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[Zhengi]

Washington – There is no scientific proof that humans are directly responsible for global warming, said a founding member of the environmental campaign group Greenpeace, Patrick Moore (featured in image).

“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists,” Moore told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

According to the Canadian ecologist, global warming will actually be beneficial to humans who are “tropical species”.

But chief scientist at Greenpeace in the United Kingdom, Doug Parr told the Mail Online that the organisation accepted most, not all, views put forward by other scientists and scientific institutes.

“Climate change is happening, it’s caused mainly by human activity, and it’s highly dangerous for the future well-being of people on this planet,” said Parr.

http://za.news.yahoo.com/humans-not-blame-global-warming-141310126.html

A co-founder of Greenpeace told a Senate panel on Tuesday that there is no scientific evidence to back claims that humans are the “dominant cause” of climate change.

Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like Greenpeace use faulty computer models and scare tactics in further promoting a political agenda, Fox News reported.

“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” Mr. Moore said. “Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/26/greenpeace-co-founder-says-no-scientific-proof-hum/

 

[Dai101]

Hmmm... time to buy me a Hummer.

 

[Bazza]

Wonder who Patrick Moore was paid off by.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

Well then it must be true

Take that climate scientists!

 

[Buzzman]

According to the Canadian ecologist, global warming will actually be beneficial to humans who are “tropical species”.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/26/greenpeace-co-founder-says-no-scientific-proof-hum/

Wow great, what about the hundreds of millions of refugees who'll be forced to flee due to environmental changes?

 

[Guevara]

So he was a member of Greenpeace like 27 years ago and now says some crazy shit.

 

[DeaviL]

Then why do they hate oil so much... i.. what?

 

[harmonize]

why we still got ozone

 

[Agnostic]

Checkmate, physicists.

 

[dark_chris]

Why are morons..nvm. my brain hurts.

 

[Stinkles]

Today he is the co-founder, chair, and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies in Vancouver, a consulting firm that provides paid public relations efforts, lectures, lobbying, opinions and committee participation to government and industry on a wide range of environmental and sustainability issues. He is a frequent public speaker at meetings of industry associations, universities, and policy groups.

He has sharply and publicly differed with many policies of major environmental groups, such as Greenpeace itself, on other issues including forestry, biotechnology, aquaculture, and the use of chemicals for flame retardants.[2] He is an outspoken proponent of nuclear energy[3] and skeptical of sole human responsibility for climate change.[4]

cough.

 

[Alchemy]

I don't really understand how this works. Even "if" we're not the dominant cause, we are very clearly contributing towards it. Wouldn't it still be in our best interests to slow down or even reverse climate change if we can? Or is this attitude more along the lines of "fuck it, not my problem now."?

 

[outunderthestars]

I used to be a member of SETI at home. The moon landing was a hoax.

 

[KHarvey16]

He is precisely as wrong as anyone else who makes the same statement.

 

[Syph Medwes]

cough.

I could make that exact same argument the other way though...

I used to be a member of SETI at home. The moon landing was a hoax.

Didn't you watch the Shining!? Of course it was! lol

 

[Buzzman]

I don't really understand how this works. Even "if" we're not the dominant cause, we are very clearly contributing towards it. Wouldn't it still be in our best interests to slow down or even reverse climate change if we can? Or is this attitude more along the lines of "fuck it, not my problem now."?

 

[ShowDog]

Wow great, what about the hundreds of millions of refugees who'll be forced to flee due to environmental changes?

Short term pain for long term gain yo

 

[speculawyer]

Wonder who Patrick Moore was paid off by.

Moore's views and change of stance (see above) have evoked controversy in environmentalist arenas. He is accused of having "abruptly turned his back on the environmental movement" and "being a mouthpiece for some of the very interests Greenpeace was founded to counter".[22][46] His critics point out Moore's business relations with "polluters and clear-cutters" through his consultancy.[22] Moore has earned his living since the early 1990s primarily by consulting for, and publicly speaking for a wide variety of corporations and lobby groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute.[39] Monte Hummel, MScF, President, World Wildlife Fund Canada has claimed that Moore's book, Pacific Spirit, is a collection of "pseudoscience and dubious assumptions."
Writer and environmental activist George Monbiot has written critically of Moore's work with Indonesian logging firm Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). Moore was hired as a consultant to write an environmental 'inspection report' on APP operations, however Monbiot states that Moore's company is not a monitoring firm and the consultants used were experts in public relations not tropical ecology or Indonesian law. Monbiot writes, that sections of the report were directly copied from an APP PR brochure,[27][47] commenting that hiring Moore is now what companies do if their brand is turning toxic.[27]
The Nuclear Information and Resource Service criticized Moore saying that his comment in 1976 that "it should be remembered that there are employed in the nuclear industry some very high-powered public relations organizations. One can no more trust them to tell the truth about nuclear power than about which brand of toothpaste will result in this apparently insoluble problem" was forecasting his own future.[48] The Columbia Journalism Review points out that Moore's position at the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition was paid for by the nuclear industry and he is in fact essentially a paid spokesperson.[48][49]

Yeah, it appears he jumped the fence long ago.

 

[Stinkles]

I could make that exact same argument the other way though...

You could? My argument boils down to "follow the money" - can you demonstrate the equal flow of money in the other direction?

 

[nailbombxx]

Yea, what could possibly be the consequence s of continuously polluting the environment?

 

[PJV3]

Pay him enough and he will say any fucking thing.

 

[Famassu]

While generally humans like warmer more than cold (I like the cold, though, hate warm weather over +25 degrees celcius), that doesn't mean we aren't fucked with how big the changes will be to the ecosystems that can'd adapt quickly enough, changes that WILL affect humans negatively as well (so what about those lakes that are a source of food & income that will just dry away if the climate, on average, gets even 2-3 degrees warmer?).


Also, it's not like the only bad result of too much CO2 in the atmosphere is climate change. Acidifcation of waterbodies is also a huge problem as the amount of CO2 increases in the atmosphere, which is really, REALLY bad considering the oceans, lakes & rivers are the most productive ecosystems on Earth and we'll be majorly fucked if their productivity is affected in a big way (like they will be, once some treshhold level of "the ecosystem can handle this much acidification" is exceeded, then it'll be a freefall catastrophe).

 

[jb1234]

I don't really understand how this works. Even "if" we're not the dominant cause, we are very clearly contributing towards it. Wouldn't it still be in our best interests to slow down or even reverse climate change if we can? Or is this attitude more along the lines of "fuck it, not my problem now."?

At the very least, burning fossil fuels is terrible for the air quality. Just a few days ago, I was standing in a parking lot and the exhaust fumes were nearly overpowering. We need to move on from this shit.

 

[Famassu]

I could make that exact same argument the other way though...

The thing is... why would anyone want climate change to be true? Who is it going to benefit? We are living in a world where we are made to think we need to spend more and more and more and more and every climate change expert understands that we need to scale back on that, to spend less. Who on Earth profits from that? No one, that's who. And the kind of money these scientists get aren't that huge, if someone was in it just for the money results be damned, I'm sure the oil industries, coal industries and whoever are the biggest proponents to fucking up our environment just for fucktons of $$$ are way better paying sources for corruption than anyone paying scientists for their crazy hours of gathering & going through date.

At the very least, burning fossil fuels is terrible for the air quality. Just a few days ago, I was standing in a parking lot and the exhaust fumes were nearly overpowering. We need to move on from this shit.

And not just air quality. Like I said in the post above yours, growing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere lead to acidification of all waterbodies, which is a bad, bad, BAD thing to happen, as they are so massively productive (less so with the growing acidification).

 

[danwarb]

Derp. It's always helpful to have idiots in high places.

More GHGs traps more heat from the sun, it's not a huge leap. We even have numbers.

 

[Stinkles]

Greenpeace Statement On Patrick Moore
On this page
Media release - October 10, 2008

Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance. He also exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson, usually taking positions that Greenpeace opposes.
While it is true that Patrick Moore was a member of Greenpeace in the 1970s, in 1986 he abruptly turned his back on the very issues he once passionately defended. He claims he "saw the light" but what Moore really saw was an opportunity for financial gain. Since then he has gone from defender of the planet to a paid representative of corporate polluters.

Patrick Moore promotes such anti-environmental positions as clearcut logging, nuclear power, farmed salmon, PVC (vinyl) production, genetically engineered crops, and mining. Clients for his consulting services are a veritable Who's Who of companies that Greenpeace has exposed for environmental misdeeds, including Monsanto, Weyerhaeuser, and BHP Minerals.

Moore's claims run from the exaggerated to the outrageous to the downright false, including that "clear-cutting is good for forests" and Three Mile Island was actually "a success story" because the radiation from the partially melted core was contained. That is akin to saying "my car crash was a success because I only cracked my skull and didn't die."

By exploiting his former ties to Greenpeace, Moore portrays himself as a prodigal son who has seen the error of his ways. Unfortunately, the media - especially conservative media - give him a platform for his views, and often do so without mentioning the fact that he is a paid spokesperson for polluting companies.

The following provides a brief overview of Patrick Moore's positions and his history of working for corporate polluters.

TRUTH V. FICTION ON PATRICK MOORE:

Patrick Moore claims he is an environmentalist and represents an independent scientific perspective on forest issues.

TRUTH: Moore was paid by the British Columbia Forest Alliance, an industry-front group set up by the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller (the same PR firm that represented Exxon after the Valdez oil spill and Union Carbide after the Bhopal chemical disaster). The BC Forest Alliance is funded primarily by the logging industry. He also has ties to other corporations including Monsanto and Weyerhaeuser.

According to Moore, logging is good for forests causing reforestation, not deforestation.

TRUTH: Webster's Dictionary defines deforestation as "the action or process of clearing of forests." The argument advanced by forest industry spin-doctors that clear-cutting "causes reforestation, not deforestation" is without basis in fact. It is like arguing that having a heart attack improves your health because of the medical treatment you receive afterwards.

According to Moore: "Forward-thinking environmentalists and scientists have made clear, technology has now progressed to the point where the activist fear mongering about the safety of nuclear energy bears no resemblance to reality."

TRUTH:

- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) concluded years ago that the lack of containment on Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored advanced nuclear reactor designs constituted a "major safety trade-off."

- Patrick Moore has recently begun touting the "safety" of nuclear energy at the behest of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which is being bankrolled by the nuclear industry to promote nuclear energy as clean and safe energy. The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton has been hired to roll out a multi-million dollar campaign to repackage Moore's propaganda to convince congressional leaders of public support for the building of new nuclear plants.

Hill and Knowlton are most well known for their public relations work defending the tobacco industry. The PR firm has also worked for industry interests to stall action to protect the ozone layer by executing "a carefully designed campaign attacking the science behind the ozone depletion and delaying government action for two years. This was enough time for DuPont to bring new, ozone-friendly chemicals to market." Austin American Statesman, Cox News Service Jeff Nesmith June 26, 2005 http://www.statesman.com/search/content/insight/stories/06/26doubt.html

More information on Hill and Knowlton can be found at:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hill_&_Knowlton

Moore's recent call that the U.S. should generate 60 percent of U.S. electricity from nuclear power is ludicrous. These plants are acknowledged by the federal government's own National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - commonly referred to as the 9/11 Commission - as terrorist targets. An accident or terrorist attack at a nuclear plant could result in thousands of near-term deaths from radiation exposure and hundreds of thousands of long-term deaths from cancer among individuals within only fifty miles of a nuclear plant.

His proposal not only fails to address the risk posed to the American public by our existing plants, but also fails to address the urgent issue of global warming. According to Dr. Bill Keepin, a physicist and energy consultant in the U.S., "given business-as-usual growth in energy demand, it appears that even an infeasibly massive global nuclear power programme could not reduce future emissions of carbon dioxide. To displace coal alone would require the construction of a new nuclear plant every two or three days for nearly four decades…in the United States, each dollar invested in efficiency displaces nearly seven times more carbon than a dollar invested in new nuclear power."

According to Moore, "Three Mile Island was actually a success story in that the radiation from the partially melted core was contained."

TRUTH:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that 10 million curies of radiation were released into the environment by the Three Mile Island Meltdown. Expert witnesses in the TMI law suits estimated that 150 million curies escaped, because the containment at Three Mile Island was not leak tight and the NRC ignored many of the potential escape routes for the radiation.

cough

 

[Liha]

This guy is a traitor and supports nuclear energy and genetic engineering. He sold his soul for few $$$.

 

[Zhengi]

The thing is... why would anyone want climate change to be true? Who is it going to benefit? We are living in a world where we are made to think we need to spend more and more and more and more and every climate change expert understands that we need to scale back on that, to spend less. Who on Earth profits from that? No one, that's who. And the kind of money these scientists get aren't that huge, if someone was in it just for the money results be damned, I'm sure the oil industries, coal industries and whoever are the biggest proponents to fucking up our environment just for fucktons of $$$ are way better paying sources for corruption than anyone paying scientists for their crazy hours of gathering & going through date.

Well, just to play devil's advocate, I don't think the question should be why would anyone want climate change to be true, but who would profit from it by pushing it as the truth.

And there are people and corporations who are profiting from this. For example, companies that sell solar panels, Tesla, Al Gore, etc.

This guy is a traitor and supports nuclear energy and genetic engineering. He sold his soul for few $$$.

What is wrong with nuclear energy?

 

[genjiZERO]

Actually, I agree Global Warming will be great as a matter of good weather*











*assuming you don't die because your city flooded or country is underwater.

 

[Woorloog]

What is wrong with nuclear energy?

Or genetic engineering for that matter.

 

[Liha]

Well, just to play devil's advocate, I don't think the question should be why would anyone want climate change to be true, but who would profit from it by pushing it as the truth.

And there are people and corporations who are profiting from this. For example, companies that sell solar panels, Tesla, Al Gore, etc.



What is wrong with nuclear energy?

I think Japan can answer this question until 42.014.

Edit: Fukushima is already in Canada

Two radioactive cesium isotopes, cesium-134 and cesium-137, have been detected offshore of Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers said at a news conference. The detected concentrations are much lower than the Canadian safety limit for cesium levels in drinking water, said John Smith, a research scientist at Canada's Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
http://www.livescience.com/43631-fukushima-radiation-ocean-arrives-west-coast.html

A good documentary about the Fukushima Lie with Naoto Kan (prime minister in 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7wUiP8-N8

 

[davepoobond]

I think it's sort of dumb to think humans are the sole reason for global warming. But it definitely is happening.

 

[Stinkles]

What is wrong with nuclear energy?

Or genetic engineering for that matter.

Or combinations of both that give you super powers.

 

[KHarvey16]

I think it's sort of dumb to think humans are the sole reason for global warming. But it definitely is happening.

No one thinks humans are the sole cause.

 

[Stinkles]

No one thinks humans are the sole cause.

Strawmen think that kind of shit all the time. And they make money from it.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

why we still got ozone

why we still tell this joke ...

speaking of the ozone when did it fall out of favor to the greenhouse effect? I remember when our greatest fear was people using too much aerosol and other pollutants(a/c) that eat away our ozone. And the resulting influx of solar radiation without it would be a glorious blaze of finality for most.

I remember captain planet...i wont use my a/c or hair spray.

 

[Woorloog]

why we still tell this joke ...

speaking of the ozone when did it fall out of favor to the greenhouse effect? I remember when our greatest fear was people using too much aerosol and other pollutants(a/c) that eat away our ozone. And the resulting influx of solar radiation without it would be a glorious blaze of finality for most.

I remember captain planet...i wont use my a/c or hair spray.

Ozone was never a big component in warming, was it? Were the ozone layer vanish, we'd get a lot more UV radiation, which is another issue.

 

[Zhengi]

I think Japan can answer this question until 42.014.

Edit: Fukushima is already in Canada





A good documentary about the Fukushima Lie with Naoto Kan (prime minister in 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7wUiP8-N8

I agree that there are dangers to nuclear energy, but we also have to consider that there are energy needs for a growing world population that can't just be met with green energy. We just don't have that type of technology yet to produce enough energy for everyone's energy needs. Nuclear energy is a good alternative to coal plants until that technology or newer ones are created to replace nuclear energy. I'm glad the US is open to building a few more plants.

 

[danwarb]

I think it's sort of dumb to think humans are the sole reason for global warming. But it definitely is happening.

Human activity is just the main cause of the current worrying warming trend.

 

[entremet]

Money is a powerful thing.

 

[mrklaw]

Yea, what could possibly be the consequence s of continuously polluting the environment?

Well it has given Stinkles a really bad cough.

 

[Liha]

I agree that there are dangers to nuclear energy, but we also have to consider that there are energy needs for a growing world population that can't just be met with green energy. We just don't have that type of technology yet to produce enough energy for everyone's energy needs. Nuclear energy is a good alternative to coal plants until that technology or newer ones are created to replace nuclear energy. I'm glad the US is open to building a few more plants.

Are you kidding me? A whole area is uninhabitable for the next 40,000 years. The ocean around Fukushima is also contaminated, until today nobody knows anything about the three molten cores.

What is with the radioactive waste? You must find a final depot for 100.000 years.

Nuclear power is a loss.

 

[Woorloog]

Are you kidding me? A whole area is uninhabitable for the next 40,000 years. The ocean around Fukushima is also contaminated.

What is with the radioactive waste? You must find a final depot for 100.000 years.

Nuclear power is a loss.

What then? Coal power? Which gives more radioactive fallout than nuclear power does...

 

[Famassu]

Well, just to play devil's advocate, I don't think the question should be why would anyone want climate change to be true, but who would profit from it by pushing it as the truth.

And there are people and corporations who are profiting from this. For example, companies that sell solar panels, Tesla, Al Gore, etc.

Thing is, a lot of those things aren't exclusively related to having to adapt to or prevent climate change. Oil is going to run out at some point or the other & nuclear energy has its problems (we have shitton of nuclear waste all around the world we have NO IDEA where to storage them for the hundreds of thousands of years it'll take for them to become not-too-dangerous, not to even mention it's just inevidable when the next Fukushima or Chernobyl will happen). So we'd have to come up with cleaner sources of electricity and electric cars at one point or the other anyway. The sun panels are just one way of people wanting to maintain the air, water & other environmental qualities with a somewhat infinite source of energy instead of relying on other, not-as-clean & finite sources that will end at some point and pollute this Earth mighty badly if we use them so much. It doesn't have to do much with climate change, although of course as a renewable source of energy, it serves that purpose as well.

I mean, the funny comic a little earlier in the topic pretty much sums up our current situation. Why is it so horrible that we are trying to achieve a better world, even if climate change turns out to be not as bad as we anticipated? Sure, a lot of the drive for improvements in the ways we live on this planet comes from climate change, but a lot of these changes we are trying to change also solve or at least diminish the effects of the problems we have in addition to climate change. Like I pointed out earlier, CO2 isn't just a greenhouse gas likely warming up our planet, it's also a huge source of acidification of our waterbodies, which is a bad thing in itself even without any climate change.

I think it's sort of dumb to think humans are the sole reason for global warming. But it definitely is happening.

It's really not. We have had competing theories ranging from Earth's position in relation to the sun to the number of sun-spots on the surface of the sun, but in the end none of them hold any water, all of them have been proven wrong while the amount of CO2 & other greenhouse gases have shown to be in very close correlation to the climate change. Some of those are are a direct result of human action, some of which are (partly) increasing as an indirect result of human actions. For example, the permafrost bogs in Siperia have started to melt as the climate has warmed, leading to more methane being released into the atmosphere (which, in turn, has possibly accelerated the climate change, which leads to even more of the permafrost bogs to melt and the cycle continues). Like, say, the sun-spots. For a while, it looked like the number of them correlated with the average temperatures, but that seems it was only coinsidence for a short while, as at some point they went completely other way yet the average temperature kept rising.

 

[Buzzman]

Are you kidding me? A whole area is uninhabitable for the next 40,000 years. The ocean around Fukushima is also contaminated, until today nobody knows anything about the three molten cores.

What is with the radioactive waste? You must find a final depot for 100.000 years.

Nuclear power is a loss.

What area is uninhabitable for 40,000 years exactly?

 

[Stinkles]

Well it has given Stinkles a really bad cough.

lol

 

[Battersea Power Station]

Isn't he technically correct? Human-caused climate change is a popular scientific theory, which means there's a lot of evidence to support it, but it's not scientifically proven.

So it's true, but it's also an irrelevant thing to say. We should still act on the theory to clean up our isht.

 

[Liha]

What area is uninhabitable for 40,000 years exactly?

Fukushima:

Tschernobyl:

 

[KHarvey16]

What is that showing?

 

[danwarb]

why we still tell this joke ...

speaking of the ozone when did it fall out of favor to the greenhouse effect? I remember when our greatest fear was people using too much aerosol and other pollutants(a/c) that eat away our ozone. And the resulting influx of solar radiation without it would be a glorious blaze of finality for most.

I remember captain planet...i wont use my a/c or hair spray.

Since CFCs have been banned/phased out through much of the world and ozone depletion slowed as a result. It might even recover in another 50 years or so.