Patrick Albert Moore (born 1947) is a Canadian industry consultant, former activist and member of Greenpeace; he left Greenpeace in 1986.
It is certainly true that environmental activists have sometimes overstated/exaggerated the immediate danger of environmental conditions (probably to try to motivate politicians and the public to action; predicting extreme danger within 10-20 years is much more 'motivating' than danger within 50-100 years). Moore's book offers some helpful correctives to some such claims. But we must analyze his arguments carefully, and note that he has long since abandoned Greenpeace-style positions, in favor of arguments favorable to his financial supporters. Anyway, on to the book itself.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2021 book, “Upon completing my Bachelor of Science with Honors, I enrolled in a PhD program in Ecology and never looked back. I became a born-again ecologist… In early 1971, in the midst of my PhD program… I joined a small group called the Don’t Make a Wave Committee that met in the basement of the Unitarian Church … to plan a protest voyage against US underground hydrogen-bomb testing in Alaska. I sailed as the lone ecologist on board, on a mission against… the US Atomic Energy Commission. It was on this mission that, together, we became the organization known as Greenpeace. And it was Greenpeace that consumed my next 15 years...
“In the mid 1980s, I finally decided to leave Greenpeace due to their transition from what was sensible environmentalism, to a platform of anti-human and anti-science campaigns that were mor concerned with fundraising and scaring people with misinformation than with improving the environment. The adoption of the campaign to ban chlorine… by my fellow directors of Greenpece International, none of whom had any formal science education, was the final straw and for me… It was bittersweet parting ways with Greenpeace, the organization that I had helped to build, shape, and guide for 15 years. Unfortunately, Greenpeace had gone from an altruistic group of volunteers with a noble vision, to a business with an ever-expanding budget… and was not rapidly transforming into a racket peddling junk science.” (Pg. 8-10)
He continues, “I move on to the central thesis of this book: … the great majority of scare stories about the present and future state of the planet… are based on subjects that are either invisible… or extremely remote, like polar bears and coral reefs. Thus, the vast majority of people have no way of observing and verifying for themselves the truth of these claims… Instead, they must rely on the activists, the media, the politicians, and the scientists---all of whom have a very large financial and/or political stake in the subject… When one studies these … invisible and remote circumstances, it is hard to avoid noticing that the purveyors often stoop to ridiculing and shaming, and likewise exhibit an unwillingness to discuss the allegations in a civilized manner… And if the alleged skeptic has employment, these narrators will work underhandedly to have you removed from your livelihood or position… these purveyors of global environmental catastrophes are definitely a scurrilous and dishonest lot.” (Pg. 11-12)
He says of coral ‘bleaching’: “It is quite common that in periods of warmer or colder water the polyps eject the plankton and therefore the coral colony becomes white … The term ‘bleaching’ has been adopted … but has nothing to do with actual bleaching, as would occur from sunlight… Most people … are therefore inclined to accept the idea that coral bleaching means that corals are dead or dying. That is, unless the explicit truth about what coral bleaching is and means is actually communicated by scientists and the media. However, in this case neither the media nor the scientists made much effort to disclose this information. Corals very often survive bleaching events…” (Pg. 22) After the Great Barrier Reef showed signs of recovery, “the news of the recovery was nowhere near as widespread as the reports of the reef’s demise… I believe the majority of the public are quite certain the reef is dead or dying.” (Pg. 24) He concludes, “if modern corals evolved and survived for 225 million years when the climate was considerably warmer than it is today, why are we told that a small amount of warming threatens their very existence? Unfortunately, the answer is: for academic status and money.” (Pg. 25-26)
He asserts, “‘Consensus’ is actually not a valid scientific term. It is a social and political term having to do with agreement on policies… Good policies are decisions, hopefully made democratically, that are based on proven facts… The take home message here is that when someone begins a discussion of climate change with the claim that there is an overwhelming consensus, which itself is false, listeners should probably change the subject. Mass delusion is also a consensus, as are cult movements and other such collective hysteria.” (Pg. 35-36)
He states, “The relationship between ‘correlation’ and ‘causation’ is a subtle one, and the discernible difference between them correlation… does not prove causation, whereas causation requires a strong correlation… A very humorous example of this is the very high correlation between ice cream consumption and shark attacks… there is a hilarious website called Spurious Correlations that presents many strong correlations among two factors that are very obviously not in a cause-effect relationship.” (Pg. 39)
He observes, “It is news to most people that we are at the tail-end of a 150-million-year decline of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere… It is one ‘narrative’ that is not based on computer models or the belief that everything that happened before 1850 is irrelevant… the human discovery of fossil fuels … have inadvertently caused this decline in CO2 to come to an end… But just because we didn’t intend for this increase … doesn’t mean we shouldn’t recognize and celebrate one of the most positive developments in Earth’s history, the replenishment of the most important substance for all life on Earth, after many millions of years of decline. Burning fossil fuels for energy will stave off the chance of CO2 decline for some centuries to come, but… civilization will likely turn to nuclear energy for the majority of its needs.” (Pg. 45-46) Later, he adds, “[CO2] is proving to be an extremely positive factor for plant life as we increase its concentration in the global atmosphere… Even if one accepts that carbon dioxide is responsible for most of the … rise in the average global temperature … the effect of increased CO2 on the growth of food crops, trees, and many wild environments is by far the more beneficial impact.” (Pg. 53-54)
He points out, “Thirty years ago, we were told by many pundits that the polar ice caps would be melted away long before now. It hasn’t happened, and it is most certainly not going to happen anytime soon… during the past 50 million years the Earth has been cooling quite steadily… The irony of what the alarmists are saying concerning … the Earth … is that it is actually colder than it has been during most of life’s existence, and that life… has better flourished during the warmer periods than the comparatively colder periods.” (Pg. 59) Later, he adds, “we have not actually altered the climate in any way out of the ordinary and there is no hard evidence that we will. The climate of the Earth today is not at all unusual for an interglacial period…” (Pg. 76)
He notes, “Let’s look at the widely distributed claim that melting sea ice threatens polar bears with extinction. National Geographic has led the way, using images of a starving polar bear and claiming, ‘This is what climate change looks like.’ … This completely contradicts ample first-hand evidence that polar bears today are generally fat and healthy, and that the National Geographic photographer found only one bear that was starving.” (Pg. 83)
He asserts that the “‘species extinction’ scare story is at least as preposterous as the ‘climate catastrophe’ scare story. Both are based on unobservable factors that cannot be independently checked by sensible people. Both are supported by vested interests whose very purpose is to scare you and your family.” (Pg. 101)
Of the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch,’ he says, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, famed to be twice the size of Texas is fabricated, as it does not actually exist… the garbage patch is a hoax… the garbage-patch defenders claimed that the plastic is in the form of micro-plastics in the water column, or in other words, they’re invisible. Just another garden-variety invisible, fake catastrophe like so many others… Of course, there is plastic debris floating in the oceans, but it is not in a giant patch. It is very spread out and most of it is discarded fishing gear.” (Pg. 104-107) Later, he adds, “despite Greenpeace’s repeated claims, we now know that the ingestion of plastic particles by seabirds doesn’t seem to be having any ill effects on the birds.” (Pg. 122)
Turning to GMOs, he states, “after 25 years of genetically modified organisms of many types being grown and eaten around the world in billions of meals there has not been a single verified case of harm… Of all the fabricated scare stories today, this is probably the most serious one as it is costing millions of lives, especially among children and pregnant women. There is simply nothing in the genetically modified organisms that are being grown around the world today that could cause harm.” (Pg. 129) Later, he adds, “where there truly is an overwhelming consensus among scientists that GMOs are safe to eat [activists] simply ignore it and spread fear on the basis of inaccurate claims.” (Pg. 135)
He asserts, “Nuclear energy is one of the safest, if not the safest technology, for generating energy on the basis of casualties per unit of energy produced… even in came to fear nuclear energy due to the powerful propaganda campaign against it. It was not until … after I left Greenpeace, that I re-educated myself about nuclear energy and realized the truth about this fascinating invention. I realized that nuclear energy had been unfairly lumped in with nuclear weapons as something evil… nuclear will likely be the source of the majority of our energy for millennia into the future.” (Pg. 147-148)
He says, however, “I do not believe that the demonization of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide are in any way justified. But I do believe in the conservation of important limited resources if an alternative, that is economically and technically feasible, can be found. And I do not believe that wind and solar with battery back-up is economically or technically viable to replace a high percentage of fossil fuels on a global scale.” (Pg. 156) Later, he adds, “Wind and solar energy production continue to disappoint. Neither nor wind generation are available even 50 percent of the time… This is also why California and Australia are experiencing blackouts…” (Pg. 169-170)
Interestingly, he asserts, “‘Science,’ the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, [is] a publication that long ago dropped any pretext of scientific rigor. They frequently publish articles that are a sensationalist as they are just plain wrong.” (Pg. 171)
He suggests, “The ancestors of every species alive today survived through millennia during which conditions sometimes changed very rapidly… the species that survived those times have proven the most resilient of all. Not many people stop to think that every individual of every species on Earth today represents a continuously successful line of reproduction from the beginning of life.” (Pg. 179)
He concludes, “The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated that there are real catastrophes caused by microscopic viral agents, and that even this has been somewhat overplayed in an overly risk-averse society. Hopefully this will bring the fake catastrophes into perspective.” (Pg. 206)
This book will be of keen interest to those looking for skeptical perspectives on contemporary ‘Climate Change’ matters.
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rascallybear
Essential tour de force for understanding what's really behind Net Zero
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2023Hu Flung Dung
Wow, really opened my eyes. Dr Patrick Moore makes a really compelling case.
Reviewed in Australia on June 7, 2023
