Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout
The Makings of a Sensible Environmentalist
Patrick Moore Central 333.72092 M8235c 2010
- Patrick Albert Moore born June 15, 1947 in British Columbia, UBC PhD 1974 (mining pollution)
p005 88% of medicines are synthesized with chlor-alkali chemistry
- p006 sustainable aquaculture, colleagues hostile
- p007 Less wood, more steel and concrete, more environmental damage (how about aluminum?)
- p009 Geothermal heat pumps more important than solar panels or windmills
- p016 Rice fields reflooded (overwinter decay) to preserve nutrients, rather than burned.
- p016 wintering habitat for shorebirds
- p024 communism and fascism meet behind your back (where you can't watch them plotting)
- p025 Science can't prove a negative, like zero-risk safety
- p029 "I don't believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chances at all" -- Charles A. Lindberg
- p030 Greenpeace against golden rice
p030 Golkany "The Precautionary Principle" - purchased $5.99 AbeBooks / Wonder Book Frederick MD
p034 Michael Crichton 2003 "The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda."
- p036 I don't even deny we may be responsible for some of the present warming, but I do not believe we can be certain of this.
- Sophistry or bullshit: we can measure solar energy arriving and less heat leaving, the Earth looks colder from space
- Perhaps Moore has learned more since 2010
- p040 Father Bill Moore inherited logging camp 1940s age 21
p042 Bertrand Russell Our Knowledge of the External World
p044 mentor C. S. Holling
- p044 Moore interdisicplinary PhD heavy metal contamination in Rupert Inlet by mine tailings
- p044 waste did NOT settle to inlet bottom, instead mixed with surface waters
- p045 mining company pressured dean pressured PM to change thesis
- p045 eventually adjudicator sided with PM and he got his Ph
p047 Strontium 90 -> leukemia, bone cancer (10400 day 28.5 year half life, last US above ground test 1962)
- p048 Tests moved from Nevada to Amchitka
- p049 Travels to Akutan Alaska 1971
p052 Bob Hunter "... But there is a very good chance it will become a kind of ecofacism ... faith in the gurus"
p052 "Indian Prophecy" hippie folklore, actually 1962 Evangelical tract
p053 voyage to protest French tests at Moruroa atoll 1966 to 1996
- p056 blessing from Pope
p057 Ehrlich Population BombNorman Borlaug high yielding rice and wheat
- p062 Whales evolved from hippos 60M years ago
- p062 the "right" whales to hunt because they swim slow and float after killing
- p064 petroleum and electricity out-competed whale oil
- p064 Southern ocean whaling killed 30K blue whales for meat, soap, margarine
p073 Lawyer David Tussman incorporates Greenpeace, later betrays it says Moore