Originally Posted by http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2002/april/041402n3.htm

Founder of Greenpeace says movement has lost its way

Patrick Moore says environmentalists depend more on rhetoric than science these days

By PAUL FATTIG
Mail Tribune

Patrick Moore wanted to make one point clear at the outset.

"I'm still a very strong environmentalist," said Moore, 54, one of the founders of Greenpeace. "I believe we did a lot of great things to raise public awareness."

Having said that, Moore, who spent 15 years with Greenpeace, took issue with what he believes is today's environmental extremism.

"The environmental movement has shifted from being politically centered and science-based to having a fairly strong left-wing rhetoric that has more to do with politics than science," he said.

"There is no reason why environmentalists should be left-wing."

Moore was one of the featured speakers at Saturday's rally at the Jackson County Fairgrounds sponsored by People for the USA. The theme was to "Restore the Spirit of America."

In addition to drumming up patriotic spirit, the rally was aimed at increasing public awareness about the worldwide "green agenda," organizers said.

Other speakers included former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho, who is known for taking on the environmental movement.

But Moore, who now works as a public speaker as well as an environmental consultant for governments and industry, has been roundly bashed by the environmental community for his outspoken views.

Some have labeled him an industrial hack while others chastised him for misrepresenting the movement.

"A hallmark of people who aren't able to argue with you is to put you down as a person, rather than deal with the issues," Moore said in an interview before his speech.

Noting that some in the environmental movement have come to agree with his conclusions, Moore said he doesn't consider himself "right-wing" in the political sense.

"I just think it's time to recognize there are 6 billion people on the planet now," he said. "We can't pretend they aren't there. They need food and energy."

A native of Canada who has a doctorate in ecology, Moore said he continues to work with people to try to reduce the impact on the environment.

That's what drew him into the environmental movement more than 30 years ago, he said.

Hailing from a small community on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, Moore helped create Greenpeace in Vancouver in 1971. He was a doctoral student at the time.

"The issue for us then was hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska by the United States," he said, referring to tests being conducted along the Aleutian Island chain.

He was among those who sailed a fishing boat from Vancouver to the islands in protest.

"We captured a great deal of media attention," he recalled. "Tens of thousands marched. President Nixon canceled the remaining hydrogen bomb tests."

For the next 15 years, Moore would be among those taking on French atomic atmospheric tests, then Soviet Union and Japan whaling fleets and the slaughter of baby seals in Newfoundland.

He began to reassess his life in the mid-1980s, he said.

"I wanted to change from the politics of confrontation to the politics of consensus," he said.

"Since I left Greenpeace, I have seen the movement drift into extremism, abandoning common sense and logic," he added. "To a large extent, it is being hijacked by activists who are using green rhetoric to launch agendas that don't have much to do with ecology."

One example is the debate over genetically modified food, he said.

"The environmental issues are exaggerated out of proportion," he said. "There is a huge potential benefit in genetically modified food."

Describing himself as a generalist trying to connect the dots between society and its impact on the environment, Moore said too many in the movement take a simplistic approach.

While it may sound like a good idea to reduce the use of lumber products, that reduction will only increase the reliance on unrenewable products such as plastic, steel and concrete, he said. Timber products are renewable, he noted.

Moreover, about 80 percent of all timber sold in the United States is from private land, he said.

"The reason they are growing trees instead of corn or cattle is because we are building from wood," he said. "There is an economical demand for wood."

But Moore isn't against all issues now on the environmental movement's radar screen.

"I have a lot of time for people interested in climate change," he said. "It is a legitimate issue. But I don't think it deserves an alarmist approach."

The problem is that humankind doesn't know enough at this point to make informed conclusions, he said.

"We can't even accurately predict the weather seven days out," he said. "But it (climate warming) is something to be concerned about."

The point, he said, is that the world is not coming to an end as some would suggest.

"What we really need to do is develop a more holistic or more logical analysis of the environment," he said. "We need to start understanding how all these parts fit together and are related to each other."