Giving Earth a Voice

Rex Weyler, Ecologist, Journalist

Co-founder of Greenpeace International

Rob McMahon

photo by Jaime Kowal

For someone who’s made a career of pushing enviro-nmentalism forward, Rex Weyler spends a lot of time looking to the past.

At L.A.’s Occidental College in the mid-’60s, Weyler shifted his focus from math and physics to history. Reading The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Ramayana, he found that, whether they lived 200 or 2,000 years ago, writers covered the same issues.

“I was fascinated with the history of culture, politics, and literature, and how that unfolded over time,” he says. “Not much has changed; the world was at war, we were wasting our resources, and human rights were under attack.” Covering the American Indian movement for New Age Journal also helped him cultivate a long-term perspective.

After being drafted to serve in Vietnam, Weyler moved to Canada. In 1973, he became a director of Greenpeace, writing about whaling campaigns and editing its magazine, then co-founding Greenpeace International. (He was also publisher and editor of SharedVISION from 1998-2001.) His book, Greenpeace, details the early years of the world’s best-known environmental organization.

At the beginning of the environmental movement, Weyler said there were no precedents; the group was convinced change would happen overnight. Thirty-five years later, An Inconvenient Truth wins an Oscar, the world is attuned to climate change, and Weyler remains active in environmental work. But he says that, if consciousness isn’t translated into action, nothing will be resolved.

“I’m an optimistic person, but before that, I need to be realistic,” he says. “Otherwise, I’m not being optimistic, I’m being delusional.”