Patrick Moore was instrumental in the founding of GreenPeace, and held high positions until he broke with the group in the 1980 s over policy decisions. Since then Moore has been an outspoken critic of the organization for losing touch with its initial science mission. This week, Moore posted a video on youtube in which he describes his reasons for leaving, and how GreenPeace is now doing more harm than good for the world.
Moore explains that he originally joined the organization as a means to protest nuclear war, but the group lost its way: The mission, once noble, had become corrupted by political agendas and fear mongering trumped science and truth
He goes on to explain how in the 1970s the group morphed from what was primarily an anti-nuclear war mission to other environmental crusades such as reducing pollution, and stopping trophy hunting and whaling. Moore says he began to change his mind on the organization when he realized he was the only one of the 6 international directors with a formal science background a PhD in Ecology from The University of British Columbia. He says in the video: you don t need a PhD in marine biology to know its a good thing to save whales from extinction he continues but when you re analyzing which chemicals to ban you need to know some science.
According to Moore, GreenPeace took on several complex issues involving toxicology, human health and chemistry that nobody in the organization was really qualified to evaluate, let alone make policy decisions. Yet, the organization shifted away from science (and even peace) to solely focus on the green part. Moore describes how humans became the enemy and the organizations weapons to combat humans were sensationalism, misinformation and fear.
For Moore, the final straw was the group s decision to campaign against chlorine, which they named the devil s element in drinking water. Chlorine, as we have pointed out before, is added to drinking water as a way to ensure the water is clean and free of infectious agents. Moore calls it one of the biggest advances in public health. He then goes on to explain who these campaigns really hurt: the poor people in developing countries; the very people clean water initiatives are supposed to help.
Moore concludes the video by criticizing Greenpeace's ongoing war against golden rice because it is a GMO. He points out that their aggressive efforts to prevent the development these lifesaving crops has prevented many countries from growing the crop, which has led to millions of dead children.
One of the key messages to take from Moore s video is that GreenPeace takes money from wealthy donors and imposes the will of these wealthy elites onto poor people under the guise of helping them. The rich have the luxury of finding ways around these efforts to ban important substances, unfortunately so many people of our world s poor do not.