by Mike Caswell (Great news reporting - Great Work)Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, says the modern environmental movement has it all wrong. Humans are not solely responsible for climate change, fish farms cause little harm and nuclear power is good. Mr. Moore, who left Greenpeace in 1986 after political activists overpowered scientific reason, says that the organization is "fundamentally incorrect on position after position."
Mr. Moore made the statements at a well-attended Fraser Institute luncheon in downtown Vancouver on Friday. Speaking to a crowd that included civic and federal politicians, he explained that he has devoted himself to finding sensible solutions to environmental problems. He sees this as more productive that the confrontational style the environmental movement uses.
More dams, more logging
Electricity is one of the issues on which the environmental movement causes more problems than it solves, he says. His top priority for power generation is to see more hydro electric dams. They emit nothing into the atmosphere, they consume no fossil fuels and they are a cheap way to generate massive amounts of electricity.
The environmental movement opposes dams because of the damage they cause to ecosystems when a valley is flooded to create a reservoir for the dam.
As Mr. Moore points out, "There is nothing wrong with lakes." They are thriving ecosystems of their own and people like to live near them. If valleys were so great, then people would drain lakes to make more valleys, he says.
Mr. Moore criticizes the environmental movement for boasting that it has stopped 200 hydro dams worldwide. "How do they want people to generate electricity? Coal?" he asked.
For some countries, such as the United States, there are few suitable locations remaining for dams. Those countries should build nuclear plants, he says. Decades of trouble-free nuclear power generation have changed public opinion on nuclear power, which was mostly shunned after the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents. In Ontario, which relies on fossil fuels and nuclear power, the public is 65 per cent in support of it. Nuclear power enjoys the same level of support in the United States.
Another topic Mr. Moore discussed was forestry. In the 1990s, he was a strong advocate of creating more parks and restraining logging. He is not opposed to logging, however. In fact, sensible environmentalism requires that people consume large amounts of trees. "The less wood we use, the more steel and plastic we consume," he says. Wood is a renewable resource and, as long as there is a demand for it, people will continue to plant trees.
Genetically modified crops
While not as large an issue in British Columbia as hydro power and logging, genetically modified crops are a significant concern in other parts of the world. The idea is to modify seeds so that plants will grow in ways that they would not in nature. An example would be adding resistance to a particular insect.
The environmental movement has demonized genetically modified organisms for some time, targeting Missouri-based Monsanto Company in particular. Mr. Moore points out that there is not a single known instance of harm to humans resulting from genetically modified crops. Multiple regulatory agencies have approved them for use.
Moreover, there are overwhelming humanitarian reasons to use genetically modified crops. For example, in some poorer countries people largely eat rice, which is deficient in Vitamin A. This causes about half a million children to go blind every year. A genetically modified crop called "golden rice" would remedy this deficiency, but it has met with significant opposition from Greenpeace. The organization is concerned that allowing golden rice could open the door to more genetically modified organisms.
The myth of sea lice
One environmental issue familiar to many British Columbians is fish farming, which generates about half a billion dollars a year in income and employs thousands, but causes much controversy. Mr. Moore points out that fish farms produce one of the healthiest foods known to humans and take pressure off wild stocks.
The environmental movement says the farms infect natural fish stocks with sea lice, a parasite that attacks salmon, but according to Mr. Moore the evidence is slim. In fact, there are more salmon in the north Pacific now than there have been in years. Moreover, the Fraser River had a record run of sockeye salmon.
Global warming not our fault
On climate change, Mr. Moore also differs with the environmental movement. He says there is no simply no scientific proof that man is responsible for warming the planet, nor is there any reason for alarm. As he sees it, the planet goes through cycles of cold and warm that have long predated any influence man could have had.
He points to the River Thames in London, which froze regularly as far back as 250 AD. In the 1600s, it once froze for two months. The last time the river froze was in 1814, and it has been flowing freely every winter since, indicating a warming trend.
Other evidence of cooling and warming that predates CO2 can be found in Canada's Arctic, where scientists have discovered remains of forests. This means that the climate was likely more temperate in the North. "The CO2 ... it has not made a difference whatsoever," Mr. Moore explains.
Cleaning the sand
As for the oil sands, Mr. Moore says phrases that environmentalists apply, such as "dirty oil" and "toxic oil," are misleading. "Does someone have some non-toxic petroleum?" he asked. The Alberta oil sands area, as he sees it, is a region the size of Florida in which the soil is contaminated with oil.
What the oil sands companies are doing is removing the toxins and returning the sand in a cleaner state than it was before. Although there are some legitimate complaints, such a few hundred dead ducks (which he puts in perspective -- hunters intentionally kill thousands of ducks every year), the oil companies are essentially performing a service and turning a profit.
He agrees that the curtailment of fossil fuel usage is a valid concern, but this is mostly because the supply will ultimately run out. He urges people to do their best to reduce their oil consumption, by driving smaller cars and using efficient home heating technologies such as heat pumps.
Other issues advanced by modern environmentalists are simply ridiculous, Mr. Moore contends. These include Al Gore's stated goal of eliminating fossil fuels in 10 years, which is essentially overnight for a project that substantial. The net result of this would be the death of billions of people as the food supply chain broke down. Also, there would not be a tree alive on the planet in six months, as people would burn them for heat and cooking.
As for the future, Mr. Moore says public opinion is slowly changing. People are becoming more skeptical on climate change in the wake of the "climategate" e-mails. In Russia, most scientists do not believe in man-made global warming, and China has become the first country to adopt genetically modified trees.
He concluded the luncheon with a signing of his book, titled "Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout."