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Greenpeace Co-Founder Declares Himself a Climate Change Skeptic
New submitter PensacolaSlick writes that [Patrick Moore a], co-founder of Greenpeace, and seven-year director of Greenpeace International, with other very pro-environmental credentials, has come out with a brief rationale for why he is "skeptical that humans are the main cause of climate change and that it will be catastrophic in the near future." He argues instead that in a historical context, human activity has saved the planet, declaring that "at 400 parts per million, all our food crops, forests, and natural ecosystems are still on a starvation diet for carbon dioxide."
(Consider the source, which according to the New York Times is "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism.") Moore breaks with what might be expected of a Greenpeace founder as well in that he is currently chair of Allow Golden Rice.
Though I do believe humans are doing a good job of trashing the environment, I have always felt like Global Warming was being used as a scare tactic, much like those "Repent and be saved!" guys that stand on street corners and preach about the end of days.
Is Global Warming happening now? Yep, it appears it is. Is mankind the only cause of this phenomenon? I'm not 100% sure on that, and if we don't keep looking to see what's really going on, we may be in for a rude awakening in the not too distant future. when though our best efforts at curbing carbon emmisions, we still end up screwed.
More like his wallet took a sharp turn to the right https://en.wikipedia.org/ "Moore has earned his living since the early 1990s primarily by consulting for, and publicly speaking for a wide variety of corporations and lobby groups" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... So why was he in Greenpeace in the first place, likely pursuing the opposite sex. Caring sharing community activities often have a preponderance of the fairer sex (they are referred to as the 'fairer sex' for a reason) http://siteresources.worldbank....
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
And apparently he's a "founder" of Greenpeace in the same sense that Willie Soon is a Harvare-Smithsonian astrophysicist -- which is to say he's worked with them.
So the headline should read, "Oil industry funded think tank announces that a guy who used to belong to Greenpeace is a climate denialist."
Not exactly prime clickbait.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I despise the society we live in, you insensitive clod!
The biggest danger to science is not the US GOP. It's not even the states of Kansas or Texas. Or even Arkansas. It is Greenpeace.
Greenpeace vs. Biology: Species are static in their description vs. species change over time.
Greenpeace vs. Physics: Long half-life is more dangerous vs. short half-life emits more radiation over time.
Greenpeace vs. Chemistry: Chemicals are bad vs. Everything you eat is a chemical.
Greenpeace vs. Environmentalism: Spotted Owls only nest in old growth forests vs. they nest anywhere they damn well want.
And this is just a few examples.
I went to a very weird university when I was younger. We had a very large population of stark-raving bonkers environmentalists, tree-hugger forest protectors, and loony free-thinkers. Greenpeace showed up at a environment conference at my school and they were booed off the campus. Why? Because our stark-raving environmentalists were lovers of the great outdoors that went hiking, fishing, hunting, prospecting, mountain climbing, and enjoyed being out in the woods. Because our tree-hugger forest protectors were forestry workers, farmers, silviculturists, and flood management. Because our loony free-thinkers were interested in bio-fuels, alternative energy that actually worked, developing fuel efficient vehicles and HEVs, and coming up with technologies to make our lives better.
Whenever I run into someone from Greenpeace protesting technology, they are invariably wearing Nylon and Gore-Tex. It's just sad.
And the article you link to doesn't mention that the Peruvian government lets the Dakar Rally use said monument as part of its route.
Is it possible there's politics involved in approving race cars but criticising environmental activists who wear normal shoes instead of special shoes?
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No, the green revolution was a result of government research efforts that the private sector is too short-sighted to invest in.
Farmers are stupid sod-kickers who do ignorant things like kill prairie dogs out of paranoia, when actually the little critters help to irrigate the soil with their diggings.
The internet was rejected by the private sector. AT&T saw it as competition for their business model which was based on telephones. The right, which fetishizes the private sector, is not good at disruptive innovation. You need permissionless, disruptive innovation, not some rich capitalist telling you what to do.
Can we talk about how the right endlessly defended slavery?
Take John C. Calhoun [wikipedia.org]: "he became a greater proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification and free trade".
What does this have to do with today's right? John C Calhoun was part of the same party that Obama is now part of. And no, the parties didn't switch spectrum, rather all of them have changed their stances on certain subjects. Remember it was still the Democrats that were largely opposed to civil rights during the 50's and 60's (for example, it was a Democrat governor who called in the national guard to keep black students out of Central High School in Arkansas.)
The biggest change a lot of people refer to happened during the 80's under the Raegan. Prior to Raegan, Democrats were staunchly opposed to communism (Kennedy and Johnson for example) and somehow the modern Democrat party moved away from that hard line stance (Greenpeace is an example of that, and Patrick Moore cited the organization as looking favorably upon communism as an environmental solution as part of his reasoning for leaving.) At the same time, a huge portion of the US population shifted to the right, which was mainly those that were still hard-line opposed to communism and were disillusioned by the Jane Fonda types of that era.
And yes, during the 80's, communism was still a pretty serious threat to the west, it only stopped being so after its biggest backer (the USSR) decided they have had enough of it and finally dropped the Iron Curtain. And now to this day, several major Democratic figureheads like to claim that the Red Scare was just a big farce, communism really isn't so bad and just needs to be done right, etc.
However neither party has been in favor of either discrimination or slavery since at least the late 70's. But prior to then, Democrats were the pro-discrimination party, and prior to at least the 1900's they were still the pro-slavery party.
I take it then that you'll be pretty negative toward the American administration who oversaw the destruction or loss of a substantial slice of cultural artifacts held in trust on behalf of the entire Iraqi civilization.
This from the man who likely repeated the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" times beyond measure. My goodness, is it possible that there were any WMD in the whole country?
Perhaps Rumsfeld hates all museums with the same uniform, searing passion, but I suspect he might have summarized the matter differently if 15,000 items walked out of the Smithsonian, including personal artifacts brought over to American on the Mayflower that were already so venerable they predated Constantine.
Now to deal with the article at hand:
If he thinks this trend could have continued deep into the extirpation of the chlorophyllosphere, he's badly in need of that new ultrasound treatment used to cure Alzheimer's disease in the mice model.
Epic fail. Crank dismissed.
I'm sure there are people here far more knowledgeable about politics, science and other topics than I. I however am moderately versed in all these things and I specialize in cause and effect both mathematically as well as sociologically as a hobby.
... somehow when there's just that much CO2 rushing up to suffocate us, it feels like a reaction to something we're not looking for. I don't like the idea of trying to scrub the CO2 down without first checking to see, do we need to CO2 to protect us against something else? Was CO2 the lesser of two evils?
1) I'm glad he came forward as a "semi-credible" skeptic. It's time we get someone "on the other side" who will attempt to use gray matter to ponder the mysteries of global warming. Of course, he's a political activist and therefore probably has burned up most of his gray matter and left holes by now, but he poses questions that need to be addressed.
2) Has anyone noticed that there's probably twice as many global warming skeptics that don't even know what it means, but side with the "Right" because they would die before siding with the "Left". I know people who believe strongly that it's Jesus's will that we have this issue and therefore when eggheaded lefties contradict that, it must be gods will to disagree. There need to be people trying to actually ask and answer questions who don't think in terms of "If we evolved from the monkeys why are there still monkey then?".
3) People will side with this guy. He's an egghead they agree with. Let's raise him up as a major scientific leader. Let's not bash him or attack him. Let's reason with him and show his new groupies that we don't have to make this a political left and right thing. It can be more reasonable than that. This is something that should rise above political interests and be delt with.
4) I am not a climate change skeptic.... I believe that since the beginning of time, there has never been a constant climate. I believe it's always changing. I believe we're hellbent on proving that we were right all along and that this chemical or that one must be the specific reason for the climate change. I am inclined to agree with the research I've read in the direction that suggests that CO2 is in fact the primary cause. I however also believe that it seems a little too easy and too obvious. I'm thinking
5) We have far bigger problems than CO2 right now. We have things like fracking. Don't get me wrong... global warming is very very very dangerous... but I see drinking water as being far more important short term. Do I think we should stop working on climate change? NO!!! We need to address this. We should have trillions of dollars of tax money going into fixing this. But we need to get the damn research done to prove that intentionally attacking the Earth's mantle and intentionally destabilizing it by intentionally cracking it to force it to bleed oil has to stop. I have never in my life dreamed of anything that sounds so impressively stupid as this. The U.S. is in a damn near perpetual clean water shortage in areas where 50+ million people live and now we're destroying even more clean water reserves. This is clearly a problem we can address and we don't. Why the hell isn't fracking a major item on the presidential election agenda?
I think I love this guy. I am so happy he's there and now let's use him for all he's worth. Let's stop attacking him and instead talk with him. Maybe his believers who have raised him to messianic status will follow him because they finally have "a credible scientist" to listen to. Let's educate him so he can educate his people.
Let's lead by example, not by insult.
Some gems from the article:
Disgracefully, hunger and desperation have become the Genetic Engineering industry's best tools to penetrate the developing world's food supply.
Starving people still deserve the dignity of choice.
Esoteric reference.