Dr. Patrick Moore, Ecologist Ecosense
I wrote this little polemic in 1994 after many years of fussing and fuming about the changes that had come over my beloved Greenpeace. In retrospect it seems a little harsh but it gets the point across. The essay was published in this form in Leadership Quarterly, 5(3/4), 1994
More than twenty years ago I was one of a dozen or so activists who founded Greenpeace in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Vancouver. The Vietnam war was raging and nuclear holocaust seemed closer every day. We linked peace, ecology, and a talent for media communications and went on to build the world’s largest environmental activist organization. By 1986 Greenpeace was established in 26 countries and had an income of over $100 million per year.
In 1986 the mainstream of western society was busy adopting the environmental agenda that was considered radical only fifteen years earlier. By 1989 the combined impact of Chernobyl, the Exxon Valdez, the threat of global warming and the ozone hole clinched the debate. All but a handful of reactionaries joined the call for sustainable development and environmental protection.
Whereas previously the leaders of the environmental movement found themselves on the outside railing at the gates of power, they were now invited to the table in boardrooms and caucuses around the world. For environmentalists, accustomed to the politics of confrontation, this new era of acceptance posed a challenge as great as any campaign to save the planet.
For me, Greenpeace is about ringing an ecological fire alarm, waking mass consciousness to the true dimensions of our global predicament, pointing out the problems and defining their nature. Greenpeace doesn’t necessarily have the solutions to those problems and certainly isn’t equipped to put them into practice. That requires the combined efforts of governments, corporations, public institutions and environmentalists. This demands a high degree of cooperation and collaboration. The politics of blame and shame must be replaced with the politics of working together and win-win.
Collaboration versus Confrontation
It was no coincidence that the round-table, consensus-based negotiation process was adopted by thousands of environmental leaders. It is the logical tool for working in the new spirit of green cooperation. It may not be a perfect system for decision-making, but like Churchill said about democracy, “It’s the worst form of government except for all the others”. A collaborative approach promises to give environmental issues their fair consideration in relation to the traditional economic and social priorities.
Some environmentalists didn’t see it that way. Indeed, there had always been a minority of extremists who took a “No Compromise in Defense of Mother Nature” position. They were the monkey-wrenchers, tree-spikers and boat scuttlers of the Earth First! and Paul Watson variety. Considered totally uncool by the largely pacifist, intellectual mainstream of the movement, they were a colorful but renegade element.
Since its founding in the late 60’s the modern environmental movement had created a vision that was international in scope and had room for people of all political persuasions. We prided ourselves in subscribing to a philosophy that was “trans-political, trans-ideological, and trans-national” in character. For Greenpeace, the Cree legend “Warriors of the Rainbow” referred to people of all colors and creeds, working together for a greener planet. The traditional sharp division between left and right was rendered meaningless by the common desire to protect our life support systems. Violence against people and property were the only taboos. Non-violent direct action and peaceful civil disobedience were the hallmarks of the movement. Truth mattered and science was respected for the knowledge it brought to the debate.
Now this broad-based vision is challenged by a new philosophy of radical environmentalism. In the name of “deep ecology” many environmentalists have taken a sharp turn to the ultra-left, ushering in a mood of extremism and intolerance. As a clear signal of this new agenda, in 1990 Greenpeace called for a “grassroots revolution against pragmatism and compromise”.
As an environmentalist in the political center I now find myself branded a traitor and a sellout by this new breed of saviors. My name appears in Greenpeace’s “Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations”. Even fellow Greenpeace founder and campaign comrade, Bob Hunter, refers to me as the “eco-Judas”. Yes, I am trying to help the Canadian forest industry improve its performance so we might be proud of it again. As chair of the Forest Practices Committee of the Forest Alliance of B.C. I have lead the process of drafting and implementing the Principles of Sustainable Forestry that have been adopted by a majority of the industry. These Principles establish goals for environmental protection, forest management and public involvement. They are providing a framework for dialogue and action towards improvements in forest practices. Why shouldn’t I make a contribution to environmental reform in the industry my grandfather and father have worked in for over 90 years?
It’s not that I don’t think the environment is in deep trouble. The hole in the ozone is real and we are overpopulating and overexploiting many of the earth’s most productive ecosystems. I believe this is all the more reason to hang on to ideas like freedom, democracy, internationalism, and one-human-family. Our species is probably in for a pretty rough ride during the coming decades. It would be nice to think we could maintain a semblance of civilization while we work through these difficult times.
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agenda by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environmentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable development” and took a strong “anti-development” stance.
Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments.
These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are:
* It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a “cancer” on the face of the earth. The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology; that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be “good” if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population.
* It is anti-technology and anti-science. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural”. The Sierra Club’s recent book, “Clearcut: the Tragedy of Industrial Forestry”, is an excellent example of this perspective. “Western industrial society” is rejected in its entirety as is nearly every known forestry system including shelterwood, seed tree and small group selection. The word “Nature” is capitalized every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the trees”. Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.
* It is anti-organization. Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental movement itself. Corporations are criticized for taking profits made in one country and investing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to local communities. Where is the international environmental movements allegiance to local communities? How much of the money raised in the name of aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to helping loggers thrown out of work by environmental campaigns? How much to research silvicultural systems that are environmentally and economically superior?
* It is anti-trade. Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas—too bad. Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the importance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems it is absurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbors. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia.
* It is anti-free enterprise. Despite the fact that communism and state socialism has failed, eco-extremists are basically anti-business. They dislike “competition” and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone engaging in private business, particularly if they are successful, is characterized as greedy and lacking in morality. The extremists do not seem to find it necessary to put forward an alternative system of organization that would prove efficient at meeting the material needs of society. They are content to set themselves up as the critics of international free enterprise while offering nothing but idealistic platitudes in its place.
* It is anti-democratic. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liberal representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-centered”. In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species” we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” would “answer to no one but Mother Earth herself”.
* It is basically anti-civilization. In its essence, eco-extremism rejects virtually everything about modern life. We are told that nothing short of returning to primitive tribal society can save the earth from ecological collapse. No more cities, no more airplanes, no more polyester suits. It is a naive vision of a return to the Garden of Eden.
As a result of the rise of environmental extremism it has become difficult for the public, government agencies and industry to determine which demands are reasonable and which are not. It’s almost as if the person or group that makes the most outrageous accusations and demands is automatically called “the environmentalist” in the news story. Industry, no matter how sincere in its efforts to satisfy legitimate environmental concerns, is branded “the threat to the environment”. Let me give you a few brief examples.
The Brent Spar
In 1995, Shell Oil was granted permission by the British Environment Ministry to dispose of the oil rig “Brent Spar” in deep water in the North Sea. Greenpeace immediately accused Shell of using the sea as a “dustbin”. Greenpeace campaigners maintained that there were hundreds of tonnes of petroleum wastes on board the Brent Spar and that some of these were radioactive. They organized a consumer boycott of Shell service stations, costing the company millions in sales. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl denounced the British government’s decision to allow the dumping. Caught completely off guard, Shell ordered the tug that was already towing the rig to its burial site to turn back. They then announced they had abandoned the plan for deep-sea disposal. This angered British Prime Minister, John Major.
it remains to this day. Independent investigation revealed that the rig had been properly cleaned and did not contain the toxic and radioactive waste claimed by Greenpeace. Greenpeace wrote to Shell apologizing for the factual error. But they did not change their position on deep-sea disposal despite the fact that on-land disposal will cause far greater environmental impact.
During all the public outrage directed against Shell for daring to sink a large piece of steel and concrete it was never noted that Greenpeace had purposely sunk its own ship off the coast of New Zealand in 1986. When the French government bombed and sunk the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985, the vessel was permanently disabled. It was later re-floated, patched up, cleaned and towed to a marine park where it was sunk in shallow water as a dive site. Greenpeace said the ship would be an artificial reef and would support increased marine life.
The Brent Spar and the Rainbow Warrior are in no way fundamentally different from one another. The sinking of the Brent Spar could also be rationalized as providing habitat for marine creatures. It’s just that the public relations people at Shell are not as clever as those at Greenpeace. And in this case Greenpeace got away with using misinformation even though they had to admit their error after the fact.
WWF and Species Extinction
In March, 1996, the International Panel on Forests of the United Nations held its first meeting in Geneva. The media paid little attention to what appeared to be one more ponderous assemblage of delegates speaking in unintelligible UNese. As it turned out, the big story to emerge from the meeting had nothing to do with the Panel on Forests itself. In what has become a common practice, The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) chose to use the occasion of the UN meeting as a platform for its own news release.
The WWF news release, which was widely picked up by the international media, made three basic points. They claimed that species were going extinct at a faster rate now than at any time since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. They said that 50,000 species were now becoming extinct each year due to human activity. But of most significance to the subject of forests, WWF claimed that the main cause of species extinction was “commercial logging”, that is, the forest industry. They provided absolutely no evidence for this so-called fact about logging and the media asked no hard questions. The next day newspapers around the world proclaimed the forest industry to be the main destroyer of species.
Since that announcement I have asked on numerous occasions for the name of a single species that has been rendered extinct due to forestry, particularly in my home country, Canada. Not one Latin name has been provided. It is widely known that human activity has been responsible for the extinction of many species down through history. These extinctions have been caused by hunting, the conversion of forest and grassland to farming and human settlement, and the introduction of exotic diseases and predators. Today, the main cause of species extinction is deforestation, over 90% of which is caused by agriculture and urban development. Why is WWF telling the public that logging is the main cause of species extinction?
While I do not wish to guess at the WWF’s motivation, it is instructional to consider the question from a different angle. That is, if forestry does not generally cause species extinction, what other compelling reason is there to be against it? Surely the fact that logging is unsightly for a few years after the trees are cut is not sufficient reason to curtail Canada’s most important industry.
Despite the WWF’s failure to support its accusations, the myth that forestry causes widespread species extinction lives on. How can a largely urban public be convinced that this is not the case? The challenge is a daunting one for an industry that has been cast in the role of Darth Vadar when it should be recognized for growing trees and providing wood, the most renewable material used in human civilization.
Chlorine in Manufacturing
I don’t mean to pick on Greenpeace but they are close to my heart and have strayed farther from the truth than I can tolerate. In this case the issue is chlorine, an element that is used in a wide variety of industrial, medical, and agricultural applications. In 1985 Greenpeace took up the campaign to eliminate chlorine from all industrial processes, to essentially remove it from human use despite its enormous benefits to society.
The basis of the campaign was the discovery that the use of chlorine as a bleaching agent in the pulp and paper industry resulted in the production of minute quantities of dioxin, some of which ended up in waste water. The industry responded quickly and within five years of the discovery had virtually eliminated dioxins by switching to a different form of chlorine or eliminating chlorine altogether. The addition of secondary treatment resulted in further improvements. Independent scientists demonstrated that after these measures were taken, pulp mills using chlorine had no more environmental impact than those that used no chlorine. Did Greenpeace accept the science? No, they tried to discredit the scientists and to this day continue a campaign that is based more on fear than fact. Its as if chlorine should be banned from the periodic table of elements altogether so future generations won’t know it exists.
Forestry
This critique of radical environmentalism is nowhere more appropriate than in the present debate over managing our forests and manufacturing forest products. Human management of forests is portrayed as somehow “unnatural”. As mentioned before, horse-logging appeals to the extremists because it uses less technology. My response to this idea is that it would make more sense for the city people to use horses to get their 150 pound bodies to work in the morning and let the loggers have the engines from their cars so they can move the heavy loads in the forest. I suppose this is a result of my twisted country perspective.
For Greenpeace the zero chlorine campaign was just the beginning. Now Greenpeace Germany is leading a campaign for a global ban on clearcutting in any forest. They want lumber and paper manufacturers to use a label that states their product is “clearcut-free”. Canada has been chosen as the target for consumer boycotts because it uses clearcutting in forestry. It doesn’t matter that the world’s most knowledgeable silviculturists believe that clearcutting is the most appropriate form of harvesting in many types of forest. It doesn’t matter that most forestry in Germany is by the clearcut method, they want to boycott us anyway. What matters is that it makes a good fundraising campaign in Europe.
The public is unaware of the basic flaws in the Greenpeace campaign to end clearcutting worldwide. They do not realize that there is no clear definition of the term “clearcutting” and that Greenpeace refuses to engage in a dialoque to determine the precise nature of what it is they are opposed to. It is also not widely realized that there is no such thing as a supply of pulp and paper that is “clearcut-free”. The practice of clearcutting is so widespread that it would be impossible to obtain a supply of wood chips that came from forests where only single-tree selection forestry is practiced.
Perhaps the most cynical aspect of the Greenpeace campaign is their assertion that forests are clearcut in British Columbia to make tissue paper and toilet paper for Europeans. They use the slogan “When you blow your nose in Europe you are blowing away the ancient forests of Canada” to imply that Europeans could save Canadian forests if they would stop buying tissue made from Canadian pulp. Everyone who has studied Canadian forestry, including Greenpeace, knows that the pulp and paper industry in British Columbia is based entirely on the waste products of the saw milling industry. The forests are harvested to supply high value solid wood for furniture, interior woodwork and construction. Only the wastes from making lumber and those logs that are unsuitable for saw milling are made into pulp. If we did not make pulp from these wastes they would have to be burned or left to rot as was the case in the past.
Rather than promoting unilateral boycotts that are based on misinformation and coercion, organizations like Greenpeace should recognize the need for internationally accepted criteria for sustainable forestry and forest products manufacturing. Through dialogue and international cooperation it would be possible to achieve agreement and end the unfair practice of singling out an individual nation for sanctions. Unfortunately they have now joined in the effort to spoil an International Convention on Forests. Their reasons for opposing a convention are not valid and amount to a transparent front for a strong anti-forestry attitude.
Conclusion
It is not reasonable to expect the environmental movement to drop its extremist agenda overnight. The rise of extremism is a major feature of the movement’s evolution and is now deeply embedded in its political structure. We can hope that as time passes the movement will be retaken by more politically centrist, science-based leaders and that the extreme wing will be marginalized. At the same time, we must remember that most of the larger environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council etc. do have many members and campaign teams that are reasonable and based on good science. It’s just that for the time being, major elements of their organizations have been hi-jacked by people who are politically motivated, lack science, and are often using the rhetoric of environmentalism to promote other causes such as class struggle and anti-corporatism.
The only way industry can successfully help to promote a more pragmatic and reasonable environmental movement is to prove that it is willing and able to avoid future damage to the environment and to correct past abuses. In other words, if your house is in order, there will be little or nothing for extremists to use as a reason for taking an essentially “anti-industry” position.
The challenge for environmental leaders is to resist the path of ever increasing extremism and to know when to talk rather than fight. To remain credible and effective they must reject the anti-human, anarchistic approach. This is made difficult by the fact that many individuals and their messengers, the media, are naturally attracted to confrontation and sensation. It isn’t easy to get excited about a committee meeting when you could be bringing the state to its knees at a blockade.
The best approach to our present predicament is to recognize the validity of both the bioregional and the global visions for social and environmental sustainability. Issues such as overpopulation and sustainable forest practices require international agreements. Composting of food wastes and bicycle repairs are best accomplished locally. We must think and act both globally and locally, always cognizant of impacts at one level caused by actions at another. Extremism that rejects this approach will only bring disaster to all species, including humans.
Patrick Moore:
Will Happer:
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By Larry Bell
Before even thinking about squandering one hundred trillion dollars on an insane economy-collapsing Green New Deal premised upon an end-of-world climate catastrophe, let’s take a very hard look at the so-called “settled science” nonsense. The Trump White House plans to convene a National Security Council review panel headed by Princeton emeritus professor of physics Dr. Will Happer to do exactly that.
One of the loudest, shrillest, most unsettled voices of protest against science scrutiny is emanating from Dr. Michael Mann, the author of a cobbled-together and thoroughly debunked “hockey stick” graph first used by the IPCC and Al Gore to gin up the climate Armageddon alarm.
A March 20 article co-authored by Mann and Bob Ward in The Guardian equated the planned NSC panel to Stalinist repression.
Accordingly, a great place to begin this investigation is to revisit scandalous Climategate email exchanges between members of Mann’s hockey team along with readily available public records I have previously written about in numerous Forbes and Newsmax articles.
Tom Crowley, a close Mann colleague, wrote, “I am not convinced that the ‘truth’ is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships.”
Yet friendship aside, Mann’s hockey shtick graph co-author Raymond Bradley clearly drew the line regarding another research paper jointly published by Mann and colleague Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia.
Bradley wrote,
“I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL [Geophysical Research Letters] paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year [climate] reconstruction.”
Nevertheless, Michael Mann sanctimoniously attacked Will Happer’s scientific credentials to chair the NSC’s panel because “[he] has not published any research on climate change in a reputable science journal.”
By “reputable,” Mann is obviously referring to publishers that exclusively post research papers endorsed by the Climate Crisis Cartel and its IPCC sponsors.
An email from Jones to Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports, said, “Kevin, Seems that this potential Nature [journal] paper may be worth citing, if it does say that GW [global warming] is having an effect on TC [tropical cyclone] activity.”
Jones wanted to make sure that people who supported this connection be represented in IPCC reviews, “Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital - hence my comment about the tornadoes group.”
Top cyclone expert Christopher Landsea demanded that the IPCC refute Trenberth’s scientifically unsupportable but highly publicized claim of a global warming-hurricane link following a deadly 2004 Florida storm season. Receiving no response, Landsea resigned as an invited 2007 IPCC report author.
A July 2004 communication from Phil Jones to Michael Mann marked “Highly Confidential” discussed keeping two papers published in Climate Research from being in that next IPCC report. Jones wrote: Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is.”
Jonathan Overpeck, a coordinating lead IPCC report author, suggested, “The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.”
Trenberth’s associate Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research warned in another email to Mann, “Mike, the Figure you sent is very deceptive ... there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC ... “ Wigley and Trenberth suggested in another email to Mann, “If you think that [Yale professor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official [American Geophysical Union] channels to get him ousted [as editor-in-chief of the Geophysical Research Letters journal].”
Writing to Phil Jones, Peter Thorne of the U.K. Met Office advised caution, saying, “Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous.”
Thorne prudently observed in a separate email, “I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.”
Another scientist worries, “.... clearly, some tuning or very good luck [is] involved. I doubt the modeling world will be able to get away with this much longer.”
Still another observed, “It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.”
One researcher foresaw some very troubling consequences, “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multi-decadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably....”
Oh Mann!
I understand your angst about where your rebounding hockey puck may wind up.
By David Wojick
As our children skip school to chant climate alarmist slogans, you may wonder “Where do they get this stuff?” Of course they get some of it from their teachers, but these teachers get a lot of it via the U.S. Federal Government.
The sad fact is that a number of federal agencies either maintain or fund websites that specifically exist to push alarmist teaching materials. In many cases these alarmist materials are also federally funded. The Trump Administration has done very little to stem this flow of propaganda to our children.
Here is a partial list of Federal or federally funded websites pushing alarmist educational materials for kids:
1. Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN).
Bills itself as A collection of 700+ free, ready-to-use resources rigorously reviewed by educators and scientists. Suitable for secondary through higher education classrooms. CLEAN is funded by grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
2. US Global Change Research Program “Resources for Educators.”
The USGCRP is funded by 13 federal agencies. It also produces the hyper-alarmist National Climate Assessments.
3. NOAA’s ”Teaching Climate.” (A massive website)
NOAA’s Climate.gov website is completely alarmist. In fact they define alarmism as so-called “Climate literacy.”
4. NASA’s ”Climate Kids” (Another huge site)
Includes games and videos for young children. Here is part of the green message: “Some of the ways you can help may have to wait until you are a little older - like choosing an energy-efficient car, installing solar panels on the roof of your house, or choosing a green career.”
5. The National Ocean Service’s ”Talking to Children about Climate Change.”
Alarmist materials for teachers, beginning in elementary school.
6. ”Teaching about Climate Change” from Carlton College, sponsored by NSF
Carleton is another massive alarmist site that includes both teaching teachers how to teach alarmism and classroom materials for doing so.
7. ”Climate Change Live” with many federal “partners”.
CCL advertises itself as a “distance learning” site.
8. ”Climate Change Activities” from UCAR, sponsored by NSF.
UCAR is a consortium of universities that runs NSF’s multi-billion dollar National Center for Atmospheric Research.
9. ”Climate and Global Change” by the National Earth Science Teachers Association, sponsored by NASA and NOAA.
NESTA is solidly alarmist.
10. ”Climate Change” from AAAS, sponsored by NSF.
Includes alarmist material for all grades, including kindergarten.
11. “Climate Change and Human Health Lesson Plans” by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH.
Promotes various health scares based on climate change alarmism.
In contrast to these federal propaganda sites, there is at this time no website that focuses on teaching children about skepticism and the real scientific debate over climate change. It is no wonder that they believe false alarmism.
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Dear Dr. Joe,
Yes, it is disappointing that President Trump has not been able to change some of the outrageous behavior of federal government agencies.
The climate propaganda programs need to stop NOW.
Our local American Meteorological Society chapter still references the NASA climate propaganda site as their authority for hysteria, based on repeated recommendations from Phil Mote’s OCCRI at Oregon State University. But I think that the Oregon AMS at least suspects that it may not be a good way to argue science. Unfortunately, none of the officers of the local chapter have adequate training in science to be able to distinguish real from fake science, especially when the fake science is promoted by a young woman, Kathy Dello, who works for Mote. Neither the President nor the Vice President of the chapter have formal training in meteorology. Yet President Steve Pierce keeps referring to himself as a “meteorologist,” when presenting the weather on local TV.
Here is the comment that I left for the article below:
Propagandizing children is simply wrong, VERY WRONG.
Children need to be taught how to think not what to think. Climate science provides a wonderful opportunity to teach children how science really works and how to resist the overwhelming propaganda that they will be told is the Real McCoy.
First and foremost, science is not an exercise in consensus and authority. It is an exercise in careful logic and robust evidence. That is why the great physicist, Richard Feynman, characterized science as “a belief in the ignorance of the experts.” That is why the motto of the first scientific society, the British Royal Society, is “Nullius in Verba” or “Take no one’s word for it”. And that is why Aristotle characterized arguments from authority and consensus as ‘logical fallacies.’
For instance, we don’t argue that the world is round, because everyone agrees that it is. We simply present a photo of Dr. Harrison Schmitt standing on the moon with a round earth in the background. (Schmitt is the only scientist to ever walk on the moon. He has a PhD in Geology from Harvard and works with me as a Director of the CO2 Coalition.)
Yet most of the arguments in favor of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming insist that people believe in the coming apocalypse, because 97% or 99% or all scientists do. What nonsense! Why do you suppose they do that in lieu of the evidence? That’s easy. They don’t have convincing evidence!
All they have is a vague correlation between rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and slightly rising atmospheric temperatures since World War Two. Although atmospheric CO2 apparently rose continuously during this period, the global temperature anomaly only rose for two of the seven decades and only after a notable shift in the Pacific Ocean called the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1977. Could our oceans be responsible for the shift? Sure! It is easy to show that our oceans contain 99 to 99.9% of the mobile heat on this planet.
But what about the infallible ‘Climate Models’ that are supposed to be able to predict our climate out a century using mathematical methods similar to weather models? With weather models barely accurate out a week, it should seem preposterous that the similar climate models work out to 5,200 weeks! And indeed the climate models badly fail verification tests.
My colleague, Professor of Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Gerhard Gerlich, perhaps said it best:
“To derive climate catastrophes from these computer games and to scare Mankind to death is a crime.”
It is especially criminal to involve children in the climate fraud.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA