Does Your Project Have Green Protestors?

 

The Luddites were a group of anti-industrialists, active mostly during the early 1800s. Alarmed by the way in which advances in technology allowed relatively unskilled workers using machines – primarily looms – to replace the work of skilled artisans, all with greater output and lower costs, they set about destroying the machines used in production.

The Industrial Revolution began around 1750. At that time, life was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, “nasty, brutish, and short.” Life expectancy for an English man was 31 years – and England was then, as now, one of the best places on Earth to live. Two-thirds of all babies born did not live to see their first birthday. Prior to 1750, virtually all members of the populace worked in agriculture, with next to none in what we would term “industry.” It was, I would imagine, very close to what many “green” protestors would project as an idyllic setting. Flash forward to 1900, the green’s nightmare. Smoke stacks dot the horizon, belching smoke into the air, making textiles, consumer goods, weapons. However, the life expectancy has jumped 14 years, and only 15% of babies die in infancy. Not only that, but England’s population swelled, from 7 million in 1750, to 37 million in 1900. The standard of living had a commensurate advance, too.  In 1750, travelling across the Atlantic was fraught with peril. By the beginning of the 20^th century, the only way such travel was even potentially fatal was if your ship happened to run into an ice burg, and even that was considered extraordinarily rare. Many other examples abound, but I’ll go ahead and state the obvious: if the anti-industrial, anti-technology efforts of the Greens were to reach their logical conclusion, life would return to being nasty, brutish, and short. But at least the snail darters would thrive!

How is it, then, that green protestors so quickly assume – and are so gratuitously granted – the intellectual and moral high ground when they seek to protest a given project? The highly irksome tendency of the greens to lay claim to the intellectual crown when they select a project to protest is particularly absurd, committing, as they do, the Luddite Fallacy, and in dramatic fashion. History shows, time and again, that advances in technology produce advances in life expectancy and quality of life, and those societies that, for whatever reason, eschew or cannot attain or integrate advances in technology, quickly become very unpleasant places to live. And yet, there go those green protestors, attracting media coverage and making your project look like you are harming someone, somewhere – exactly how is never clearly spelled out. It has something to do with greenhouse gasses, or animal experimentation, or deforestation, or something, right?

If you are the manager of a project that has drawn the attention and subsequent ire of green protestors, your life has just become much more difficult. Being gracious or reasonable with these people is a fool’s errand. They are famous for using unusual, confrontational tactics, and their goal is to force your project to fail. Not cost more, not be delayed – abject failure, even as they go about making your project more expensive and inflicting delays. It’s either your project team or the greenies, and part and parcel of the PM’s job is to make sure your project team comes out ahead if you find yourself in this situation.

Of course, I’m not advocating that anyone do anything illegal; but, if the other side can push the limits, why can’t your project team? Say your project is in the crosshairs of the animal rights crowd, or even PETA itself. What’s the harm in finding out if it’s illegal to round up a few dozen rats, and release them into the protestor crowd 15 minutes into their bullhorn-communicated rabble-rousing? These people love rats, right? You would be doing them a favor.

Naturally (get it?), that tactic requires your project’s opponents to come out into the open, and try and state their case. But what happens if, say, Harrison Ford has “one acre” of his chest hair removed, via waxing, no less, to “call attention” to deforestation, as Access Hollywood reporters look on? There’s really nothing you can do, other than revel in the irony of LucasFilms dropping its plans for a 269,000-square foot studio in Marin County, California, because of opposition from “green” leaders. George Lucas, as is widely known, is the main reason anyone knows Harrison Ford in the first place, having cast him early in his career in American Graffiti, and then his break-out role in Star Wars. Who is the Harrison Ford of this generation, whom LucasFilms was poised to make insanely successful, had they only been able to build their studio? Whoever he is, he may prove to be lucky, having been spared the fate of being rich and famous, but idiotically misguided in adopting extra-professional causes to promote.

In short, if your project has green protestors, don’t accommodate – overcome.