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| From an "eco-traitor" |
kindj |
12/09/05 |
Former Greenpeace Co-Founder Praises US for Rejecting Kyoto
Marc Morano
Senior Staff Writer
Montreal (CNSNews.com) - A founding member of Greenpeace, who left the organization because he viewed it as too radical, praised the United States for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
"At least the [United] States is honest. [The U.S.] said, 'No we are not going to sign that thing (Kyoto) because we can't do that,'" said Patrick Moore, who is attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal.
Moore noted that many of the industrialized nations that ratified the treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions are now failing to comply with those emission limits. Moore, who currently heads the Canadian-based environmental advocacy group Greenspirit Strategies helped found both Greenpeace in 1971 and Greenpeace International in 1979.
"Canada signed [Kyoto] and said, 'Oh yeah, we can do that,' and then it merrily goes on its way to increase CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions by even more than the U.S.," Moore told Cybercast News Service.
Other industrialized nations -- including Japan and at least 11 of the 15 European Union nations that ratified Kyoto -- are struggling to meet their emission targets.
As Cybercast News Service previously reported, many organizations attending the Climate Change Conference have declared the Kyoto Protocol "dead" because of the signatories' lack of compliance. The treaty establishes a 2012 goal of having top industrialized nations cut their industrial emissions 5.2 percent below the level that was produced in 1990.
"I think this whole Kyoto process is a colossal waste of time and money," said Moore, who rejects alarmist predictions of human-caused 'global warming."
The U.N.'s 11th Annual Climate Change Conference in Montreal failed to impress Moore, who is there to promote nuclear energy.
"There is nothing concrete going on here. There is nothing good happening here as far as I can see. [The participants at the U.N. conference are] just spending a whole pile of money and auguring and talking," he added.
Moore also slammed the movement he helped found, accusing today's environmental groups of being co-opted by the political Left.
"The Left figures it owns the environmental movement and that has corrupted the movement greatly," Moore said. "The [left-wing] influence has brought great dysfunction into the environmental movement. [It's turned it into] an elitist movement."
Moore said he decided to leave Greenpeace in 1986 after the group became too radical and he could "no longer agree with the policies that were being espoused."
The final straw, according to Moore, came when he failed to persuade Greenpeace to abandon its campaign to ban chlorine worldwide.
"I pointed out that chlorine was the main element used in our medicine and adding it to drinking water was the biggest advance in public health in human history," Moore said. "[My argument] just fell on deaf ears. [Greenpeace] didn't care about any of that because a global chlorine ban was a good campaign [for them]."
Even though he was a pioneer of the movement, liberal environmentalists spare no criticism of Moore, frequently referring to him as a "traitor" and an "Eco-Judas."
Moore dismissed the criticism and asserted that the green movement has steered off course from its original mission.
"I think it's in a dismal state -- I think almost across the board, whether it's in energy policy or agriculture policy regarding their zero tolerance on GM [genetically modified foods] or in forestry policy," Moore said. |
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