EcoTalk

Greenpeace: A Greener Apple

Rick Hinds, legislative Director for the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign, runs down their latest rankings of Computer and Cellphone companies. How did Apple do? Well, they must be a red apple, because they sure aren't that green. LISTEN (7 min)

Spying on Greenpeace

John Passacantando, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA  updates us on the lawsuits filed against the US Government for alleged spying activities on peaceful organizations, including Greenpeace.
Listen (6 min)

John Passacantando

Serving more than ten years in the public interest sector, John Passacantando has been Executive Director of Greenpeace USA since September 2000. 
From the headquarters office in Washington, D.C., John leads a team of 72 and oversees an organization with 300,000 members in the U.S. and a budget of $20 million.
Since 1971, Greenpeace has been a leading voice of the environmental movement and work throughout the world to protect oceans and ancient forests, and to fight toxic pollution, genetic engineering, global-warming and nuclear threats.
With John’s commitment to aggressive and creative tactics, the organization continues to be known for its direct confrontation of corporations and governments as a means of forcing change. Greenpeace has satellite offices in San Francisco and Anchorage.
Prior to joining Greenpeace, John rallied the grassroots movement to stop global warming as co-founder and Executive Director of Ozone Action. Founded in 1993 by John and Karen Lohr, formerly of Greenpeace, Ozone Action initially campaigned to strengthen the international effort to stop ozone depletion. Under John’s leadership, Ozone Action broadened its efforts and emerged as the largest organization focused solely on stopping global warming.
He assembled a team that built grassroots support through aggressive investigative and media campaigns to address the public health, environmental and economic threats of global warming. The organization was dissolved into Greenpeace when John took the helm.
Before founding Ozone Action, John was executive director of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation, helping focus its grant making programs on the grassroots renewal of democracy. John worked to support the Foundation’s efforts on campaign finance reform and environmental issues.
Prior to making the leap to environmental advocacy, John fine- tuned his marketing and media skills while working in the corporate world.
He worked as Director of Marketing for Polyconomics, Inc., providing economic analysis to the country’s largest institutional investors. He distilled tax law, interest rate and commodity price changes for more than 80 clients.
Before that, he sold turnkey computer systems throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut for Triad Systems Corporation.
John received a BA in economics from Wake Forest University and an MA, also in economics, from New York University.
John has testified before Congress and participated in several PBS debates on global warming. In addition to interviews on Good Morning America and other news programs, John has been quoted in virtually every major newspaper in the United States and has had numerous op-eds published nationwide.
In 1999, he received the Tides Foundation 1999 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy for his work on global warming solutions.
John is married to Lisa Guide, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
They have two young daughters, Sophia and Mollie.