Slashdot Mirror
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.
But of course that fact won't get people to click on your article.
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.
... follow the money.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
1) Was the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm a historic low?
2) Was the level decreasing before the industrial revolution?
3) Is there a minimum level of CO2 plants need to grow and if so, what is it?
If we were to engage in climate engineering, warming things up and adding a little CO2 is exactly what we'd want to do.
It would increase the range of latitudes for food production and mitigate future ice ages, which are much more catastrophic than any effects from warming.
He laughably accuses scientists of being in the pay of vested interests all the while being a PR front for fossil fuel interests such as the Heartland Institute that published this very piece.
His 'argument' amounts to long debunked talking points.
He shows he hasn't read an IPCC report when he says IPCC will "consider only the human causes of global warming". IPCC outlines scientific consensus on all sources of climate change from solar cycles to milankovitch cycles.
He shows he hasn't looked at paleoclimate reconstructions which show that the Earth has been generally cooling for the last 8000 years and that the current temperatures are likely higher than at least the last couple thousand.
The rest of his argument boils down to simple incredulity, which is not very compelling.
Modern Greenpeace is doing things like defacing ancient monuments thousands of years old to spread propaganda. If this guy WERE with Greenpeace any time recently I would have cause to question his sanity and/or motives... instead he seems like a guy that actually cares about the environment instead of money or publicity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
why didn't you suggest this graph instead?
http://data.remss.com/msu/graphics/C12/plots/RSS_TS_channel_C12_Global_Land_And_Sea_v03_3.short.png
which actually suggests a trending downward?
To berate a person for wanting to investigate non-human causes is political, not scientific
Non-human causes have been investigated, and are still being investigated. Claiming that this is not the case, is simply lying or ignorance.
Because there's no such thing as a 4 year climate "trend". At those time scales, you're staring at noise.
Right, maybe we should burn him at the stake for heresy!
You true believers have absolutely no idea how foolish you come across.
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.
Moore breaks with what might be expected of a Greenpeace founder as well in that he is currently chair of Allow Golden Rice.
Well, while he is wrong about climate change, his stance on Golden Rice is pretty well on. We know it works, we know it is safe, Greenpeace still opposes it because they know damned well that their cries of genetic engineering being a dangerous horrible thing that you should totally give them loads of cash to fight are going to look a bit silly when it is saving the lives of thousands of children. It's despicable that they are willing to allow unnecessary death and human suffering in developing countries just to further their careers as professional activists. They're no different than anti-vaxxers who bring back vaccine preventable disease, not in my book. I don't agree with Moore's stance on climate change, but at least he's doing good on this front to bring attention to the harm Greenpeace and other anti-science groups are doing.
Which checks would those be? The checks from Goldman Sachs for pushing the AGW reverse robin hood credit default swaps...err I mean ":carbon credits". Or would those be the checks from Al Gore who is in bed with Goldman Sachs and has set himself up to become carbon billionaire if he and GS get their giant scam that won't do shit but make them even richer made into the law?
Dude if you believe EITHER side gives a single fuck about the environment? I have some genuine Arkansas anti global warming crystals I'll be happy to sell ya, only $499.99 so act now! BTW if you actually DO give a shit about the environment? DO NOT BUY THE SCAMS, talk to somebody that actually walks the walk...Ed Begley Jr. unlike Rev Al who lives in a McMansion whose indoor basketball court uses more AC than a family home? He lives in a modest 3 bedroom, Rev Al drives a fleet of SUVs to his one man Lear jet? Begley drives an electric car to a commuter flight.But if you were to look up Begley's thoughts on the subject? You'd find an overdose of COMMON SENSE, make it easier for folks to use electric cars, promote renewables in places like AZ where solar works really well, invest in tech that will let us do more with what we have and recycle easier...its ALL common Goddamned sense!
But of course you can't become a billionaire with sensible logical approaches which is why you are getting pounded with "ZOMFG teh sky is fallin! You HAVE to do this thing (which won't do a damned thing because we filled it with more loopholes for our 1% pals than a Coke has HFCS) because we have to SAVE TEH EARF!"
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm still of the opinion that we're dumping too much CO2 in to the air. Although I know that scientists make mistakes, scientific knowledge is never 100% perfect, and that science is a system of incrementally improving our knowledge, I'm not a science skeptic. Climate scientsts are better experts on this topic than I am, science is highly competitive (remember, they all compete for a very limited supply of grant money, so one scientists's failure is another's success, so they want to overturn each other's ideas), and peer-review is effective much more than it is ineffective.
That all being said, a perhaps a more accessible issue people should be talking about is all the other crap we're dumping into the air *besides* the CO2. We're poisoning ourselves. And besides the air, what about junk we're putting into our bodies from other sources, like pesticides, BPA, and all manner of other harmful chemicals?
Ok, so maybe global warming is something that will only kill our great-great-great-grandkids, and we don't care about them. What about the stuff that's killing us right now?
It's somewhat important to know how much is man-made vs natural (a question we are not very close to answering).
I think a way more important question though is, how much warming is too much? We know from historical temperature data that the warming we are supposed to see now in about 200 years, will be still a bit below the medieval warm period.
But if it continued beyond that, is there some point ay which we should consider drastic measures like climate engineering? I don't see a lot of studies that seem to be able to predict at all what happens as the climate gets slowly warmer over time (at least they have done a terrible job at predicting that so far).
We should not forget that the most dangerous thing of all would be to have the climate cooling, so to whatever degree man affects the climate, we should try to err on the side of warming. Energy is life, a frozen Earth is death for many.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"One strike, you're out Greenpeace!"
If that strike is destroying monuments thousands of years old and causing irreparable damage to a very fragile desert ecosystem - yes, absolutely I would be strongly against ANY entity that did that, but more importantly didn't even consider it to be a problem.
Thanks for the 45 years of environmental activism, it was nice knowin' ye.
Greenpeace has not helped the environment in any meaningful way for at least two decades now. I consider helping them to be morally as questionable as supporting human trafficking, especially since you are taking away funds to help groups that actually help the environment instead of themselves (like the Nature Conservancy).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The guy has been sold out. Climate skeptics are mostly sold out people or illiterate people. There argument is as illogical as the argument of any religious fanatic.
-- "Earth has been warming very gradually for 300 years"
The warming data clearly indicates that rate of temperature of last 50 years is far higher than any other period in history
-- Increase in CO2 in atmosphere directly correlates net fossil fuel burned
-- All computer models including from climate skeptics show that earth will warm with increased CO2
-- "...we are doomed unless we reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to zero. Effectively this means either reducing the population to zero, or going back 10,000 years..."
It is not the emission, but the net emission. Today we generate more electricity from non-fossil fuel than all of electricity we used to generate just 40 years ago. So it is not going back 10000 years. With proper conservation and focus on renewable, it is possible to get rid of fossil fuel based energy altogether without going back or reducing population.
-- He claims that without such doomsday predictions, there want be a need for IPCC. However, IPCC was formed because scientific study prior to it pointed towards doomsday scenario.
-- "The optimum level of carbon dioxide for plant growth, given enough water and nutrients, is about 1,500 parts per million, nearly four times higher than today."
This may be optimum (I don't know) level of CO2 if other variables are kept constant, such as temperature. However, at this level of CO2, there is not a single climate model in the world which predicts temperature increase less than 10C. At this level of increase, 70% of the land will be unhabitable without AC. Also, 70% of the land won't be able to sustain any plants which are in existence today.
-- "There has been no significant warming for 18 years while we have emitted 25 per cent of all the carbon dioxide ever emitted."
Except for one single outlier year 1998, the temperature has steadily increased by 0.2C a decade.
As opposed to the checks given to IPCC by government (you know... the people who kill people for a living).
The IPCC runs an annual budget of $7 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, making the United States a major benefactor for its global warming agenda.
That's pretty much chump change in today's world.
Out of curiosity, do you have a source for any of this that has voted Democrat since Kennedy? It's a lot of horseshit. The Dixiecrats, who favored segregation, largely became Republicans in the 70's. That's why Reagans first campaign speech after the convention was in Mississippi on the topic of "states' rights." This is code. And the Dixiecrats abandoned the Democrats because they supported integration! You're engaged in a long winded and grossly distorted fallacy of guilt by association.
You can only be amused by the responses these articles attract.
Here are some facts that puts all of these comments into perspective.
1. 99.9% of Slashdot commenters are NOT Climate Scientists. .01% of Slashdot commenters that ARE qualified to offer a valid opinion...don't do so on Slashdot. (Unless Curry and Man have Slashdot accounts?)
2. Probably 90% don't even have education in areas remotely related to Climate Science.
3. 90% are the posts seem to cite Skeptical Science in order to prove their point.
4. Skeptical Science is run by a Cartoonist.
5. The
The bottom line is that this is all a wankfest, complete with name calling and morons on both side who are under the delusion that A) their opinion matters and B) . That their opinion is worth a bag of warm shit, and it's getting pretty fucking annoying.
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.