Patrick Moore
Patrick Moore is a former environmentalist who now works as a spin doctor for corporations engaged in enviromental destruction. Much of his work is conducted through the PR firm he founded: Greenspirit Strategies. Moore has worked for the farmed salmon industry, the logging industry, the nuclear and biotechnology industries among others.
Leaving Greenpeace
Moore has given different accounts of the reasons for his departure from Greenpeace of which he was a founding member. He has claimed, for instance, that he quit because 'in the mid-Eighties the ultraleftists and extremists took over'. But he has contradicted this by claiming that there were no indications of such problems with the organisation when he left, 'I had no idea that after I left in 1986 they Greenpeace would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics to silence people'. In fact, according to Greenpeace's Tamara Stark, Moore's exit from the organisation was 'not necessarily by his own choice'.
After leaving Greenpeace, Moore set up a fish farm, which failed, and in 1991 set up his own environmental PR consultancy, Greenspirit Strategies. This attracted controversy of its own. Around the same time, he became a full-time paid director and consultant for the British Columbia Forest Alliance. The Alliance, although presented as a 'citizens group', was the brainchild of PR firm Burson-Marsteller.The Alliance has a budget of around $2m derived mostly from the forest industry and its 170 or so corporate members, and it campaigns for clear-cutting.
Moore's activities on behalf of the Alliance have been extremely controversial. He claimed, for instance, that the World Wildlife Fund in some cases supported clear-cutting, provoking a furious response from Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, head of the forest programme of World Wide Fund for Nature International, who accusedMoore of 'grossly misrepresenting' WWF's position, something WWF 'deplored'.
Pro-Nuclear
Moore is a speaker at the March 2006 FORATOM hosted second biannual pro-nuclear conference. It is being sold under the banner "Nuclear energy: Riding the Winds of Change".
The conference chairman is Mike Parker from BNFL. Other speakers along with Moore include Giles Chicester MEP; Pierre Gadonneix, the chairman of EDF and Andris Piebalds EU Commissioner for Energy.[1]
In an article in the Washington Post in April 2006, Moore ('Going Nuclaer. A Green makes the case') explains his pro-nuclear views, and how happy he is to find out he's not alone:
- "There are signs of a new willingness to listen, though, even among the staunchest anti-nuclear campaigners. When I attended the Kyoto climate meeting in Montreal last December, I spoke to a packed house on the question of a sustainable energy future. I argued that the only way to reduce fossil fuel emissions from electrical production is through an aggressive program of renewable energy sources (hydroelectric, geothermal heat pumps, wind, etc.) plus nuclear. The Greenpeace spokesperson was first at the mike for the question period, and I expected a tongue-lashing. Instead, he began by saying he agreed with much of what I said -- not the nuclear bit, of course, but there was a clear feeling that all options must be explored.
- Here's why: Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple."
Pro-GM
'GREENPEACE FOUNDER SUPPORTS BIOTECHNOLOGY' ran the headline on the AgBioworld press release about Patrick Moore's support for AgBioWorld's 'Declaration in Support of Agricultural Biotechnology'.
Although the headline proclaimed Moore to be Greenpeace's 'founder', it's opening sentence changed his background to 'ecologist and co-founder of Greenpeace'. A paragraph later Moore's status was reduced yet further to ' a founding member of Greenpeace'.
The press release went on to say that despite many years of involvement with the organisation, 'Recently... he broke with Greenpeace, accusing it of abandoning science and following agendas that have little to do with saving the Earth.'
The biotech industry flew Patrick Moore to appear as one of its expert witnesses in front of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in New Zealand. His only 'expertise', however, was his connection with Greenpeace.
Press articles have also portrayed Moore and his support for GM in terms of the recent disillusion with Greenpeace of its founder. But far from leaving Greenpeace recently, Moore quit almost two decades ago and he was never more than a founding member.
When asked why he opposed the campaign of concern over GM crops, Moore told New Scientist, 'I believe we are entering an era now where pagan beliefs and junk science are influencing public policy. GM foods and forestry are both good examples where policy is being influenced by arguments that have no basis in fact or logic.'
To some, Moore's pro-GM stance seems less part of a road-to-Damascus conversion away from ultra-leftism, pagan beliefs and junk science, and more part of a career trajectory over the last two decades that has been industry-symathetic, and often industry-funded.
