Greenpeace Founder Now an "Eco-Judas" -- Praises U.S. for Rejecting Kyoto Protocol

Newsmax staff / Teresa Neumann Reporting : Dec 9, 2005
Newsmax

Fresh on the heels of news that former president Bill Clinton will be making a surprise speech to less-than-thrilled U.S. delegates to a "contentious" 11th annual U.N. Climate Conference in Montreal, Newsmax reports that a founding member of Greenpeace, who left the organization because he viewed it as too radical, is also in attendance, praising the United States for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Patrick Moore, who currently heads the Canadian-based environmental advocacy group Greenspirit Strategies helped found both Greenpeace in 1971 and Greenpeace International in 1979 and is at the conference to promote nuclear energy. "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 Moore, who is also attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal.

Moore noted in the report that many of the industrialized nations that ratified the treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions are now failing to comply with those emission limits, including Japan and at least 11 of the 15 EU nations that ratified Kyoto.

"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. 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.

"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. There is nothing concrete going on here," he added. "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."

According to the report 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 claims the "final straw" 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."

As a result of his turn-around, Moore -- despite being a pioneer of the environmental movement -- is frequently referred to as a "traitor" and an "Eco-Judas."