Greenpeace co-founder: 'Global warming is obviously a natural phenomenon'

Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace and author of the new book, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, states in the interview below, "we do not have any scientific proof that we are the cause of global warming." Moore also explains how the green movement has been co-opted by the political left and has come to support policies which are harmful for the environment and humanity.


Excerpt from debate published in the Vancouver Sun:

Patrick Moore: ...Fluctuations in climate are not “routine”. It is true that there has been an upward trend in global temperature since about 1800 when the Little Ice Age ended. There have been ups and downs along the way. As you know the last upward trend was between 1970-1998. Since then there has been no further rise in temperature, perhaps a slight decline. That is all I said.

The main point is that neither you nor I know with any certainty what will happen next. What goes up tends to eventually come down as has been the case with global climate from the beginning of life. I personally believe that it would be much better in balance if the temperature rose 2°-3°C than if it fell 2°-3°C. “You should know the difference” is condescending. And despite all this it still doesn’t prove that we are responsible for the recent rise in temperature. Temperature has been rising and falling for billions of years and it had nothing to do with us.

Then what does it take to “stop” a trend? What caused the present Ice Age to set on 2.5 million years ago? And what caused the wild fluctuations of massive glaciations that have come and gone many times since then? Were these “routine fluctuations”? Do you believe that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are always the main factors that cause the climate to change?

Part of the “prevailing data” is that it hasn’t continued to warm over the past decade despite ever-increasing emissions of CO2.