Rex Weyler (born September 10, 1947) is an American-Canadian author, journalist and ecologist. He has worked as a writer, editor, and publisher. In the 1970s, Weyler served as a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, and as campaign photographer and publisher of the Greenpeace Chronicles. He was a cofounder of Greenpeace International in 1979.[1][2]
Weyler is the author of multiple books about Greenpeace history (Greenpeace: The Inside Story) and religious commentary (The Jesus Sayings: A Quest for His Authentic Message). In the 1990s, he coauthored a U.S. patent for music tuning software and co-founded Justonic Tuning Inc. with his partner Bill Gannon, to develop and market the product.[3]
On April 5, 2005, the Urban Environmental Policy Center on the Occidental College campus awarded Weyler and Dennis Zane, a fellow student organizer, the Alumni Community Action Award.[5]
Weyler has three siblings. He married Glenn Jonathans in Nijmegen, Netherlands in 1971 and immigrated to Canada in 1972. Weyler and Jonathans divorced in 1980. Weyler married Lisa Gibbons[6] in 1991. They now live on Cortes Island B.C., Canada. Lisa Gibbons is an artist and youth educator. Weyler and Gibbons have 3 sons, and been foster parents with the BC Federation of Foster Parents.[7]
Journalism
In 1973, at the age of 26, Weyler received his first journalism position at the North Shore News in Vancouver, B.C. Canada.[8] Later that year, he began covering the original Greenpeace whale campaign story, and later, from 1975 to 1980, served as editor and publisher for the Greenpeace Chronicles newspaper.[9] This paper was one of the first international environmental publications, with stories by writers Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Hunter, Paul Watson, John C. Lilly, Kitty Tucker, Ben Metcalfe, and David Garrick, and art and cartoons by cartoonists Ralph Steadman[10] and Ron Cobb.
From 1980 to 1982, Weyler was publisher, contributing editor, and writer for New Age Journal in Allston, MA. His stories for New Age Journal about conflicts between the FBI and the American Indian Movement led to a book on that subject, Blood of the Land, Everest House, 1982.
From 1998 to 2002, Weyler served as publisher and editor of Shared Vision Magazine[11] in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He published stories about Greenpeace history and the American Indian Movement in the Vancouver Sun newspaper and contributed articles to British Columbia’s first major on-line news site, The Tyee.[12]
In 2013, Weyler served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Fraser Valley, in British Columbia, Canada.[14]
Greenpeace
Rex Weyler and Bob Hunter
Between 1973 and 1982, Weyler served as a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, campaign photographer and reporter, and as editor of the Greenpeace Chronicles magazine. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace International in 1979.[15][16][17]
In 1975, Weyler sailed on the first Greenpeace whale campaign, and subsequent whale and seal campaigns. His photographs and news accounts of these campaigns were widely published.[18]
He is the author of a history of the first decade of Greenpeace, Greenpeace: The Inside Story (Raincoast, Rodale, 2004).[19]
Since leaving Greenpeace in 1982, Weyler has remained active in environmental and peace issues. In 1991, he helped draft dioxin emission levels for pulp mills in British Columbia. In 2006, he served as Program Coordinator for World Peace Forum 2006.[20]
Weyler is featured in the documentary, Greenpeace: Making a Stand.[21]
Weyler, Rex (2004) Greenpeace: An Insider's Account (UK);
Weyler, Rex (2004) Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World (US: Rodale), ISBN978-1-59486-106-2.
Weyler, Rex with Rick Fields, Peggy Taylor, Rick Ingrasci (1984) Chop Wood, Carry Water: Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life (Tarcher)
Weyler, Rex (1982) Blood of the Land (Everest House, 1982; New Society Publishers, 1992)
Weyler, Rex with Robert Hunter (1978) To Save a Whale (Chronicle Books).
Weyler, Rex with Daphne Marlatt and Robert Minden (1975) Steveston Recollected (UBC, Provincial Archives, out of print).
Weyler has published articles and essays on the Greenpeace website, his website, and the following anthologies, among other places: The Power of the People, ed. Robert Cooney and Helen Michalowski (New Society Publishers, 1987); Beyond Hypnosis by Dr. Lee Pulos (Omega Press, San Francisco, 1990); Shorelines (Kingfisher Press, B.C., 1995); Witness, Twenty-five Years on the Environmental Front Line (Andre Deutsch, London, 1996); Greenpeace: Changing the World, ed. Conny Boettger, Fouad Hamdan (Rasch & Röhring, 2001); The Book of Letters: 150 Years of Private Canadian Correspondence, by Paul and Audrey Grescoe (Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 2002).
Awards and honours
Finalist, Shaughnessy-Cohen Award for Political Writing; 2004.[22]
Publishers Weekly, "Best Books of 2004," Greenpeace: The Inside Story.[23]
Finalist, Hubert Evans Award for Non-Fiction, BC Book Awards, 2004.[24]
Alumni Community Action Award,[25] Urban Environmental Policy Center, Los Angeles, April 2005.
↑ Greenpeace: Making a Stand - documentary a history of Greenpeace, including a dramatic modern campaign in Argentina that preserved the forest homeland of the Wichi Indians, threatened by industrial soy plantations.
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, lobbying, research, and ecotage to achieve its goals.
Radical environmentalism is a grass-roots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged from an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism.
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Patrick Albert Moore is a Canadian industry consultant, former activist, an early member and past president of Greenpeace Canada. Since leaving Greenpeace in 1986, Moore has criticized the environmental movement for what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation, saying that the environmental movement "abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism". Greenpeace has criticized Moore, calling him "a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry" who "exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson".
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Robert Lorne Hunter was a Canadian environmentalist, journalist, author and politician. He was a member of the Don't Make a Wave Committee in 1969, and a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1971 and its first president. He led the first on-sea anti-whaling campaigns in the world, against Russian and Australian whalers, which helped lead to the ban on commercial whaling. He campaigned against nuclear testing, the Canadian seal hunt and later, climate change with his book Thermageddon: Countdown to 2030. He was named by Time as one of the "Eco-Heroes" of the 20th century.
Gorton's of Gloucester is a subsidiary of Japanese seafood conglomerate Nippon Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., producing fishsticks and other frozen seafood for the retail market in the United States. Gorton's also has a North American food service business which sells to fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, and an industrial coating ingredients operation. It has been headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts since 1849.
Raincoast Books is a Canadian book distribution and wholesale company. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Raincoast was founded by Mark Stanton and Allan MacDougall in 1979 as a consignment wholesaler that shared overhead, warehouse space and staff with the pair's sales agency, Stanton & MacDougall. Today, Raincoast has over 90 employees and three divisions: Raincoast Distribution, Publishers Group Canada, and BookExpress.
The Don't Make a Wave Committee was the name of the anti-nuclear organization which later evolved into Greenpeace, a global environmental organization. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to protest and attempt to halt further underground nuclear testing by the United States in the National Wildlife Refuge at Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was first formed in October 1969 and officially established in early 1970.
Anne Fleming is a Canadian fiction writer. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Fleming attended the University of Waterloo, enrolling in a geography program then moving to English studies. In 1991, she moved to British Columbia. She teaches at the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus in Kelowna. She formerly taught at the Victoria School of Writing.
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