Patrick Moore
GreenPeace / Prager University

Why I Left Greenpeace ... an explanation of the trajectory of GreenPeace activity over many decades

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Why I Left Greenpeace

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English 0:00In 1971 I helped found an environmental group in the basement of a Unitarian church in Vancouver, Canada. 0:09Fifteen years later, it had grown into an international powerhouse. 0:14We were making headlines every month. I was famous. And then I walked out the door. 0:20The mission, once noble, had become corrupted -- political agendas and fear mongering 0:26trumped science and truth. Here's how it happened. 0:30When I was studying for my PhD in ecology at the University of British Columbia, 0:36I joined a small activist group called the Don't Make a Wave Committee. It was the height of the Cold War; 0:43the Vietnam War was raging. I became radicalized by these realities 0:48and by the emerging consciousness of the environment. The mission of the Don't Make a Wave Committee 0:54was to launch an ocean-going campaign against US hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska, 1:00a symbol of our opposition to nuclear war. As one of our early meetings was breaking up, 1:07someone said, 'Peace,' A reply came, 'Why don't we make it a green peace,' and a new movement was born. 1:16Green was for the environment and peace was for the people. We named our boat 'The Greenpeace' 1:24and I joined the 12-person crew for a voyage of protest. 1:29We didn't stop that H-bomb test but it was the last hydrogen bomb the United States ever detonated. 1:36We had won a major victory. 1:39In 1975, Greenpeace took a sharp turn away from our anti-nuclear efforts and set out 1:46to Save the Whales, sailing the high seas to confront Russian and Japanese whalers. 1:53The footage we shot -- young protesters positioned between harpoons and fleeing whales -- 2:00was shown on TV around the world. Public donations poured in. By the early 1980s we were campaigning 2:09against toxic waste, air pollution, trophy hunting, and the live capture of orca whales. 2:15But I began to feel uncomfortable with the course my fellow directors were taking. 2:20I found myself the only one of six international directors with a formal science background. 2:27We were now tackling subjects that involved complex issues of toxicology, chemistry, 2:33and human health. You don't need a PhD in marine biology to know it's a good thing to save 2:40whales from extinction. But when you're analyzing which chemicals to ban, you need to know some science. 2:47And the first lesson of ecology is that we are all interconnected. 2:53Humans are part of nature, not separate from it. Many other species, disease agents and their carriers, 3:00for example, are our enemies and we have the moral obligation to protect human beings from 3:06these enemies. Biodiversity is not always our friend. 3:12I had noticed something else. As we grew into an international organization with over $100 3:17million a year coming in, a big change in attitude had occurred. The 'peace' in Greenpeace 3:24had faded away. Only the 'green' part seemed to matter now. Humans, to use Greenpeace language, 3:32had become 'the enemies of the Earth.' Putting an end to industrial growth and banning many 3:38useful technologies and chemicals became common themes of the movement. Science and logic 3:44no longer held sway. Sensationalism, misinformation, and fear were what we used to promote our campaigns. 3:53The final straw came when my fellow directors decided that we had to work to ban the element 3:59chlorine worldwide. They named chlorine 'The Devil's Element,' as if it were evil. 4:07But this was absurd. Adding chlorine to drinking water was one of the biggest advances in the 4:12history of public health. And anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry knew that many 4:18of our most effective pharmaceuticals had a chlorine component. 4:22Not only that, but if this anti-chlorine campaign succeeded it wouldn't be our wealthy donors 4:28who would suffer. Wealthy individuals and countries always find a way around these follies. 4:35The ones who suffer are those in developing countries, people we're presumably trying to help. 4:41For example, Greenpeace has opposed the adoption of Golden Rice, a genetically modified variety 4:47of rice that contains beta carotene. Golden Rice has the potential to prevent the death 4:54of two million of the world's poorest children every year. But that doesn't matter to the Greenpeace crowd. 5:01GMO's are bad. So Golden Rice must be bad. Apparently millions of children dying isn't. 5:08This kind of rigid, backward thinking is usually attributed to the 'unenlightened' and 'the anti-scientific.' 5:15But I've discovered, from the inside out, that it can infect any organization, 5:21even those with names as noble sounding... as Greenpeace. 5:26I'm Patrick Moore for Prager University. Published on Jul 27, 2015 Patrick Moore explains why he helped to create Greenpeace, and why he decided to leave it. What began as a mission to improve the environment for the sake of humanity became a political movement in which humanity became the villain and hard science a non-issue. You can support PragerU by clicking https://www.classy.org/checkout/donat... Free videos are great, but to continue producing high-quality content, contributions -- even small ones -- are greater. Do you shop on Amazon? Now you can feel even better about it! 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