Peru Indignant After Greenpeace Damages Ancient Nazca Site 465
HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that Peruvian authorities say Greenpeace activists have damaged the fragile, and restricted, landscape near the Nazca lines, ancient man-made designs etched in the Peruvian desert when they placed a large sign that promoted renewable energy near a set of lines that form the shape of a giant hummingbird. The sign was meant to draw the attention of world leaders, reporters and others who were in Lima, the Peruvian capital, for a United Nations summit meeting aimed at reaching an agreement to address climate change. Greenpeace issued a statement apologizing for the stunt at the archaeological site and its international executive director, Kumi Naidoo, flew to Lima to apologize for scarring one of Peru's most treasured national symbols. "We are not ready to accept apologies from anybody," says Luis Jaime Castillo, the vice minister for cultural heritage. "Let them apologize after they repair the damage."
"But repair may not be possible. The desert around the lines is made up of white sand capped by a darker rocky layer. By walking through the desert the interlopers disturbed the upper layer, exposing the lighter sand below. Visits to the site are closely supervised — ministers and presidents have to seek special permission and special footwear to tread on the fragile ground where the 1,500 year old lines are cut. "A bad step, a heavy step, what it does is that it marks the ground forever," says Castillo. "There is no known technique to restore it the way it was." Castillo says that the group walked in single file through the desert, meaning that they made a deep track in the ground then they spread out in the area where they laid the letters, making many more marks over a wide area. "The hummingbird was in a pristine area, untouched,". Castillo added. "Perhaps it was the best figure."
Ecology vs archeology (Score:2, Insightful)
Looks like them favoring will do anything to make their issue known ... everything, including ruining thousands-year-old world heritage site
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Looks like them favoring will do anything to make their issue known ... everything, including ruining thousands-year-old world heritage site
Am glad that Luis Jaime Castillo rejected their apology, and demanded that they repair the damage. High time someone told these environmental wacko assholes where to fuck off!!!
Re: What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm more disappointed than I am upset. The Millennials could have been a truly great generation. Yet they've squandered this opportunity in every way. People who could have done amazing things have instead sunk to new lows, dragging everyone and everything else with them. The loss of what could have been is something to be disappointed about.
Re: What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Globally speaking, a good portion of "The Greatest Generation" were fucking Nazis. Another decent sized chunk were Marxist, another chunk Fascist, and yet another chunk, Japanese Imperialists.
But yea, it makes total sense to whine that today's generation is somehow worse, morally speaking, than the assholes who started the last world war.
Re: What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:4, Informative)
Globally speaking, a good portion of "The Greatest Generation" were fucking Nazis.
There is no "globally speaking" about the greatest generation. The term refers to Americans of that era that assumed the burdens that they did. And in ordinary discussion I don't think that refernces to a particular generation in a culture are inclusive of all people across the globe that fall into a similar age bracket otherwise most of those discussion which are framed in terms of particular cultures and values would be meaningless. You've made a poor argument.
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Neither fire, the wheel, the printing press or the spork came from the "greatest generation". I don't know what they achieved to deserve that moniker.
But they did not come up with switch rape or yo (the app) either, so when it's all said an done, I'd say that at least they are not the worst generation.
Re: What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, Jane/Lonny Eachus is wrong [wikipedia.org]: "'The Greatest Generation' is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II, as well as those whose productivity within the war's home front made a decisive material contribution to the war effort, for which the generation is also termed the G.I. Generation."
Members of the "Greatest Generation" were born from 1901 to 1924 [wikipedia.org], but Tom Brokaw was born in 1940.
So Jane/Lonny Eachus is wrong. Again. The "Greatest Generation" isn't a self-designation.
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No, Americans did not "take the burden of defeating the Axis powers". That part was done by the Soviet Union. As far as the glorious victory over Japan, achieved with the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents (also known as the biggest war crime of History), then yes, it was 100% American.
The truth is that Americans of that generation (and many others) were far from being as great as Hollywood movies made you believe. They were like the dullard who hangs out with the cool kids and that puts himself i
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Not 100% American either, the Soviets have destroyed the Kwantung army in Manchuria.
So basically the Russians did most of the work in WW2, the Americans took most of the credit.
Re: What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:4, Insightful)
At the heigh of WWII the Nazi party had 8 million members. That's .4 per cent of the world population of 2 billion. No where near "a good chunk."
The original post blindly labeled my entire generation as hipster, gentrifying assholes. The same argument comes to mind.
Re: What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:3)
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Insightful)
In what universe is fixing up crumbling old downtowns and making them livable again an evil thing to do?
And the PC crapola you cite, including the Greenpeace organization and all its Luddite folderol, was a creation of the Boomers.
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In what universe is fixing up crumbling old downtowns and making them livable again an evil thing to do?
The one where as a result, many of the people who were living there can no longer afford to do so as a result.
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:4, Insightful)
The alternative you clearly prefer is to continue the degradation of civilization. There is no other possible alternative; things either get better or they get worse. You have consciously and deliberately chosen making things worse.
BTW, why didn't the people who were living there improve it?
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a longtime resident of a 'crumbling downtown' that is getting made 'livable again', I can tell you what's wrong with it. We have had a self-sustaining and functional community in my neighborhood for over 30 years. Everyone from outside called it the 'bad part' of town, and we always just accepted that, because we don't want any attention anyways. A few hipster breweries and barcodes set-up in shop a few years ago, and now rents have gone up between 50-200 percent, the cops are here all the time when those nice cars attract petty theft, there are drunken douchebags screaming, fighting, vandalizing low-income apartments and houses all hours of the night every night, and buildings that sold for 170k 10 years ago are put on the market for 1.5 million.
But but but think of the business!! Amirite??? We were a mixed use neighborhood, but mostly residential and parks, with a few bodegas, a 40 year old family grocer, a few small restaurants and a few pubs. In the last 7 years we have had the displeasure of becoming the home to 9 huge alcohol related endeavors. Business can go fuck itself. It's ruined a decades old community.
By far the worst part about it though, is having to listen to dips hits like you, that move in, live her for a year or two, and then say shit like "BUT LOOK WE CLEANED IT UP FOR YOU DERP".
Re:I was actually going to add... (Score:4, Interesting)
That anythink you're complaining about the Millenials fucking up is directly the responsibility of the Boomers since they didn't not only didn't have time to raise us, but let us be told we couldn't be responsible nor self sufficient until we were adults.
If you really are a Millennial then your parents are likely Gen-Xers so the Baby Boomers had no role in raising you except as grandparents. If you really were raised by a Baby Boomer then you're more likely Gen-X.
While it is possible for some exceptions for people born at one end of a group or the other, Millennials are the children of Gen-X and Gen-X are the children of the Baby Boomers. For example, it is possible for someone at the end of the Baby Boom to have a child but that would be a rare exception that proves the rule.
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I'm a "spanner" myself. WW2 parents, Gen-X peers. This happens when your WW2 parents don't have you until they hit their 40s. Thus, you skip the entire generation and have some anomalous things going on, such as all your cousins being *adults* while you're growing up. Silly me, aren't cousins always adults? Nope. For most people, those are aunts and uncles, and aunts and uncles aren't so old.
I've run into a few other people with the same "span" and it's always interesting. In some ways, I can relate
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Same goddamned thing that's "wrong" with every other generation ever. Greed, selfishness, etc. The difference in outcomes stems from things like cheap air travel, which makes it possible for local idiots to literally go global. I bet these Greenpeace activist could have never afforded to fly to Peru in say 1964.
Of course, the boomers and their Soviet counterparts came pretty close to inadvertently wiping out civilization during Able Archer, which no other generation has managed to repeat since then.
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I bet these Greenpeace activist could have never afforded to fly to Peru in say 1964.
Not only would it have been cheaper, but they would have been able to just get on the fucking plane and go without being anal probed.
Of course, the boomers and their Soviet counterparts came pretty close to inadvertently wiping out civilization during Able Archer, which no other generation has managed to repeat since then.
Every generation since forever has been working hard on it. It's called deforestation.
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Name one thing a Millennial - any Millennial - has done to improve America.
Edward Snowden (millennial) blew the lid on massive online surveillance (an invention of the boomers).
QED
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:4, Insightful)
To make it a fair comparison, you must move the time window such that the oldest boomers alive are the same age as the oldest millenials are now. That makes it the late 70s at earliest.
In the late 70s, the World Wide Web did not exist yet, and would continue to not exist for a decade.
The Internet was invented by the generation before them, and it was not yet all that important.
If you want to do intergenerational comparisons, you need to do one of three things:
1. Wait ~50 years.
2. Restrict yourself to the world as it existed when the oldest Boomer was in their early 30s (even if they already a great thing, it must be recognized as a great thing).
3. State your values clearly so we can know what defines "improvement of America".
I don't find Barack Obama particularly damning as a Presidential choice (it's not like he was a big drop-off from the last guy). You obviously don't value social media, which is kind of interesting actually, given that:
- In my experience things like facebook are more widely appreciated by the older generations than by the Millenials.
- Web forums, including slashdot, are social media. Forums were invented at the tail end of the pre-millenial generation, so you get a bye on using social media to complain about social media's worthlessness, but what makes you like forums but dislike others? What is the essential difference that makes the latter worthless?
why again do we have to let men who "feel like" women into the lady's room?!)
This is not a new issue; this is not a Millenial invention.
They've destroyed traditional cultural norms.
First: so what?
Second: literally every generation ever has done that. The US had a cultural norm that slavery was okay, and it was later replaced by a norm that slavery was abhorrent.
Note: I'm not an American so I have no horse in the "who improved America most" race.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't find Barack Obama particularly damning as a Presidential choice (it's not like he was a big drop-off from the last guy).
Don't be grateful for another turd just because turds are the only things on the buffet.
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Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:5, Insightful)
>They wear glasses without any lenses, for crying out loud. No sane person would do something that fucking dumb.
In fairness a large percentage of the male population wears ties - an utterly useless accessory that's every bit as stupid as lensless glasses.
As for Ferguson - personaly I've heard almost none but the obvious trolls claim the thug's actions were excusable. What they mostly said was that it was utterly unnaceptable for a police officer to shoot a man who didn't pose a comparably severe immediate threat, especially not eight times. It seems extremely unlikely that the man still posed a serious threat after the first several shots hit him, making the later shots bald-faced murder. And that the official response was such an obviously biased travesty that the justice department may as well have just hung up a giant "Fuck You All" sign.
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Just look at what they've done to San Francisco, Brooklyn, and numerous other places. They move into well established urban locales, drive up rents, and destroy the existing communities. Even the Boomers generally didn't do this, as they just built their own shitty suburbs.
This nation was built on the principle that being first doesn't entitle you to the land. There's no reason why people should not be permitted to drive up property values around you whatsoever. Not fucking one. When that happens, your property value goes up. If you can no longer afford to live there because property taxes have risen or because grocery prices have because your save-mart was replaced with a whole foods, then you will get more for your house than when you bought it (unless you are a dumbshit, a
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They wear glasses without any lenses, for crying out loud. No sane person would do something that fucking dumb.
Hey everyone. Don't mention jewellery. God forbid this poster finds out his own generation wore items that serve no useful purpose, he may just grab a gun and start shooting.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I hate to break the news to you, but these so-called "Millenials" you keep ranting about do not exist. And if they existed, theyd' all be 14 years old.
More generally speaking, not all people from one generation are the same, and the elderly have been complaining about youngsters even before Seneca wrote about it.
Take it easy, my friend, and perhaps get a bit more sleep. (Lack of sleep is one of the primary causes of grumpiness.)
The start of the bracket for the generational definition for Millennials is based on their high-school graduation / college freshman admission year, and thus refers to those born in 1982. Those 14-year-old kids you refer to are the young end of the bracket.
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I hate to break the news to you, but these so-called "Millenials" you keep ranting about do not exist. And if they existed, theyd' all be 14 years old.
I hate to break it to you but the group called the "Millennials" are not called that because they were born at the beginning of this millennium but because they were born at the end of the last one. Generally that means from early/mid 1980's to 2000.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Millennial [urbandictionary.com]
http://www.livescience.com/38061-millennials-generation-y.html [livescience.com]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/millennial+generation [reference.com]
Re:What the hell is wrong with Millennials?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Cage fight! (Score:5, Funny)
"It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds." -Doc Holliday
Re:Cage fight! (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoever loses.
We win.
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We need a PETA vs Greenpeace death-by-irony cage fight.
...and as soon as they are inside the cage we need to blow it up. Then maybe actual, reasonable environmentalists can make some headway. Extremists are of no use to anyone, even if they claim to be on your side.
The Paradigm (Score:3, Insightful)
Turning off people who might otherwise agree with them. Instead, they just generate hatred.
Re:The Paradigm (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to work. I suspect there is an x% of the population that responds positively to that sort of thing and it is purposely targeted for membership and fundraising in order to build up enough strength to push their agenda on the rest of the population.
Check out ISIS' "work". The more aberrations they cause, the more a certain cast of society supports them. The need to act out is greater than the cause for the members of all these groups (Greenpeace, ISIS, PETA, Femen, etc etc), and our society and legal framework is not adapted to deal with them.
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It works for a time. Then, finally you generate enough hatred and antipathy that a backlash is generated that more than wipes out any gains. Most people take a long time to get agitated enough to take action but once they do you find that it wasn't a wise choice to piss them off.
Re:The Paradigm (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, it was a genuine mistake. They've already laid down a new set of big yellow letters saying "We are truly sorry for disturbing your national heritage site. Greepeace."
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No, I heard they spray painted that on the pyramid at Giza.
Re:The Paradigm (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, it was a genuine mistake. They've already laid down a new set of big yellow letters saying "We are truly sorry for disturbing your national heritage site. Greepeace."
Unacceptable.Completely unacceptable. At the very least, at a bare minimum, they should have had the intelligence to know that anything they would do at a world heritage site, especially one that is as well known - and it's frailty as well documented as the Nacza plain, you simply Do Not Do That!
The problem with Greenpeace and other such organizations is they become stupid. They are so beholden to their cause, that nothing can get in their way. They apologized, but in their heart, they don't give a flying fig about anything but their cause. SMart about one thing, stupid about the rest of the universe.
No group in their right mind would ever do such a thing. It would be like say - Pepsi going up and re-arranging the stones on part of the plain in the shape of their logo. People in their right mind would have squashed the idea as soon as it came out of the idiot's mouth that thought up this ill advised plan. But they don't, because as zealots, they have given their cause priority over everything else, and nothing else matters. It is the same sort of mentality that gets people to fly into skyscrapers in the name of their religion.
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The problem with Greenpeace and other such organizations is they become stupid.
Become stupid ?
They have always been giant trolls, sucking in people with appeals to emotion rather than reason.
Yeah, become stupid. It's the sort of thing where otherwise intelligent people buy into trollish behavior, having convinced themselves that they can do evil in pursuit of a goal that might not be evil. Evul iz evil, no matter how you wrap it.
Oh No (Score:5, Funny)
The Aliens will never find out where to land now
Re:Oh No (Score:5, Funny)
I was hoping the aliens would swoop in and carry off the Greenpeacers. No group more richly deserves an anal probing.
Despicable Greenpeace (Score:3, Insightful)
Greenpeace has been, for quite some time now, nothing but a group lobbying for its self-interest, no matter its impact on the rest of us. I.e. they have become as despicable as the oil industry.
Re:Despicable Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Despicable Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the BP disaster wasn't an accident, it was the result of negligence - they ignored well-established safety protocols in the name of (marginally) bigger profits.
So really, both acts were malicious.
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Re:Despicable Greenpeace (Score:4, Insightful)
The trashing of the Gulf was an accident and a mistake. This was a malicious ignoring of Peruvian law to access a sacred site to further their own egos. There was no mistake involved here.
Accessing the sacred site and co-opting it for their message was not a mistake.
Damaging the sacred site was a mistake.
I'm not saying they don't deserve criticism. Feeling so entitled that you try to hijack someone else's cultural heritage for your own cause is offensive. Being so careless that you cause permanent damage while doing so is extremely offensive.
But I don't think they ever imagined that they'd damage the site.
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So BP is as despicable as Greenpeace, who irreversibly defiled an ancient monument and world heritage site, because they made a mistake? That sounds like a very reasonable assessment.
Re:Despicable Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenpeace has been, for quite some time now, nothing but a group lobbying for its self-interest...
Really? What interest is that? Please be specific. You really need to stop parroting Fox news talking points and thinking for yourself. While this stunt is nothing, if not stupid, Greenpeace's stated mission can hardly be described as "self interest".
Were they planting trees on the Nazca plains? No? Were they advertising themselves? Yes!
Re:Despicable Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
If they really had no self-interest, as you seem to suggest, then the sign they left in the Nazca site would have just read "Time for change-The future is renewable" without mentioning "Greenpeace" in huge letters. You can't be so naive as to think that Greenpeace simply advocates issues of climate change, anti-oil, deforestation, etc. Their brand thrives on those issues and it's what defines them. Just look at their track record of getting people's attention with publicity stunts... How is that not self-promotion? In marketing terms they are brilliant.
The sad thing about this recent stunt is that Greenpeace is getting a lot of publicity out of it. Their so-called apology to the Peruvian people was a joke. Here's a direct quote from their official apology: "We fully understand that this looks bad... we came across as careless and crass." Looks bad? We "came across as"? They are apologizing that they stained their own image. They are sorry that the world now sees them negatively. In other words, they are expressing that they are sorry for themselves.... How far up one's own ass must one's head be for them to write something like that in an apology to the people of a nation? It should have read "We have no words to express the shame we feel for having acted the way we did." But that would be too humble.
If they are really sorry to Peru they would take part of their operating budget for the next few years to pay for all reparations and maintenance costs of the Nazca site.
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Greenpeace is just another example of what happens when an organization adopts the policy that "the end justifies the means."
I see a lot of fatties in those photos and video (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or they could just kill themselves and everyone to save the planet.
Carbon emission wouldn't be an issue if the whole human population is reduced by 90%.
Greenpeace fail to take the moral high ground (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly sods. Greenpeace's whole ethos is to take the moral high ground against destructive activities of government and big business.
Well, their careless actions here have fucked that up big time. Once you throw away the "moral high ground", good luck getting it back.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Take the moral high ground? They act like they own it, no further justification necessary. Which means they shit in their own kitchen, and no mistake. To me, this pretty much clinches what I've been thinking for a while, and that is that their position is their religion, and damn any and all reality. This they share with more activist groups, like PETA. You could see that with them publishing reports full of suspiciously convenient numbers that turn out to be cherry picked (so much for their "science"), but
mistakes were made (Score:3, Insightful)
So, here we have a nice example of something like Jon Stewart's "one mistake" [youtube.com]... with all the willful environmental destruction in the world, this story of one admitted dreadful mistake by people who actually care deeply (for which the Greenpeace response -- as strong an apology as possible, while accepting that mere apology is insufficient -- is missing from the summary) becomes the story.... sad.
Re:mistakes were made (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mistakes were made (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenpeace doesn't care about the environment. They care about making themselves feel important. Their behavior is such.
They also would have to disband if they could acknowledge their mistakes like their stance against nuclear power which makes them partly responsible for global warming. Only idiots would think that we wouldn't burn more fossil fuels as our societies need for electricity continued to grow especially given the other techs available at up an til-recently. Also, green peace is trying apparently to bankrupt the very renewables they calm to love so much. They should have ask for investment in energy storage and that countries cut back on new renewable investments before the boom busts.
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Responsible nuclear power is fantastic, unfortunately I don't see many examples of it in the real world. Lowest bidder nuclear power, yeah, we're doing great at that.
It's wouldn't have to be that way if they didn't have to (because of anti-nuclear nutjobs) refile an environmental impact statement reexamining the who project every time they change pipe fitting vendors.
Human made (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nazca lines are human made, as we all know Greenpeace doesn't care about humans. They only care about the "environment", even though they often oppose things that would in fact help protect the environment.
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Yeah, that's kind of my sense. These lines are a *human* artifact, carved into the earth and left there for a thousand years. That's pretty much the definition of man despoiling the earth and it's not something I can see the hardcore environmental activist types having any qualms about trashing. They might not go out of their way to destroy it, but I can't imagine them feeling much remorse over it.
Re:Human made (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, and they also promote things that hurt the environment. Here in belgium they were actually encouraging people to burn woord for heating, since wood was renewable. Then they suddenly realised how much fine dust and smog was being created by those wood stoves. Oops.
And don't get me started on nuclear power. New designs are perfectly safe and produce almost no waste, yet we can't build them because nuclear power is supposedly dangerous and creates waste that will poison the planet forever. So, for lack of alternatives, we keep extending the life of older plants until they blow up. And we try to replace them with renewables that actually pollute more. Those solar panels don't grow on trees. More people have been killed in the construction of wind turbines than in nuclear accidents. Oh, well, looks like I've gotten myself started. I'll stop now.
They did harm real environment (Score:3)
When there's a dark layer of soil on top of sand it's usually a macrobiotic crust, that has taken a few hundred years to do its thing - that is what they crushed as they walked. There's not much worse you can do as far as lasting ecological damage except for sawing down trees a few hundred years old...
They did also harm the aesthetics of the lines themselves.
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Well, look around you, watch what humans do... can you blame them for not liking this particular species?
Yeah, I don't like what those Greenpeace activist humans did to one of the 1,007 UNESCO wold heritage sites, the same way I'd hate them for demolishing other UNESCO world heritage sites, like the Statue of Liberty, Yosemite, The Pyramids in Egypt, Ankor Wat in Cambodia, the Great Wall in China, or the Acropolis in Greece.
Or are you saying that those sites are deserving of being defaced by Greenpeace activist humans as well?
You do realize that Greenpeace activist humans are members of the set of all humans,
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Re:Human made (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, watch what humans do.
They build amazing structures, write inspiring music, invent fantastic technology, care deeply for others, and sacrifice their lives to save a friend. I've seen people risk their lives to save a dog drowning in a frozen lake, or to save complete strangers from a burning building. The world holds it's breath when miners are trapped in a cave in, and if they are miraculously saved, we weep tears of joy at the happy reunions with their loved ones. When tragedy strikes in the form of a hurricane, flood, tsunami or earthquake, we come together to donate our money and our time to help those affected. People have returned thousands of dollars lost to their owners when they had nothing to gain from it. Some people devote their entire lives to helping the least fortunate among us.
Sure, the world has plenty of evil people that do evil things. But if you can't see the good in humanity as well, you're not looking hard enough.
Morons (Score:5, Insightful)
They could have achieved the same thing with Photoshop.
Re:Morons (Score:4, Insightful)
When I first saw the photo yesterday or day before, that's exactly what I thought it was. Because no one would be stupid enough to go trampling through that area and defiling one of the Nazca lines with some crude political message. Right?
We should be more careful (Score:3)
Maybe in 1000 years that will be the only which remains as a sign of human civilization. That, and the pyramids.
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And the landfills.
:-( Subject line not necessary (Score:3)
http://www.latinamericanstudie... [latinamericanstudies.org]
I was hoping that the authorities were exaggerating, but looking at the pic on this page one can see that they aren't :-(
ego (Score:5, Insightful)
Green peace, Peta, and other "Groups" like them stopped being about the "issues" a long time ago and have since turned into ego trips for its members. It seems like a game for them to pull off the biggest stunt. Do they seriously think world leaders are "unaware" of renewable energy? Seriously?
That message wasn't for world leaders, it was a dick measuring contest with other activists.
Once Upon a Time.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel like roasting a live cat over a pile of burning coal, frankly.
Way to win hearts and minds, idiots!
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Greenpeace started that way. There's been evidence over the years of key members participating (and providing funds) in more radical organizations, with Greenpeace acting as a nice cover/front. In recent years their lies have started to pile up and it's becoming more obvious they are simply in it for the money.
I used to think they were a group of idiots (Score:3)
bent on keeping the world in a Stone Age sort of existence. And then they blew up those ancient Buddha statues. The Taliban, that is.
Pretty much felt the same way about Greenpeace, and now they've defiled the Nazca lines. I'm for the same treatment for them that we gave the Taliban.
Apologies (Score:5, Insightful)
We are not ready to accept apologies from anybody," says Luis Jaime Castillo, the vice minister for cultural heritage. "Let them apologize after they repair the damage.
First, the damage cannot be repaired. But second, Greenpeace has NOT issued a real apology. Their disgraceful excuse for an apology is here:
http://www.greenpeace.org/inte... [greenpeace.org]
The obvious missing element is an apology for defacing a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Instead, they offer mere apologies for how things LOOK, and the typical "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" not-pology. Peru should throw all of the activists in Prison, and when the Executive Director shows up in Lima, lock him up too.
Meanwhile, as others have pointed out, the image of the message doesn't even look real in the first place, and they could have gotten the exact same image from Photoshop. Here's the worthless Greenpeace image:
http://www.iflscience.com/site... [iflscience.com]
And here's the damage the fuckers caused:
http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-c... [zmescience.com]
Prison sentences for all.
Screw Greenpeace (Score:3)
Picture of damage (Score:3)
Here is a picture of the damaged Greenpeace caused. [twitter.com] Basically, all of the lighter color in the red-marked area is where their footprints broke the crust.
Repair is, of course impossible. Serious financial consequences, plus criminal prosecution of all involved.
Lack of Concern (Score:3)
The stupid part was that this could actually have been done with little or no damage at all had the activist just followed some basic rules when dealing with the area.
1. No not walk in other's footsteps.
2. Wear the foot square pads on your feet to spread out your weight.
3. Do not bring cars to the site.
Had they done some basic research they may not have had a problem. The activists did note care about the damage they did.
Photos (Score:5, Informative)
From this post [imgur.com] here are some interesting images.
The Damage [imgur.com]. Those are new lines created by Greepeace. Notice the bright line to the left. That is where they drove their cars off the existing roads. I guess walking a bit is more important than preserving an international heritage site.
The Foorwear [imgur.com] This is what they should have been wearing to visit the lines. It spread out the weight and causes less damage. They did the worst thing possible by walking in a line in regular shoes.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, that's overly simplistic.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Because it's darker sand on top of lighter sand.
Heavy footprints change the colour of the ground.
Rake would do more damage.
Re:oh delicious irony (Score:5, Informative)
Go to a sand trap in a golf course. Sprinkle a thin layer of black dust over the sand, but thick enough so that you cannot see the sand beneath. Walk through that area of black dust over whitish sand.
Now use a rake to remove the footprints.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
so then why haven't the Inca's totally blocked off the area and how did this large GP group get access to just be able to walk over over it?
Re:oh delicious irony (Score:4, Informative)
Well, "the Inca's" don't exist anymore. They were a group that ruled the area in the past.
As to why Peru hasn't "totally blocked off the area", it would take thousands of troops to surround the area, just to prevent the one group of morons in several decades who thought trampling world historic sites for political messages sounded like a good idea.
Re: (Score:3)
good point about the Inca's not being around anymore...of course I meant their ancestors.
Presumably if the Incas aren't around anymore, their ancestors aren't either...
Re: (Score:3)
You're not really defending blatant douche-baggery based on the notion that other people have been douche-bags in the past, are you?
Re: (Score:3)
You're not really defending blatant douche-baggery based on the notion that other people have been douche-bags in the past, are you?
Actually I think he might have a point. [reuters.com]
Squatters have started raising pigs on the site of Peru's Nazca lines - the giant designs best seen from an airplane that were mysteriously etched into the desert more than 1,500 years ago.
"We get 120-180 reports or alerts about encroachments every year," Alva said. "For my colleagues in the rest of Latin America, who get two or maybe five cases per year, that figure is unbelievable."
It's not like they unsealed a tomb, careless people have been tromping around these t
Re:This is an overreaction (Score:5, Interesting)
You are a bigot; you think in terms of environmental damage without even considering the people who were insulted by Greenepeace's callousness. This has nothing to do with ecological impact, it has everything to do with irreparably damaging a world heritage site and something that is extremely important to Peruvian and South American culture. They didn't cause environmental damage, but they basically insulted an entire nation by being careless and thoughtless about their culture to make a message that would result in nothing.
Then their initial response was essentially a backhanded slap to the Peruvian people. From the Greenpeace Facebook page:
"Without reservation, Greenpeace apologises to the people of Peru for the offense caused by our recent activity laying a message of hope at the site of the historic Nazca Lines.
We are deeply sorry for this."
Which basically says "we're sorry people got offended by our message of hope." It should be reading "we're sorry we irreparably damaged this site and trod on your culture", so once again, callousness and carlessness.
Greenpeace is not a good organization. It's a bunch of people who make a lot of noise and act like thugs and morons, and often their positions are not supported by science or thoughtful discourse.
Re: (Score:2)
for the life of me, i don't understand why the author of this post would feel the need to remain anonymous.
it is logical, thoughtful, and sensitive...have things gotten so bad here on /. that people feel the need to hide any non-liberal commenting in the clock of an AC?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not the AC you are responding to, but sometimes I'm not on my own computer, and just don't feel like logging in to make a comment. Or maybe the person is just a lurker, and never made an account.
And what do timepieces have to do with it? ;^)
Re: (Score:2)
lol...i think my adoring /. fans would miss my usual "stupid typo" posts if i started fixing them.
Re: (Score:2)
The correct response is simple, declare them terrorists, cut off there funding etc etc.
Re:This is an overreaction (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree that this is an opportunity for politicians to discredit Greenpeace.. its not an issue of ENVIRONMENTAL damage.. its an issue of preserving National and World Heritage. The government of Peru is not worried about plants and animals in this case.. it is worried about keeping these ancient grounds for future generations.
What they did is the equivalent of pissing on the Mona Lisa.
Re: (Score:3)