Patrick Moore: Environmentalism isn't extreme
By Janet Kubat Willette
jkubat@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 05/06/2010 9:26 AM
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MINNEAPOLIS — A man who was arrested for sitting on a baby seal in an effort to shield it from a hunter's club spoke against what he calls environmental extremism at the University of Minnesota Agriculture Awareness Day.
Patrick Moore, who was active within Greenpeace from 1971 to 1986, said he left the organization because he was tired of being against everything.
"For me it was time to make a change," Moore said. "I had been against at least three or four things every day of my life for 15 years. I decided I'd like to figure out what I was in favor for a change."
He transitioned from the politics of telling people what they should stop doing to the politics of trying to find consensus of what should be done instead, Moore said. He created Greenspirit, a consulting firm focusing on environmental policy, natural resources, biodiversity, energy and climate change, in 1991.
"There is no escaping the fact that nearly 7 billion people wake up every morning on this planet with real needs for food, energy and materials," Moore said. "Sustainability, which for me was the next logical step after environmental activism, is about continuing to provide for those people."
The challenge is providing for those people while reducing the negative impact on the environment.
People can use technology and behavior changes to reduce their environmental impact, he said. Shutting off the light when leaving a room is an example of a behavior change that reduces energy use. Changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs is an example of using technology to lessen the amount of energy used and the size of the carbon footprint.
The two main places Americans use energy are in their homes and their cars, Moore said.
"We actually have personal control over a great percentage of the materials and energy we use," Moore said.
When a house is built, decisions are made regarding the amount of insulation and the type of heating system. When a new vehicle is bought, consumers can buy either "a great big gas guzzling one or a little efficient one," Moore said.
He said environmentalism is neither right nor left, but right down the middle. Environmental extremists, on the other hand, are anti-science, anti-trade, anti-globalization, anti-business, anti-capitalism and just plain anti-civilization, he said.
Moore is a fan of Norman Borlaug, the Iowa native who was the father of the Green Revolution. Extremists don't like Borlaug, Moore said, because Borlaug said the Green Revolution must become the gene revolution. Extremists don't like genetic modification, he said.
Moore advocates for the cultivation of golden rice, which he says will prevent blindness in 250,000 to 500,000 children in African and Asian slums every year. Golden rice has beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, which is crucial for vision, he said.
Other issues covered by Moore in his hourlong presentation:
• Climate change.
• Forestry.
"We have come so far in the last 40 years, especially in the last 20 when the word sustainability has come into the picture," Moore said, "that there is great promise for the future and one thing I wish you would do is stop our teachers from teaching our kids so much doom and gloom.