability Charter that promises its agents will not be involved in “illegal or unethical practices.” Simply put you do not see responsible ENGO’s behaving this way. Change comes when dedicated parties sit down and find a path forward, not when one lobs threats while whining about being ignored.

IntraFish even suggests accusations that Greenpeace takes credit for things it didn’t do are off base because there are too many examples of retailers changing policies after having contact with Greenpeace. Perhaps a quick review of its own archive of articles would find the July 25, 2008 report where the senior seafood buyer for Stop & Shop and Giant is quoted as saying, “None of this is in reaction to the Greenpeace retailer rankings. These decisions were made as a result of the advice we received from the New England Aquarium.”

Greenpeace is full of contradictions and distortions and has been known to shop fictional tales of fish stock collapse in order to raise money. Greenpeace is not who many think they are and former leaders of the organization have abandoned proverbial ship because they say it has lost its way and doesn’t represent Greenpeace of the past. Unfortunately Greenpeace of the future appears to be content as a top notch fund raising machine and a bottom tier activist organization whose actions continue to marginalize it in the eyes of consumers and other ENGOs.