The Sad Truth About Greenpeace

The sad and dangerous truth about Greenpeace, and (I claim) the same applies to all of the Environmental Industry. They need to clean up their act! As jon_troll-del is fond of saying, they need to be "called out" about their myth of man-caused global warming. Please read the following letter. It offers a revealing look at the Environmental Industry from an "insider".
Peter

Why I Left Greenpeace
By PATRICK MOORE,
Noting particularly the scientifically nonsensical attacks on chlorine and PhthalatesIn 1971 an environmental and antiwar ethic was taking root in Canada, and I chose to participate. As I completed a Ph.D. in ecology, I combined my science background with the strong media skills of my colleagues. In keeping with our pacifist views, we started Greenpeace. But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day today, this is a good lesson to keep in mind.

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs.

Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks - and ample benefits - from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.

Opposition to the use of chemicals such as chlorine is part of a broader hostility to the use of industrial chemicals. Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," had a significant impact on many pioneers of the green movement. The book raised concerns, many rooted in science, about the risks and negative environmental impact associated with the overuse of chemicals. But the initial healthy skepticism hardened into a mindset that treats virtually all industrial use of chemicals with suspicion.

Sadly, Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas. Its antichlorination campaign failed, only to be followed by a campaign against polyvinyl chloride.

Greenpeace now has a new target called phthalates (pronounced thal-ates). These are chemical compounds that make plastics flexible. They are found in everything from hospital equipment such as IV bags and tubes, to children's toys and shower curtains. They are among the most practical chemical compounds in existence. Phthalates are the new bogeyman. These chemicals make easy targets since they are hard to understand and difficult to pronounce. Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe.

Despite this, a political campaign that rejects science is pressuring companies and the public to reject the use of DINP. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us are switching to phthalate-free products to avoid public pressure. It may be tempting to take this path of least resistance, but at what cost? None of the potential replacement chemicals have been tested and found safe to the degree that DINP has. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently cautioned, "If DINP is to be replaced in children's products . . . the potential risks of substitutes must be considered. Weaker or more brittle plastics might break and result in a choking hazard. Other plasticizers might not be as well studied as DINP."The hysteria over DINP began in Europe and Israel, both of which instituted bans. Yet earlier this year, Israel realized the error of putting politics before science, and reinstated DINP. The European Union banned the use of phthalates in toys prior to completion of a comprehensive risk assessment on DINP. That assessment ultimately concluded that the use of DINP in infant toys poses no measurable risk.

The antiphthalate activists are running a campaign of fear to implement their political agenda. They have seen success in California, with a state ban on the use of phthalates in infant products, and are pushing for a national ban. This fear campaign merely distracts the public from real environmental threats. We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy.

Source

Polar Bears And Skullduggery By Environmentalists

Here is a prime example of how the (American )environmental industry plays insidious games with the laws in order to achieve their goals. It seems their primary objective it to control, tax, or destroy American industry. Please read the following article about the effort to have polar bears declared an "endangered species".

At first glance, one would think the goal is to preserve and protect polar bears. Why would anyone oppose that? They're cute and cuddly, when cubs anyway, and they don't harm anyone. So what is the big deal? Well the issue is far more complex. The following article is written by a law professor, intimately familiar with the endangered species act.

If polar bears are declared "endangered" (which most agree they are not), this will open the door to innumerable lawsuits affecting almost every industry or activity that produces carbon dioxide, which "everyone" agrees causes global warming, which melts sea ice, which endangers polar bears habitat. Therefore, all activity producing carbon dioxide must, by the endangered species law, be curtailed. Hopefully, those making these decisions will see what is really going on with the movement to have polar bears declared "endangered". I hope this also wakes people up to the games the environmental industry plays.
Peter

Polar bears...."Aw....we're not really endangered, are we?"

source:

PBIP: The Approach and Outbreak of Polar Bear-Induced Paralysis
By Hugh Hewitt
Thursday, March 27, 2008
In January of 2007, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a proposed rule in the Federal Register intending to notify the public and seek their comments on the idea of adding the polar bear to the list of threatened and endangered species.

A raft of comments came in, and the government's biologists went off to consider them.
The Service returned to the Federal Register a second time, in October of 2007, and requested more comments. The window closed again.
More than 670,000 comments have been received urging that the polar bear be listed as a "threatened species."

Ask yourself why there was such an outpouring of comments for such an obscure issue.
A variety of environmental groups orchestrated the tsunami of testimonials to the desperate condition of the polar bear because they understand—as much of the public and Congress does not—that a listing of the polar bear will have vast implications, and may in fact be a backdoor to implementation of the Kyoto protocol.

By way of background, I have practiced natural resources law since I left the Reagan Administration in early 1989. Wetlands, jurisdictional waters, and endangered species are my areas of expertise, and if you ever need a lesson on the Stephens' kangaroo rat, the Delhi sands flower-loving fly, the California gnat catcher, the Desert tortoise or any of a couple dozen other plants and animals throughout the west that are protected under the federal or state Endangered Species Act, drop me an e-mail.

All of those species and many more have fairly predictable aftermaths of their listing --a period of great confusion about where they live and breed, what can and cannot be done near them, and lots of meetings and negotiations with federal officials over habitat conservation plans, Section 7 consultations etc. There are lots of landowners and businesses that lose a lot because of this law, but in the past, the impact zone of a listing was at least limited to the area in which the listed species lived.

That won't be the case with any listing of the polar bear, which is why it is the focus of so much zeal among the groups. The reach of the listing wil be immense because of the rationale offered for its protection.

The proposed listing states that the polar bear may be threatened because it is losing the ice it needs to live on due to climate change. If the government agrees with the models that project a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice over the next few decades, and further agrees that this loss would imperil the polar bear's survivability, the bear gets listed.

Once listed, the Federal Endangered Species Act is very clear: Any federal action that might impact the polar bear must be reviewed by the U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service under Section 7 of the Act.

What sort of federal actions? The most obvious would be any activity on or near Arctic ice, but that's not the gold ring the environmentalists are reaching for.
They will argue that every federal permit that allows directly or indirectly for increased emissions of hydrocarbons is a federal act that might impact the polar bear --every port expansion, every refinery opening or repair, every Army Corps of Engineers permit that allows for more homes or office buildings to rise.

Don't believe me. Believe the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the suit filed to force the listing. From the Center's website:
“Protection under the Endangered Species Act will provide concrete help to polar bears and could revolutionize American climate policy. Since U.S. resistance to curbing greenhouse gases has allowed other countries to shirk their responsibilities as well, major changes in American policy are likely to have a powerful domino effect, catalyzing change in climate policy worldwide. The polar bear’s protected status will require a new level of environmental review before oil and gas development continue in polar bear habitat in the American Arctic. Even more critically, because it is illegal to harm threatened species or jeopardize their survival, the polar bear listing could mean that all U.S. industries emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases — and requiring a federal permit to do so — will come under the purview of the Endangered Species Act. From polluting power plants in the Midwest to auto manufacturers, a vast array of industries may have to clean up their acts to give the polar bear a chance to survive.”

They will do more than argue that a listing has these impacts. Once listed, the polar bear will launch a thousand law suits as the groups search for judges and opportunities to assert that hydrocarbon emission reduction must be apart of every federal permit and that those reductions must be negotiated by and approved by the already understaffed and overwhelmed U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The advocates of the listing know the stakes, which is why they have filed suit in federal district court in the Northern District of California to force a decision. That's why California Senator Barbara Boxer is demanding that the Secretary of the Interior act.
What is amazing is that industry seems almost wholly unaware of this debate. I e-mailed a senior vice president of a major coal company asking what he thought about the controversy, and he sent me back a polite, straightforward reply that he didn't think it would affect his industry much.

The groups have achieved strategic surprise.
If the industries wake up any time soon, they will have to move to intervene in the lawsuit filed to require the listing decision be made, and to demand a reopening of the record in order to make sure that this year's temperature and ice data are included, and that the models relied on to predict ice loss through mid-century be examined against this year's data. They will also have to begin to mount the obvious due process challenges to a scheme to radically extend the reach of a 1973 law that was never intended to work this way but which has grown steadily via a series of aggressive judicial interpretations. There are other Constitutional and Administrative Procedures Act challenges as well, which should be lodged in the District of Columbia Circuit, not in the Ninth Circuit.

And Secretary Kempthorne should resist the pressure from the left to rush to a listing decision. Too few people knew this has happened, and too much is at stake on a too little-reviewed or understood set of facts.

"As a result of [global] warming, Arctic sea ice is melting very rapidly," plaintiffs argue in their suit. They continue:
"In 2007 the Arctic sea ice hit a new record minimum, fully one million square miles below the average minimum sea ice extent between 1979-2000. There was less ice in the Arctic in September, 2007 than more than half of the world's leading climate models project for 2050. Some scientists now say summer ice could disappear entirely as early as 2012.
Polar bears cannot survive the loss of their sea-habitat."

Plaintiffs are making arguments about the approach of catastrophe and the Court does not have before it any challenge either to the assertions about the models or the appropriateness of using the ESA to impose Kyoto on an unpersuaded country.

Hugh Hewitt is a law professor, broadcast journalist, and author of several books including A Mormon in the White House?: 110 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney.
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