Hoping to rebound after several years of internal troubles, Greenpeace USA has found a new executive director: John Passacantando, cofounder and head of Ozone Action. Passacantando hopes to merge the two organizations, a proposal the groups’ boards are considering. The organizations are now quite different: Greenpeace USA has about 300,000 members (down from a million several years ago), raises most of its money through direct mail, and tackles all manner of environmental issues. Ozone Action, a much smaller group, has a few thousand volunteers but no members, gets most of its funding from foundations, and focuses exclusively on global warming and ozone depletion. Still, Passacantando believes that both groups share the same knack for attention-grabbing theatrics and that a merger would be a smooth one.
