Lots of media fun this week with the viral clip of Patrick Moore, who has made a living for decades as the self described “Founder of Greenpeace”, (not) going around shilling for every hideous pollution spewing mine, mountain removal, or tarsands mega project.
I met the guy once at a conference in Northern Michigan, and have to say I was surprised, (well, maybe not) that, other than a practiced ability to recite talking points, he didn’t seem to have much on the ball. About as much charisma as you see in the clip above – where he gets called out after claiming one could safely drink a glass of glyphosate, the pesticide also known as “Roundup”.
In an interview with the French television station Canal Plus, an advocate for genetically modified foods said Roundup, a weedkiller that is manufactured by chemical giant Monsanto, is safe for human consumption but refused to drink the herbicide when offered a glass by an interviewer.
Patrick Moore says he leads a campaign in support of “golden rice,” a genetically modified grain that contains high amounts of vitamin A. In the interview, which Moore says he believed would focus on “golden rice,” he says the active ingredient in the herbicide, glyphosate, is not causing cancer rates in Argentina to increase.
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Serendipitously, Mr Moore has also penned a recent piece for the The Province, a Vancouver paper, extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide where he writes:
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The story goes that as CO2 increases in the atmosphere the oceans will absorb more of it and this will cause them to become acidic; well not exactly, but at least to become less basic. This in turn is predicted to dissolve the coral reefs and kill the oysters, clams, mussels and microscopic algae that have calcareous shells. It was named “global warming’s evil twin.”
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It is also a fact that greenhouse growers around the world purposefully inject CO² into their greenhouses to increase the growth of flowers and food up to 80 per cent. That is because CO2 in the atmosphere today is so low that plants are starved for it. Plant growth continues to increase in an atmosphere up to four to five times the current level of 400 parts per million. Yet we are told that CO2 is too high and we will suffer for it. Nothing could be further from the truth. We should celebrate CO2 as the giver of life it is.
Not clear who put Mr Moore up to the Op-Ed above, but what we know is that a few weeks before, the paper had carried the awkward-for-the-co2-is-life-crowd headline below.
Despite insatiable demand, many are concerned B.C.’s once-thriving shellfish industry could be sinking.
“I’d say it’s full-scale panic mode (for scallop farmers),” said Rob Saunders, CEO of Qualicum Beach-based Island Scallops.
The company has seen its scallop death rates rise to nearly 95 per cent since 2010, leading to millions of dollars in losses. Ocean acidification — a worldwide problem — is likely to blame.
Saunders said the company’s hatcheries, which produce scallop, oyster, prawn and sea urchin “seeds,” have also had trouble with increased deaths. In order to grow, the B.C. industry must double its seed production.
“Everyone is desperately trying to understand what’s going on and what can be done,” he said.
Other B.C. shellfish growers, like Denman Island oyster farmers Greg Wood and his wife Hollie, have found themselves “going year by year to see if we can make it.”
Wood blames oyster mortality rates on rising ocean temperatures, which cause more parasites and bacteria to grow.
“The problems are extreme,” he said. “We’re being attacked from all angles.”
The possibility of a coal mine a few kilometres from Baynes Sound, where 50 per cent of B.C.’s shellfish are grown, is a major concern.
As good a place as any for this great new video on ocean acidification from Grist:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is a social disease running through western society which goes by the name: “crazy old white man” disease. This is one such example
Actually, COWM Disease is just one manifestation of a far more widespread social malady that strikes humans of all ages all over the planet. It may manifest in its most virulent form among “crazy old white men”, but appears in far younger conservatives of all races, where it takes the form of being a racist, or one of the greedy rich (and/or a free-marketer or run-amok capitalist), or a religious fundamentalist, or a climate change denier troll (as we see appearing all too often on Crock). The most seriously infected are all of the above and more.
The sad thing is that extensive efforts are being made to find ways to actually spread COWMD even further among the human population, and some big bucks are behind that—-see Kock brothers. Most of our elected representatives have already been infected, so we can’t look to government to solve the problem.
COWMD? Try this:
PSYCHOPATHY: THE CAUSE OF EVIL
”Inherited and acquired psychological disorders and ignorance of their existence and nature are the primal causes of evil. The magic number of 6% seems to represent the number of humans who either carry the genes responsible for biological evil or who acquire such disorders in the course of their lifetime. This small percent is responsible for the vast majority of human misery and crime, and for infecting others with their flawed view of the world.”
@bartholomewtali – you mentioned the other day that ocean acidification was not happening at an appreciable rate and that there would be plenty of time to deal with the effects when and if it did become noticeable. (I am paraphrasing, so if I missed the point of what you were trying to say in that post, please correct me.)
I assume you have a better explanation than ocean acidification for what is happening to the BC shellfish industry as described in this post: would you please share?
If not here, I invite you to take me up on my offer of setting up a blog post for our discussion at my website.
Thanks,
Linda
Do NOT hold your breath waiting for an answer from Bart. And don’t expect it to make any sense.
The ocean acidification video IS great. Although many say it’s happening slowly enough that it may not be an immediate global concern, it IS happening in localized situations that are proving very painful for some like the scallop farmers. There is NO good news where ocean acidification is concerned—-it’s just another “not if but when” to worry about.
Ocean acidification is on my playlist of ecological disaster nightmares. They take second place to the “ocean methane bomb-runaway ice sheet collapse-melting permafrost-multiple reinforcing positive feedbacks” scenarios that are the real monsters in the closet.
Peter, you’ve had some really good headlines; this may be one of your best yet.
If Moore is for it, ‘then I’m against it’ Marx I think, no not Carl.
Golden rice is hype, the target population will have to eat so much of the product to not metabolise Vitamin A from beta-carotene, because a fair proportion of body fat and protein are required for this process. By consuming more of the product as the main staple the population will open itself up to the probable increased toxic load of that product.
If a balanced diet, including green leaf vegetables and red-orang-yellow fruit or nuts were provided, there would be no need for golden rice in the first instance. The main reason for the shortage of these latter in the diet is poverty.
Cue somebody from the Heartland Institute.