The Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, sailing up the St. George's Channel off the west coast of England. Photograph by Noble. Greenpeace. Reproduced by permission.)

Founded in 1971, Greenpeace is an international environmental organization dedicated to protecting the global environment through non-violent direct action, public education, and legislative lobbying. With a worldwide membership of over 2.5 million (approximately 250,000 in Greenpeace USA), Greenpeace operates offices in some 30 countries and maintains a scientific base in Antarctica.

Having mounted successful campaigns on a wide variety of environmental issues, Greenpeace is perhaps best known for its direct and often confrontational crusades against nuclear testing and commercial whaling. The group has also garnered wide publicity for protesting various environmental abuses by hanging enormous banners from smokestacks, buildings, bridges, and the scaffolding used in the renovation of the Statue of Liberty.

Greenpeace is presently active in four broadly defined environmental issue areas—Atmosphere and Energy; Ocean Ecology...