We exposed Greenpeace’s lie less than two weeks ago on our blog and on Big Hollywood, and forced the group to issue a rare “clarification.” Our piece and the companion video went viral. Even the pro-environment blog at the left-wing Guardian newspaper acknowledged that “Greenpeace will be bruised by this furor.” 

But none of that exposure kept Kerry, D-Mass., from repeating and amplifying the lie in a predictably hysterical op-ed about “catastrophic climate change” for the liberal Huffington Post. 

To justify his alarmism that global warming is a national security threat, Kerry parroted the tired and discredited claim about Arctic ice. “Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013,” he wrote. “Not in 2050, but four years from now.” 

Greenpeace wasn’t even willing to distort the truth that much when it mentioned melting Arctic ice in a July 15 article. The group pinpointed 2030 as doomsday, 17 years later than Kerry. 

But even that claim was so bogus that Greenpeace’s own leader recanted when pressed by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur. “I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” Gerd Leipold said last month on “Hardtalk.” 

When we publicized that admission, Greenpeace appended a note to its story online but also tried to manufacture a phony grassroots campaign to cover up the admission. That’s the kind of behavior that emboldens politicians like Kerry to make even more outrageous claims.  

Kerry’s decision to regurgitate and exaggerate the lie about melting ice just goes to show that no fact is too sound for environmentalists to distort and that they have no qualms about using their scare tactics even after being caught in a lie.  

Being an environmentalist means never having to say you’re sorry.

Gerd Leipold

In an attempt to “astroturf” (create a false impression of a grassroots response to an issue), Greenpeace urged online followers to spread its cover-up “clarification” via social media tools like blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

Environmental and left-wing organizations often accuse conservative groups of astroturfing on contentious issues.

 Since the story was broken on Big Hollywood yesterday dozens of blogs and media outlets including Instapundit, Hot Air and Power Line, have linked to the story about Greenpeace’s admission, and embedded the key video clips from the BBC segment. In the interview, Leipold said his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.” “I don’t think it will be melting by 2030,” he said.
 
BBC reporter Stephen Sackur accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism,” but Leipold defended the group’s tactics as a necessity to convince people of its views on global warming.

Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong. 

“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.

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Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present. 

The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.” 

Leipold’s admission that Greenpeace issued misleading information is a major embarrassment to the organization, which often has been accused of alarmism but has always insisted that it applies full scientific rigor in its global-warming pronouncements. 

Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion. 

Leipold said later in the BBC interview that there is an urgent need for the suppression of economic growth in the United States and around the world. He said annual growth rates of 3 percent to 8 percent cannot continue without serious consequences for the climate. 

“We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth. … The lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model,” Leipold said. “If you take the lifestyle, its cost on the environment, and you multiply it with the billions of people and an increasing world population, you come up with numbers which are truly scary.” 

(You can watch the full BBC interview with Leipold here, and to learn more about Greenpeace-style global warming hysteria and its potential toll on the American dream, go to www.noteviljustwrong.com, the Web site for the forthcoming documentary “Not Evil Just Wrong,” by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney.)

All very caring stuff  – and we are introduced to Iraqi refugees, people from the Niger Delta and the Alps to witness the supposed climate problems they’re already facing. (Although in reality the problems in Iraq and Nigeria had nothing to do with climate and the character in the Alps seemed largely concerned about increasing traffic destroying his peace and quiet.)

But the characters were sympathetically drawn and one would believe the filmmakers genuinely cared about people and their lives. However, occasionally the mask slips. The filmmakers now send out regular emails about the film’s progress and any “climate news,” and the latest email shows just how much they care about ordinary people losing their jobs and probably their homes during one of the worst recessions in a hundred years. 

Under a section entitled “Good News” the email chirpily informs us: 

Good riddance to US car giant General Motors, who declared bankruptcy this week! Whilst this is sad news for the thousands of workers set to lose their jobs, it is very good news for the climate.  

The Age of Stupid opens in the US in September – presumably not in Detroit or any other city depending on car manufacturing or indeed on any type of heavy industry. 

Ann McElhinney & Phelim McAleer are the Producers and Directors of Not Evil Just Wrong – a documentary which reveals the true cost of Global Warming hysteria. Noteviljustwrong.com

It is hilarious that Al Gore’s electricity bill is ten times the national average. However, our idea of a perfect world is when everyone in Africa and the developing world is so wealthy they are using the same amount of electricity as the former vice-president.

If the world were that wealthy it would mean the end of the scourge of needless child mortality. It would mean that people in Africa would live long and healthy lives and get to know the joy of their grandchildren.  It would mean that children would know how wonderful it is to see their parents live to an old age.

So our initial reaction to Al Gore’s electricity bill is that we wish it for everyone. But then we are faced with the reality that Al Gore wants legislation to force people to use less electricity and fly less. Then his electricity bill becomes an issue of hypocrisy and freedom. He wants the freedom to use and consume but wants to deny that to ordinary Americans and, perhaps more tragically, to the people of the developing world. So Al Gore’s electricity bill and use of a private jet should be highlighted as part of a belief by the environmental movement that change and deprivation “for the good of the planet” should only be borne by other people. Private jets are essential for eco-celebrities because their work is important. The rest of us have to reduce our carbon footprint because our travel is “frivolous and wasteful.”

Just last week, President Obama and the first lady flew to New York to see a Broadway show. They also flew an entourage of assistants and media in separate planes.  In a statement, President Obama said: “I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished.”  Well that’s great and we hope they enjoyed the show. But isn’t this the same president who said during the campaign that: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect that other countries are going to say ‘OK.’”?

I know he promised his wife that he would take her to a show but if we all have to make sacrifices for the good of the planet, perhaps he should have started with their little jaunt to New York for a date.

But it seems for President Obama that sacrifice is something only other people (poorer people) make.

Ann McElhinney & Phelim McAleer are the producers and directors of the documentary Not Evil Just Wrong – the True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria.

No environmentalist would ever allow their child to be treated in a hospital fully powered by “renewables”. They would not take the risk that the wind might stop whilst their baby was on the operating table. They would insist that the hospital and the life support systems had a fossil fuel powered back-up.

And so it is with “sustainable development”. It just isn’t sustainable. At least it does not sustain a lifestyle that those who promote it would consider acceptable for themselves. But of course that is the key. Renewable energy and sustainable development are for “other people”.

Even though environmentalists come from societies and very often families that became rich because of their use of non-renewable energy and unsustainable development they will not allow these opportunities to be extended to the poor in the developing world.

Environmentalists come from wealthy societies and families who cut down forests and burned coal and oil to make their families and societies healthy and prosperous. But, nowadays, for the poor in Africa and Asia and even middle America their path out of poverty must be “sustainable.” No fossil fuels or factories for them. But what this really means is sustainable poverty. It is a system that condemns people to a lifetime of drudgery and subsistence farming because modernity and industrialisation is “unsustainable.”

Which brings me to Bono, the lead singer of rock band U2 and more lately a campaigner for sustainable development in Africa, Asia and south America. In 2005 Bono and his wife Ali Hewson set up Edun a clothing range that was going to prove there is a different way to end poverty. It was going to be a non-corporate and of course “sustainable”.

At he time MSNBC said it would be “clothing with a conscience”. Vogue magazine said Edun was going to “flip capitalism on its head”.

But now it seems that Bono has now discovered that big companies with their big carbon footprints are useful if you want to keep paying the wages and produce the goods and sell them. Last week the rock star announced he has sold out to LVMH, the worlds largest luxury goods company. Announcing the deal Bono all but admitted that his touchy feely version of capitalism and development just didn’t work. Selling out to LVMH was a great deal, said Bono, and would “bring greater and longer-term stability to our manufacturers and the communities they support”.

In other words my Clooneyesc view of business is plain wrong and I now have to admit that I can’t pay the workers salaries without a proper business running the company. They, with their international marketing skills and economies of scale will make the business truly sustainable – that is – they will ensure that the workers have work and a salary every week and for years to come.

It is an admission that capitalism works and is the only way to ensure a better future for some of the world’s poorest people. And now Bono’s clothes with a conscience will be marketed and sold by a company that also sells Louis Vuitton, Donna Karan and Givenchy. LVMH’s also make and sell the delightfully unsustainable Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot. It also makes and sells parfum Christian Dior and Givenchy and luxury jewellery and watches such as TAG Heurer, Christian Dior and De Beers Diamond Jewellers.

Neither side felt it necessary to say how much Bono got for selling half the company to LVMH. Edun has, in the past, made much of the company’s transparency. However it seems that the transparency only extends to poking our noses into what the workers earn. Bono and his wife are exempt from such questions. But good luck to them. It is really not important to know how much money they have.

But it is important for them to stop keeping people in poverty in the name of sustainability. We used our resources – we burned coal and oil and chopped down our forests. We drove our cars and flew our planes. We have used capitalism to conquer disease and poverty and as a consequence our children are the best-educated and healthiest in history.

But it seems that now some of these children want to stop the poorest on the planet from having what we have. Bono loves sustainable development but only for other people. U2’s latest album was recorded in separate sessions in France, the UK, Morocco, the US and Dublin. The band is now going on a worldwide tour to promote it.

This is not “sustainable” but it is necessary to keep people in work and to keep Bono’s bank balance healthy. And this is a good thing. U2 will provide employment for hundreds if not thousands through selling the album and going on tour. But it is being done the old fashioned way – through unsustainable but wealth creating capitalism.

If it is good enough for Bono and his band of Irish multi-millionaires then it should be good enough for the poorest on the planet.

Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney are the directors and producers of “Not Evil Just Wrong,” a documentary which looks at the true cost of Global Warming hysteria. noteviljustwrong.com