The Environmental Spectator
Greenpeace Un-Moored
Patrick Moore helped found the anti-nuke organization — so why is it trying to erase him for its history?
(Page 2 of 2)
Moore traces the politicization of modern environmentalism back to that conversation with Hunter. “The political aspects he outlined there seemed totalitarian in nature.”
It’s an apt description, given recent attempts by Greenpeace to erase Patrick Moore from its history. The official position of the organization today holds that Moore is not one of the original founders of the group; he merely was around somewhat in the early days, but was not instrumental to the founding. Sadly for Greenpeace, that contradicts many of its earlier publications and pronouncements. Recently, Greenpeace has edited its website, erasing all mentions of Moore as one of the organization’s founders.
GREENPEACE PARTICULARLY wants Moore to vanish these days because of his latest—and most egregious—apostasy: he supports nuclear power. So they denounce and impugn him, calling into question his integrity. Moore is co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy), an organization promoting nuclear energy as a clean, safe, and dependable source of power. Not surprisingly, CASEnergy is financed by the nuclear industry, a fact about which nobody makes any secret. To the apparatchiks who denounce Moore, however, this is evidence he is a paid agent doing the bidding of nefarious overlords.
Moore is content to let the arguments for and against nuclear power stand on their merits. He claims to have had a genuine conversion on the issue of nuclear power, believing it the only technology capable of supplying the vast amounts of power that can improve people’s lives while emitting no greenhouse gas emissions.
For all the name-calling, the turncoat label is one that rankles. “I haven’t turned in any of my positions or policies,” Moore says. “I still want to save the whales. I am still an environmentalist. The only exception is on the issue of nuclear power. But that is a recent conversion, based on what I think is a reasonable approach to the issues.”
Still, he can live with the malice that is directed at him. “They hate me because I challenge their beliefs. And what they hold are beliefs, they are not opinions based in factual information. The reason I left was to move on to solution-oriented work. The people I left behind are not interested in solutions. They are interested in activism.”
It’s a telling commentary on today’s environmental movement that it will expel one of its own for the crime of having sincere differences of opinion on how to save the planet. “What I see now is that they are in a state of decadence, like when an empire is crumbling,” he says. “They are so wrong on so many issues, from forestry to energy to genetics and agriculture. They are afraid of technology and its ability to improve human life.”
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David Mathews | 5.14.09 @ 6:56AM
Patrick Moore is a no-name nobody now, regardless of what he was in the past, and a shill for the nuclear industry, which makes his opinions about environmental matters irrelevant.
Nuclear power isn't the solution to humankind's problems. The nuclear industry can keep on crying as much as it wishes but it isn't going to change reality: the nuclear industry died a long time ago and it isn't going to be resurrected.
Indiana Alex| 5.14.09 @ 8:04AM
I can't wait until the ACORN money dries up and these idiots are too busy flipping burgers to post such childish nonsense on thinking people's web sites.
I Taht I Taw A Putty Tat!| 5.14.09 @ 8:13AM
Evil Hetero Trash
http://phillips.blogs.com/.a/6a00d834515c6d69e200e5538aecd78833-320wi
OR The Mathews Family
http://www.radioalgoa.com/assets/images/siegfried_roy_tiger_1_r.jpg
YOU DECIDE
John W.| 5.14.09 @ 8:47AM
Leave the little fella alone. Try think of him as the Ambassador from the DailyKos. Outside his echo chamber, parachuted in, and having a tough time dealing with reality. That can’t be easy. Remember, being a leftist means never having to say “I think.”
owyheewine| 5.14.09 @ 9:14AM
Continuing yesterday's discussion,. Out here in the wild and wooly west we consume mountain lion, bobcat and lynx. Lynx isn't particularly tasty, but it's "endangered", so it has become a delicacy.
wes| 5.14.09 @ 9:24AM
DM, you dunce. Nuclear power is thriving everywhere but in America. The left's beloved France generates nearly 80% of it's electricity from nuclear plants. I find the site of the cooling towers far less offensive than all those damn windmills that are an eyesore near Vantage, WA.
With advances that have been made, we could very quickly be generating gobs of "clean energy" very cheaply. There is no need to reinvent the wheel in this case. The biggest obstacle to nuclear power is the waste and with reprocessing, that is reduced substantially. Our navy has run safely for decades. The real problem for the "greens" who are really "reds" is that cheap energy is FREEDOM to the huddled masses.
And the elites who are better than us just can't have that.
John W.| 5.14.09 @ 1:07PM
wes,
You left out Pebble Bed Reactors, which pose even greater potential for higher efficiency power generation with less, and less dangerous, waste.
2 Guns , AZ| 5.14.09 @ 3:43PM
Typical, environazis can't distinguish between nuclear bomb testing and nuclear power generation. To them (and DM) anything nuclear is just plain bad.
John Navratil| 5.14.09 @ 4:53PM
Wes!
And the U.S. generates 80% of its electricity from the coal of which we are blessed with vast quantities. It's the economic source of power, instead of nukes, because of the man who can't find his crack pipe by candle light.
Moore is the one who would like to see coal replaced with nukes to avoid CO2 emissions. The crack-pipe guy wants simply to shut down power production. Of course, I'm wrong and he really desires to replace the remaining 98% of power that isn't produced by a reliable fuel supply with one that depends on sunny and windy days. Or maybe it's sunny days and windy nights. Don't worry, we'll know soon!
Of course, those zero air pollution vehicles will need to be charged somewhere. We could just power them with rubber bands and connect them straight to the windmill. Wait! Is it natural rubber which requires evil rubber plantations or synthetic which requires hydrocarbon stocks. My brain hurts!
Remember when MRIs were called NMRs (nuclear magnetic resonance images). It seems the Luddites couldn't distinguish between cells and atoms. Maybe we could change the name to fissile power, or radio energy reduction power, or "Keep CO2 out of America" power.
John Navratil| 5.14.09 @ 5:07PM
Oops! I meant to say that the U.S. generates 50% of electricity by coal. The 80% was in my fingertips from reading the previous post.
spongebob| 5.14.09 @ 5:08PM
DM
I don't think you misplaced your crack pipe,check your left hand. Judging by your comments your just so geeked out from smoking it you forgot.
Nick| 5.14.09 @ 10:10PM
Mr. Navratil,
Excellent post!
Barak Goodman| 5.14.09 @ 10:36PM
Moore was never a "founder" of Greenpeace. He's just paid lap-dancer for nukes and anyone else who has deep pockets (usually filled by screwing this country over by skipping on paying their fair share). http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/history/founders
Curious Jorge| 5.14.09 @ 11:37PM
Well if Greenpeace put it on the Interwebs it must be true after all.
Richard Baker| 5.15.09 @ 12:00AM
The day will come when these eco-religious fools will either destroy everything around themselves or they will awaken from their deep REM sleep with it's attendant dreaming and realize that the Earth is to be lived on and not turned into a "Tree Museum" as the '60s song sang about. Yes , I know the song was about "pave paradise and put up a parking lot". Funny how the tables turn. But even '60s denizens will eventually regain consciousness. The eco-fools will too. It will be interesting to view when they wake up.
Nick| 5.15.09 @ 3:17AM
When will France sink one of their ships again?
John Navratil| 5.15.09 @ 6:36PM
Moore was a founder of Greenpeace before he was not a founder of Greenpeace; that is if an anarchically organized group is every really founded. Certainly, Moore was involved with the legalisms of founding. His split made him an apostate. Good thing for Moore, the fatwah only called for scrubbing him from the Greenpeace web site and engaging in revisionist history.
From the link provided by Barak (above) one can find in the opening paragraph a statement to the fact that Greenpeace wasn't really founded, but rather evolved. It is stated "there was no single founder, and the name, idea, spirit, tactics, and internationalism of the organisation all can be said to have separate lineages". Fair enough, but then the claim is made that "The [Don't Make A Wave] committee's founders were Dorothy and Irving Stowe, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe, and Bob Hunter." Further on, the origin of the name "Greenpeace" is discussed and the statement is made "Jim Bohlen's son Paul, having trouble making the two words fit on a button, linked them together into the committee's new name: Greenpeace.". That is, Greenpeace was the new name for a committee founded by a group which did not include Moore.
So was it founded, or did it morph from a group of high-minded anti-nuke activist? Even the founders page acknowledges that Moore was on board the "Phyllis Cormack" for the groups first direct action... a sail to Amchtka.
So there you have a complete example of wanting to have it both ways.
Old Texican| 5.16.09 @ 10:22AM
Hi Richard Baker
The eco-nuts as a group will never wake up. Ain't gonna' happen.
Fortunately, they are a very small fringe group that has acquired power totally beyond their numbers for one simple reason:
The reasoning adults in our country have been content until now to let the "nasty children" get away with their follies.
All of this is now coming to a head, with the wheels coming off the Obamamobile faster than anyone could have forseen.
The groundswell of liberty and rationality has been intiated, and will grow exponentially as fuel prices go through the roof along with tax burdens.
When a dad can no longer afford to drive to work downtown, the inner cities will either collapse or erupt.
It is already happening in New York City and LA. Both of those cities are in a downward spiral that is going to be very difficult to reverse.
Please carry the logic to its conclusion. If the urbanites begin to starve.............
Tailgunner | 5.19.09 @ 4:53PM
To all you who smear Moore as bought and paid for by the nuclear industry:
How much is Al Gore poised to make on the passage of crap-and-trade legislation, since he's personally heavily invested in carbon trading entities?
And don't give me that crap about 'putting his profits into nonprofits'.
You know damn well that Gore still controls those nonprofits and knows how to launder that money and move it where and when he wants.
Once again, liberals have been exposed as lying, hypocritical Stalinist thugs who attack, demonize and destroy anyone who dares to disagree with them.