Green Piece of Junk Science

Kermit the Frog once avowed in song that 'It isn't easy being Green.'   Well, Kermie, it appears that you're not the only dummy with such problems — Not surprisingly, it isn't easy being Greenpeace either!

Greenpeace continues to beat one drum to the tune of  'the Pentagon's report warning that global warming is a greater threat than terrorism' with the left hand, while banging another drum, thunderously crashing the sheer unacceptability of the former's most promising solution with the right hand. Both convictions are based on 'science' which is nothing more than bunkum. As our favorite flannel web—footed amphibian croaked — It isn't easy!

I'm sure you're all too familiar with the efforts of Greenpeace to blame putative anthropogenic global warming for — to name but a few:

 Extreme Weather Patterns, such as those which effectuated Hurricane Katrina

 Destruction of both the marine organisms and the survival of the people relying on them, through Acidification

 Destruction of fresh water supplies,  agricultural areas,  fisheries and low lying coastal cities due to Sea Level Rise

Oh, the horror!  Contemplating all that damage, it's small wonder that the organization would campaign so steadfastly in opposition to all fuels fossil, given their propensity to release that devil of all 'greenhouse gases' — carbon dioxide.  In fact, the logical conclusion to draw from these 'facts' —notwithstanding their fallaciousness — would be this — The consumption of all fossil fuels must be eliminated at all costs, post haste, in order to save the planet from certain annihilation.

Furthermore, once we've removed the Greenpeace fantasy of a planet which runs on wind and sunshine and sugarplum fairies from the equation, the only remaining logical solution to the problem is to build more nuclear power plants!

Ah, but what's logical in matters science, to borrow an expression from Gershwin, aint necessarily so in matters junk science.

Recently, the 'experts' at Greenpeace exploited the 20th anniversary of the disastrous accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, to revitalize their campaign of inveracities condemning nuclear energy. 

The March 25, 2006 edition of the UK Guardian reported, in an article entitled 'UN accused of ignoring 500,000 Chernobyl deaths', that, while over 100 'leading scientists' accredited by both the IAEA and the WHO 'say that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster, and that, at most, 4,000 people may eventually die from the accident on April 26, 1986',  a report from a group of 'leading scientists and doctors', commissioned by, among others — Greenpeace,  will dispute the UN figures and 'suggest that at least 30,000 people are expected to die of cancers linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 people may have already died as a result of the world's worst environmental catastrophe.'

In science, where there's junk, there's agenda.  But, what ulterior motives could Greenpeace have for drawing their environmentally safe swords against the U.N?  Perhaps the answer lies in the gang's bugaboo that 'The International Atomic Energy Agency is dedicated to the worldwide expansion of nuclear power.'

Yet, this was but their opening salvo.

In its Greenpeace Chernobyl Anniversary Statement, released 20 years to the day after the casualty, the green guild states:

Nuclear power is inherently highly dangerous and despite claims of improvements in safety, scientists agree that another catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl could still happen any time, anywhere.

Scientists agree?  Which scientists?  Not those at the Federation of American Scientists.  Staunch nuclear weapons opponents, to be sure — the coalition was founded in 1945 by former physicists of the Manhattan Project who desired not to return to the bottle the Genie they had unleashed, but, rather, to help keep it in check .  But Greenpeace doesn't mention them, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Nuclear Society, nor any other scientists by name, do they? 

Deplorably, this tactic is typical of liberal 'science' in general and, particular to the junk—scientific methods of Greenpeace.  I invite you to read the sentence again.  It begins by field—promoting a hypothesis to the rank of conclusion —— then insinuates a fictive peer review and concurrence with its suppositious results.

In actuality, most experts (including those previously cited and those forthcoming) agree that the RBMK design of the Chernobyl plant was an accident waiting to happen.
 
According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), a global organization which seeks to 'promote the peaceful worldwide use of nuclear power as a sustainable energy resource for the coming centuries', with a Council of Advisors co—chaired by IAEA Director General—Emeritus and former media darling and U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix:   

The Soviet designed RBMK  ... is very different from most other power reactor designs as it derived from a design principally for plutonium production and was intended and used for both plutonium and power production.  There is no secure containment in the sense accepted in the West.

Curious —— So, according to these scientists, Chernobyl's problems were unique to its reactor's sinister dual—purpose design flaws, and, therefore, not likely to 'happen any time, anywhere.' 

The Anniversary Song continues:

'Nuclear is also the most expensive energy source in the world and actually generates only 2 percent of the world's supply.'

Again, not according to the WNA, which contends that

 Nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low—cost fossil fuels.

 They supply 16% of the world's electricity, as base—load power, and their efficiency is increasing.

 56 countries operate a total of 284 research reactors and a further 220 reactors power ships and submarines.

More from the Green Junk Machine:

Clean, renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectricity generate seven times as much, globally — and that is growing.

At this point, I'd like to introduce Dr. Patrick Moore.  Dr, Moore was a founding member of Greenpeace and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International.  In an article he authored which appeared in the Washington Post on April 16, 2006, Dr. Moore analyzes the 'growth' of these other 'renewable' energy sources:

Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple.

Green's turn:

We also need to remember that wherever there is nuclear power, nuclear weapons are only few steps away.'

And, of course, where there's solar power, malignant melanoma is only a few steps away. 

If there's any reasonable response to this position at all, it's that nations which have served notice upon mankind that they are unfit to maintain command over such technologies should be banned at all costs from acquiring them.  Is such not, indeed, within the mandate of the Nuclear Non—Proliferation Treaty, which they have championed?

I'd like to return now to Dr. Moore, who has been branded by a wide assortment of tree—hugging cabals as everything from a 'shill' to a 'lapdog' and worse, for his sudden moments of clarity. First, some background.

In 1979, just weeks after the release of the movie The China Syndrome, which did — in an equally inflated manner — for nuclear meltdowns what Jaws did for sharks, the U.S. suffered the disaster at the Three Mile Island plant in Harrisburg, Pa. Although the radiation released had no consequential impact on human health, thanks to the hysterical actions of 'activists' — including Greenpeace — and the ensuing public relations nightmare brought on by the media hyperbole, the US nuclear power industry was virtually frozen in time.

This also from Dr. Moore's Washington Post Article:

What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do —— prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

We're living in a nation which, despite pumping more oil in 2004 than Iran, Iraq and Kuwait combined, generates an energy production/consumption balance sheet which shines red each and every quarter.  'Reformers' the likes of Greenpeace stress unrealistic goals of curtailed consumption through self—deprivation and 'conservation', while obstructing efforts to increase production, through their seemingly inexhaustible doctrines of Junk Science.

Contrary to their position, it is the actions of these junk scientists and pseudo—environmentalists which are analogous to those of terrorists, as both aspire, through propaganda and intimidation, to turn back the clock on the progress which has elevated our lives and potentials to the glorious levels we now enjoy.  Be there no mistake. These eco—terrorists are just as fanatical — just as likely a threat to our economic freedom — as their suicidal counterparts are to our physical freedom.  If we ever again hope to relish a quarter in the black, then we must stand up and forsake the folderol of the green.

Marc Sheppard is a business owner, software developer, and writer residing on Long Island in New York.  He welcomes your feedback.