CFACT at the University of Minnesota hosted Greenpeace co-founder and current Chairman of the CO2 Coalition, Dr. Patrick Moore, to discuss “Twelve Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom”. The event was held in the President’s Room of Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Moore explained why he eventually left Greenpeace, and is now a staunch skeptic of the climate alarm and radical environmentalist movement.
Dr. Moore discussed his activism as an early founder of Greenpeace, from disrupting nuclear weapon testing in the pacific ocean, interrupting the Russian whaling fleet off the coast of California, and physically putting himself between hunters and baby seals in Canada. Dr. Moore rose through the ranks of Greenpeace serving as the President of the Canada chapter and eventually sitting on the issues council of Greenpeace International.
However, Dr. Moore began to question Greenpeace as the organization abandoned the “peace” part or their mission, and started to take stances on issues such as the use of plastics and pvc’s that had no scientific basis and did more to harm human and environmental quality. In 1986, he had no choice but to leave Greenpeace when their Issues Committee adapted these stances.
Dr. Moore discussed several pressing issues for today’s world, particularly climate change and the assault on carbon dioxide. Dr. Moore displayed visual evidence of the historic levels of CO2 and the relationship, or lack thereof with temperature. The geologic history shows that CO2 is at historically low levels in the atmosphere, and before the industrial revolution CO2 levels were barely above levels that would essentially suffocate plant life.
One student in the audience took issue with Dr. Moore’s presentation, suggesting that Dr. Moore failed to show the evidence between temperature and CO2. Dr. Moore asked the student for specifics and was informed that his professors had told him so. Dr. Moore and several audience members suggested he challenge his professors as aggressively as he challenged Dr. Moore.
The evening ended with several questions and amiable discussion – even between Dr. Moore and the student with the aggressive questions. The CO2 Coalition partnered with CFACT to sponsor this event.