Weapons of Mass Defamation

I know I said I was going to stand down from the climate change pulpit for a tad, however after reading Lorrie Goldstein’s blatantly fraudulent, and slanderous, rant on May 10^th ( Power plan dooms world's poor ), I couldn’t pass up on this opportunity to take to task one of the most inept journalists Toronto has on hand.

Climate deniers have lost the scientific debate. Anthropogenic climate as a theory is as real as evolution. Get use to it, and let’s move on. Sure, there will always be a small percentage of doubt (usually spawned for political or religious ends), but that’s science for you. Many who had denied climate change as a science have since, after weighing all the information, acquiesced and moved on. Other, more stubborn, deniers (those with an axe to grind or an oil paycheck to cash) simply changed their tactics and began fear mongering about the costs of climate mitigation. “Tackling climate change would cost the planet its economy!” would be the new war-cry from industry shrills and conservative think-tanks the world over (and the journalists that regurgitate such nonsense verbatim).

That too was recently blown out of the water. The third report from the IPCC stated that climate mitigation will cost 0.12% of the world’s gross domestic product. 0.12% of the world’s GDP works out to roughly 10$ per person (of the 6.2 billion living on earth) annually. This, of course, is a far cry from what those were saying when threatening a global recession and the end of the world.

Now that the hard-core deniers have run out of arguments; and the fear mongering about costs has been debunked, the only thing they have left in their debate arsenal is ad hominen attacks and of course conspiracies theories. The last ditch efforts of those on the loosing end of a fight.

Goldstein (one of the denier diehards) is now resorting to calling environmentalists “anti-human” by paraphrasing one of the biggest Wise-Use “guns for hire” the world has regrettably known: Patrick Moore. Moore is one of the founders of Greenpeace, turned “eco-Judas” and he’s handsomely paid to appear whenever there is a debate about ecology and industry needs someone with some “eco-cred” to cast doubt. No anti-eco editorial is printed without at least a small homage paid to Patrick Moore.

Just to give you an idea of this man’s audacity, Moore spent an astounding 2ish weeks in the Amazon in 2000 and concluded that the forest faced no real threats, which strangely went against everything scientists (that have been studying and living in the forest for decades) warn. Regardless, because of his “Greenpeace founder” title, whatever this loon says is usually gobbled up and cited as the gospel by hacks hell-bent on keeping the planet grimy.

Predictably, Lorrie also quotes sources from the film “the Great Global Warming Swindle”. This British film is currently being slammed by the scientific community, and even some of the interviewees that participated are now considering legal actions against the films producers for having their views horribly misrepresented. However, Goldstein finds no fault at all in using this as a “good source” to paint an image of the modern environmentalist as someone who while misguided in striving for a cleaner planet, is also unwittingly and in some cases willingly killing off millions in the developed world? Pullleeeessseeee

Citing more crackpots than you’d find on Queen St WestToronto during a full moon on a Saturday night, Goldstein’s editorial cleverly hints of a New World Ecological Order. His conspiracies and slander are designed to demonize a movement and anyone that participates. It’s no longer a healthy debate about the science or the cost; it has come down to school yard mud-slinging. However it is far more dangerous than that. His rants about environmentalists forgetting the poor in poor nations is just plain defamation and can paradoxically drain funding from groups directly involved in helping those Lorrie claims environmentalists ignore. I happen to be an environmentalist, and I happen to have spent the last 7 years of my life working in a developed country, along with the very communities that Goldstein argues we forget. When I see Mr. Goldstein here, in a developing nation, then I’ll buy his crocodile tears for the poor. Until then he’s just another bitter angry hack poisoning the minds of Sun readers believing that “business as usual” is beneficial to the world’s poor. Like the last 50 years isn’t blatant and obvious proof to the contrary.