Posts Tagged ‘Greenpeace’

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“Wicked” Greenpeace casting a dark shadow over the world

October 14, 2013

Wicked Green Pirate: image by http://nowio.deviantart.com/

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have become merely destructive movements. And their self-righteous beliefs in their world-view seem to justify any means. Not just piracy and drug-running, now Greenpeace have also been labelled “wicked” for their opposition to Golden rice. Patrick Moore – who was a co-founder of Greenpeace – called their opposition to GM crops in general and Golden rice in particular a “crime against humanity”.

And now the UK Secretary for the Environment, Owen Paterson called them “wicked” saying “they could be condemning millions of people in the developing world to a premature death”.

BBC: Opponents of the development of a type of genetically modified (GM) rice enriched with vitamin A are “wicked”, the environment secretary has said.

In an interview with the Independent, Owen Paterson said they could be condemning millions of people in the developing world to a premature death.

Mr Paterson backed a letter from international scientists calling for the rapid development of “golden rice”. ….  Mr Paterson told the newspaper: “It’s just disgusting that little children are allowed to go blind and die because of a hang-up by a small number of people about this technology.

“I feel really strongly about it. I think what they do is absolutely wicked. There is no other word for it.”

Mr Paterson did not specify any particular groups in his interview but also said opponents of GM technology were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”. ……

 ….. Meanwhile, in a letter to US journal Science, a group of leading academics accused Western non-governmental organisations of fuelling opposition to the development of GM technologies. They wrote: “If ever there was a clear-cut cause for outrage, it is the concerted campaign by Greenpeace and other non-governmental organisations, as well as by individuals, against golden rice.”

Environmental campaigners such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have said there are more effective solutions to vitamin A deficiency.

The Independent adds:

In the strongest attack yet on the anti-GM lobby Mr Paterson told The Independent that NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that oppose GM technology were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Development, Food | 1 Comment »

Phailin came and Phailin went: Alarmists and Warmists disappointed

October 13, 2013

Cyclone Phaelin came and it has now gone.

The Greens around the world are somewhat disappointed that many thousands have not died.

It was a very severe cyclone when it hit (windspeed 200km/h) but it did not reach the classification as a Super Cyclone (>220km/h windspeed).

It was a massive evacuation and that itself was somethiing of an achievement. More than 600,000 (and maybe as many as 1 million) moved or were moved out of harms way. 7 are known to have died in cyclone related events (falling trees in the main). Damage reports have yet to be assessed. Some fishermen are known to be stranded. The military is mobilised and stands ready for rescue and rehabilitation.

The Indian Meteorological community got it about right. But there were those who predicted that it would not only be a Super Cyclone at 220km/h but would be a Super Dooper Cyclone with winds up to 315km/h.

The US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Friday said Phailin is now expected to break the Indian Ocean intensity record set by the 1999 Cyclone in which at least 9,000 people were killed in Odisha.

Alarmists started criticising the preparations and the evacuations and suggested it would be worse than 1999 where at least 15,000 (unofficially 45,000) died. The Global Warmists at Huffington Post almost seemed to want the loss of life to be as high as possible so that they could blame Global warming (but note that they manage to blame any untoward weather event on Global Warming)

India should rename this meaningless obfuscation and call attention to global warming immediately. .. The anthropogenic global warming caused by accumulation of greenhouse gases is making the oceans warmer, which in turn is causing more frequent and more intense cyclones/hurricanes and floods.

Needless to say the Environ-Mentalists at Greenpeace were also hoping for a major disaster

Intense and destructive storms are likely to occur more frequently as global warming intensifies, Greenpeace said Saturday. “Such intense and destructive storms are likely to become more frequent in the future as global warming intensifies.  India member Biswajit Mohanty. According to the organisation, cyclone Phailin which is expected to hit the coastal areas of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh is likely to be the strongest such to affect India in 14 years, since the 1999 Odisha cyclone.

The Green Brigade conveniently forget that a Super Cyclone is generated in the Bay of Bengal every 10-20 years. It is a natural phenomenon known for at least the last 200 years. The super Cyclone of 1970 killed over 500,000 people. And the lessons learned since 1999, the major evacuation and the other preparations made seem to have achieved their objective and minimised the loss of life.

It was a severe storm and has surely caused some significant damage. But it is something which happens regularly and not anything unprecedented. It was not a Super Cyclone.

And it was nowhere near the major disaster that Alarmists, Greenpeace, Global Warmists and Environ-Mentalists were hoping for.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, India, Natural Phenomena, Weather | Comments Off on Phailin came and Phailin went: Alarmists and Warmists disappointed

The Pirates of Greenpeace are also accused of drug running

October 10, 2013

Pirates of Greenpeace

Greenpeace – They are the very model of modern Environ-Mentalists.

Not just pirates but drug runners too! The Greenpeace protestations of innocence are a little overdone since poppy straw is the raw opium used for the illegal extraction of heroin (and the production of morphine). It would seem that our pirates were also engaged in the production of drugs – presumably for their “recreation” on slow nights when they weren’t pirating.

Ria Novosti: 

Russian investigators said Wednesday that drugs have been found on board a Greenpeace ship seized last month, raising the threat of new charges against a group of activists and journalists awaiting trial on suspicion of piracy.

Investigative Committee chief Vladimir Markin said in a statement that the substances found on the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker were presumed to be poppy straw and morphine.

He said “the charge already pressed against all [the detainees] will presumably be modified.”

Russian authorities detained the group of 30 environmentalists and journalists last month after activists from the Greenpeace ship staged a protest against oil drilling in the Arctic, with some of them attempting to scale a Russian oil platform.

Greenpeace issued a statement later in the day, saying that the drugs were likely “medical supplies that our ships are obliged to carry under maritime law” and that some medical supplies are kept in a safe accessible only to the ship’s captain and doctor.

The group said it has a strict policy against recreational drugs on board its ships and that the Arctic Sunrise had been searched by a sniffer dog before leaving Norway for the Russian Arctic.

All the detainees from the ship, comprising nationals of 18 countries, have been charged with piracy.

The Investigative Committee spokesman also said that a number of defendants in the case will be charged with “committing other grave crimes.”

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Russia | 1 Comment »

The Pirates of Greenpeace

October 3, 2013

Greenpeace is not just becoming, it already is , a comic soap opera.

This is to be sung to the tune of “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from The Pirates of Penzance.

Preferably after dinner with a cognac (or two) and a good cigar!

(With thanks and apologies of course to Gilbert and Sullivan)

The Pirates of Greenpeace or I am the very model of a modern Environ-Mentalist

I am the very model of a modern Environ-Mentalist
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and min’ralist,
I know the Sins of Nations, and I quote the fights rightorical
From Vancouver to Murmansk, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with crises hypothetical,
I understand ecology, both the stupid and the fanciful,
About bio-diversity I’m teeming with a lot o’ fears
With many, many made-up facts ’bout the dying of the polar bears
I’m very good at man-made global warming ideology;
I know the sensitivity of fossil fuel combustology:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and min’ralist,
I am the very model of a modern Environ-Mentalist
I know our mythic history, and Nuclear power efficacy; 
I answer hard acrostics, I’ve a pretty taste for Piracy,
I can quote in haiku all the crimes of Big Petroleum;
Genetic crops to feed the poor meet with my opprobrium;
I can tell undoubted radicals from all the evil conservatives;
For all the problems of the world, I have the simple preservatives!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din afore, 
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write an alarmist screed in IPCC complexity,
And tell you ev’ry detail of Pachauri’s Nobel perplexity.
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and min’ralist,
I am the very model of a modern Environ-Mentalist.
In fact, when I know what is meant by “Decadal” and “Oscillatus”,
When I can tell at sight a hockey-stick from a hiatus,
When with such affairs as PDO’s and ADO’s I’m more adept,
And when with cosmic rays and clouds I’m a little more abreast,
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern statistickery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery –
In short, when I’ve a smattering of physics elementary
You’ll say a better Environ-Mentalist was never so exemplary
For my scientific knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the start of the last century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and min’ralist,
I am the very model of a modern Environ-Mentalist.

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Posted in Behaviour, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Trivia | 2 Comments »

Science and advocacy do not mix (the “Greenpeace syndrome”?)

December 4, 2012

It is not the first time that “activists” have turned to dubious and manipulated science to further their cause. And it will not be the last. The peer-review process which is supposed to catch this kind of politically motivated pseudoscience is often not capable of doing so – and certainly not when the purported science is presented in a stage manged  PR exercise. Anything published by an advocacy group may – sometimes – contain some science but – and it should be axiomatic – no advocacy report is ever science.

In this case a “scientist” – Gilles-Eric Seralini – who is also a well-known activist campaigning against GM crops managed to get the reputed Elsevier Food and Chemical Toxicology journal to publish some highly dubious results that genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats. Seralini is also known for making up honors or paying for them to be awarded to himself! Perhaps this should be called the “Greenpeace syndrome”. Greenpeace is not averse either to making up science to further their political goals. (In fact Greenpeace just today published another apparently independent study in favour of wind power but which they had themselves commissioned!)

Reuters reports today that

(Reuters) – The publisher of a much-criticized study suggesting genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats has come under heavy pressure from scientists to retract the paper and explain why it was ever printed.

(more…)

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Posted in Advocacy, Peer review, Politics, Science, Scientific Fraud | Comments Off on Science and advocacy do not mix (the “Greenpeace syndrome”?)

“Greenpeace’s crime against humanity” – Patrick Moore

September 11, 2012

I perceive Greenpeace to be an organisation which was once well-intentioned  but which has degenerated to become an extremist, semi-religious group where advancing of its beliefs justifies the use of even unethical means. The fundamental error – as I see it – is that it sees “humans” as somehow being separate from “environment” and the development of humanity as a threat to environment. Greenpeace and other similar organisations  have lost sight of the fact that humans and their works are part of the “environment” and that the environment needs to be subservient to the needs of human development. They have become part of the coercive and alarmist movement that is eco-fascism.

Greenpeace has been known to exaggerate, mislead, cherry-pick data and even fake data in pursuing its religious goals. They may have done some good in the past but lately they have become one of the forces against improvements of the human condition.

So when Patrick Moore – a co-founder of Greenpeace – accuses them of crimes against humanity I am inclined to listen. Patrick Moore has been disillusioned with Greenpeace for some time and writes this article in Climate Depot which I have reproduced in full.

Special to Climate Depot

Greenpeace’s Crime Against Humanity

By Patrick Moore, PhD

September 10, 2012

(more…)

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Environment, Politics | 1 Comment »

Now IPCC becomes just a lobby for Greenpeace!

June 16, 2011

There seems to be an incestuous relationship between the IPCC and a number of advocacy groups with the parties lobbying for each other. In the latest episode the IPCC has become the vehicle for publishing conclusions from a Greenpeace advocacy report on renewables:

The Independent:

Climate change panel in hot water again over ‘biased’ energy report 

The world’s foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world’s energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.

Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence. 

Yesterday, after the full report was released, the sceptical climate change blog Climate Audit reported that the 77 per cent figure had been derived from a joint study by Sven Teske, a climate change expert employed by Greenpeace, which opposes the use of nuclear power to cut carbon emissions.

Last night, the IPCC said it had been made clear that the 77 per cent figure was only one of the estimates made from the models and that Mr Teske was just one of 120 researchers who had worked on the report. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Exxon, Chevron and the French nuclear operator EDF also contribute to the IPCC, so to paint this expert UN body as a wing of Greenpeace is preposterous.” But Mark Lynas, a climate change writer in favour of using nuclear and renewables to combat global warming, said: “It is stretching credibility for the IPCC to suggest that a richer world with two billion more people will use less energy in 2050. Campaigners should not be employed as lead authors in IPCC reports.”

The IPCC must urgently review its policies for hiring lead authors – and I would have thought that not only should biased ‘grey literature’ be rejected, but campaigners from NGOs should not be allowed to join the lead author group and thereby review their own work. There is even a commercial conflict of interest here given that the renewables industry stands to be the main beneficiary of any change in government policies based on the IPCC report’s conclusions. Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.

Climate Audit: IPCC WG3 and the Greenpeace Karaoke

The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario. The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios, the introduction to which was written by IPCC chair Pachauri.

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future. It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.

It is totally unacceptable that IPCC should have had a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author of the critical Chapter 10, that the Greenpeace employee, as an IPCC Lead Author, should (like Michael Mann and Keith Briffa in comparable situations) have been responsible for assessing his own work and that, with such inadequate and non-independent ‘due diligence’, IPCC should have featured the Greenpeace scenario in its press release on renewables.

Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Corruption, UN | 1 Comment »

Greenpeace ruled to be a political advocacy group not a charity

May 11, 2011

It has been obvious for years that many environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and even the World Wildlife Fund have been hijacked by “activists” to become political advocacy groups. They have all done some good in the past in the name of protecting the environment, and some of their individual projects are still admirable but for the most part they have lost sight of humans within the environment. They have all generally crossed the line and gone over to trying to impose their world view onto others. Alarmism and prohibition and “authoritarianism” rather than persuasion have become their main tools. Good science has often been replaced by scare-mongering.

But in New Zealand there is a small glimpse of sanity returning and for these political  advocacy groups being seen for what they are. The New Zealand Herald reports:

Greenpeace loses charity status case

Greenpeace New Zealand’s political activities mean it cannot register as a charity, the High Court has decided.

Greenpeace appealed against a 2010 ruling by the Charities Commission which found its promotion of “disarmament and peace” was political rather than educational and while it did not directly advocate illegal acts, Greenpeace members had acted illegally.

In his judgment Justice Paul Heath found the commission was correct in its judgment and turned down the Greenpeace appeal.

“Non-violent, but potentially illegal activities (such as trespass), designed to put (in the eyes of Greenpeace) objectionable activities into the public spotlight were an independent object disqualifying it from registration as a charitable entity,” the judge said.

Greenpeace’s pleas for disarmament and peace could be seen as an independent purpose and its political activities were not necessary to educate members of the public on the key issues of Greenpeace, Justice Heath said. Greenpeace’s lawyer Davey Salmon argued all of the organisation’s primary purposes were charitable and the engagement of charities in political advocacy was more acceptable now in 21st century New Zealand.

johnosullivan.livejournal.com comments:

In a story making headlines in the New Zealand Herald (May 10, 2011) climate skeptics around the world will now be consulting lawyers in their respective countries to assess whether similar legal challenges may be made against the disgraced former charity.

In the U.S and Britain environmentalist activists have for decades sought to influence policymakers by a swath of unlawful protests often involving criminal damage and trespass. Several prominent UN climatologists have long aligned themselves with and been apologists for the radical and unlawful acts of these environmentalists. 

As a consequence of the shock New Zealand ruling Greenpeace’s political activities mean it will be de-registered as a charity and thus lose the prestige and tax advantages associated with that status. 

NASA’s problematic climatologist, James Hansen, flew to London to be an ‘expert witness’ to testify in the defense of climate activists prosecuted for such crimes. Hansen flew to the UK in the case of the “Kingsnorth Six”, who had climbed up E.ON’s coal plant. The six had used Greenpeace’s climate change defence – that their actions were designed to prevent immediate harm to human life and property from climate change – and were acquitted.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Environment, New Zealand, Politics | 2 Comments »

Is Greenpeace fabricating data?

September 28, 2010

In July this year Greenpeace trumpeted

rain forest

“A new investigative report from Greenpeace, ‘How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet’, shows how major brands like Walmart, Auchan and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) are fueling climate change and pushing Sumatran tigers and orang-utans towards the brink of extinction. These companies are using or selling paper made from Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), part of the notorious Sinar Mas group that is destroying Indonesia’s rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands.”

The Jakarta Globe reports

Sinar Mas commissioned an independent audit which has now accused Greenpeace of “false and misleading information to attack a company’s credibility”. International Trade Strategies Global (ITS) conducted a peer-review on Greenpeace’s report, “How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet.”

“The evidence shows that Greenpeace provided quotes that don’t exist, maps that show concessions that don’t exist, and used source material with high margins of error that was cited as absolute fact,” said Alan Oxley, chief executive office of the Melbourne-based ITS Global on the press release.

Oxley said the Greenpeace report was highly misleading and indefensible. In addition, the audit stated that a map in the Greenpeace report shows four concessions which don’t exist. “Sadly this is not an isolated incident. Greenpeace has exaggerated claims in the past.  When we see reports like this with such obvious factual inaccuracies it makes us call into question the real Greenpeace agenda, risking the greater good to achieve its own political ends.”

However, Bustar Maitar, lead forest campaigner for Greenpeace Indonesia, dismissed ITS’s report, saying it was biased. “If they claim it’s an independent report, it’s a joke because Alan Oxley is speaking as an APP representative,” he said.

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Posted in Development, Environment, Ethics | 2 Comments »

Japan’s mighty whale mountain – to be consumed by school children

September 20, 2010
The flukes of a sperm whale as it dives into t...

Sperm whale flukes

It has become an annual ritual between Sea Shepherd and Japanese whalers, a ritual that only gets stronger, louder, and more dangerous over the years.  The Japanese claim that their whaling program is for research purposes.  However, whale meat ends up on the shelves of almost every counter in Japan, leading many activist groups to believe that it is a cover-up.

It is a series of cat and mouse games between the two sides, more often than not resulting in violence and even injuries.  Earlier that day before the collision occurred, Sea Shepherd activists threw stink bombs at the ships and dropped ropes in an effort to snarl their propellers. In the past, they have lobbed missiles including paint and rancid butter. The Japanese whalers have responded with water cannon, flash grenades (usually used for crowd control), and military-grade acoustic weaponry.

But how effective are Sea Shepherd’s tactics?  It is a question that has no answer.  Many media sources criticize Sea Shepherd for their violent demeanor.  Perhaps one of the most well known activist groups, Greenpeace, has openly pointed out that Sea Shepherd’s tactics are “morally wrong” and counter-productive as violent means only harden the Japanese public opinion and ensures whaling continues.

The Japan Times reports:

Stocks of frozen whale meat in Japan have reached 4,000 tons. That means there are about 40 million portions of whale meat being expensively stored under refrigeration ready for eating. But not enough people eat kujira (whale), and far from dwindling, Japan’s whale mountain is growing. It’s just not popular enough as a food. The Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) — a branch of the government’s Fisheries Agency that outsources and oversees Japan’s whaling operations — urgently needs to reduce the size of the mountain. It wants Japan to eat more whale, and it has targeted school children as important consumers.

Whale meat for schools

Whale meat has been eaten for centuries in Japan, even millennia, but it was not consumed on a large scale until after World War II. Post 1945, as the country was being rebuilt, whale meat became an important source of protein. The children who ate it in their school lunches back then are now the venerable policymakers in the ICR and in government. The first potential problem with whale meat concerns its possible contamination with mercury.

A study conducted by Tetsuya Endo at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, and Koichi Haraguchi at the Daiichi College of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Fukuoka, investigated methyl mercury levels in whale meat on sale in Taiji, and in hair samples taken from 50 residents of the town. They found methyl mercury levels of 5.9 micrograms per gram in the red meat. For comparison, the United States Food and Drug Administration sets an “action level” of 1 microgram. In the U.S., any food with more than 1 microgram of methyl mercury is not allowed to be sold or consumed.

In residents who often ate whale meat, on average their hair contained 24.6 micrograms of mercury per gram. The figure from residents who do not consume whale meat was 4.3 micrograms, and in the Japanese population as a whole the figure is about 2 micrograms. The study was published earlier this year in Marine Pollution Bulletin.

n the September 2010 issue of the journal Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, a group of public health researchers made an extensive review of the evidence for the effect of mercury exposure on children’s health. “Mercury,” the team write, “is a highly toxic element; there is no known safe level of exposure. Ideally, neither children nor adults should have any mercury in their bodies because it provides no physiological benefit.” ( DOI reference  is: 10.1016/j.cppeds.2010.07.002.).

In a paper to come in October 2010’s issue of Environmental Research (DOI: 10.1016/jenvres.2010.07.001) researchers based at Tohoku University conducted a “birth cohort” study on almost 500 mothers-to-be, and the children they gave birth to. They looked at the amount of seafood consumed by the women, the amount of mercury in the women’s hair, and then they measured the child’s behavior at age 3 days using the standard Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale.

They found that the greater the amount of mercury in the mother’s hair, the worse the child performed on the behavioral test. “In conclusion,” the team write, “our data suggest that prenatal exposure to methyl mercury adversely affects neonatal neurobehavioral function.”

This seems to be a not insignificant risk to subject school children to.

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