The Man behind the Mask

People play a wide variety of roles at Greenpeace and volunteer Glenn MacIntosh has been cast as a number of colourful and controversial characters. Hauling in a huge catch of fish, squid and lobsters on the grounds of Parliament, he has played the dastardly Prime Minister Stephen Harper obstructing a ban on bottom trawling on the high seas. He took on the part of a business man, decked out in suit and tie as a disguise to enter and occupy the offices of Kimberly-Clark, which makes its North American Kleenex brand of tissues and toilet paper out of ancient Boreal Forest.

But perhaps his most famous role has been that of P. Bear, the ubiquitous polar bear that keeps showing up at discussions and political pronouncements on global warming carrying a sign with a simple but fundamental question to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: “What about Kyoto?”  Reclining in a deck chair wearing sunglasses and sipping a cool cocktail, P. Bear attracted the attention of both the politicians and the press when he was in the capital for the inaugural session of the Parliamentary Committee tasked to overhaul the government’s much discredited Clean Air Act. P. Bear has been photographed alongside both Liberal leader Stephen Dion and New Democratic leader, Jack Layton both of whom want to be seen on the side of polar bears, whose Arctic habitat is slowly melting. 

Role playing is nothing new to Glenn, having worked for years in the film and television industry. However, as first assistant director, his part was usually played behind the camera, not in front. He produced, directed and wrote the critically acclaimed, film, The Touch, which premiered at the Montreal International Festival of Cinema and New Media and was broadcast repeatedly on the CBC. Despite this success, Glenn moved away from making films as the industry slowed down and his aging parents’ declining health demanded his attention.

 It was during this difficult time that Glenn became very concerned about the state of the       environment and the huge challenges facing the planet. At the time of  the  garbage strike in Toronto in 2002, when the cumulative refuse of millions was left to rot on the city streets for weeks, Glenn was struck by “how wasteful and unsustainable our habits are and how they are so often denied by our collective conscience and hidden from our daily view.” For three long, uncertain days, during the massive power outage of 2003 that left millions of people in Southern Ontario in the dark, science fiction became reality and Glenn began to see our “modern, civilized society as a precarious illusion enabled by problematic means.” 

He started getting better informed reading The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery and Powerdown by Richard Heinberg. After watching Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, he became preoccupied with the issue of climate change.

“I felt like everything that I was reading was telling me we had to act radically just to have a future,” he said. “But people weren’t behaving that way.” So he signed up with Greenpeace. “I like to be doing something that is special and uncommon, to be ahead of the curve on issues such as climate change, which has turned out to be the biggest threat to our future affecting everything including poverty and social justice,” he said.

Greenpeace’s focus on direct action appealed to Glenn and getting to play P. Bear even a few times, he said, was “affirmation of being a part of Greenpeace.” It was also, an example, he said, of the influence and impact each individual can have. “Everyone has a moral obligation to act and warn and prepare people for what is coming to minimize the bad things.” He acted on these strong convictions by participating in the house arrest of Prime Minister Stephen Harper at his official residence for crimes against the climate, which ultimately led to Glenn's own arrest.

But, as well as working with Greenpeace on its climate change and forest campaigns, Glenn has made some radical changes in his personal lifestyle. Most dramatically, he has lived without turning on the heat all winter, which he points out was unseasonably warm due to climate change. Fortunately, he lives in a condominium, so he does benefit from the heat of his neighbours. Still, he has put on that extra sweater. He has also changed all his light bulbs, installing compact fluorescents and he bought a new, energy efficient refrigerator, usually the most energy consumptive appliance in a home.

When explaining his personal commitment to skeptical friends, Glenn quotes Mahatma Gandhi: “We must become the change we want to see in the world.” Glenn is making that change.