Dr. Patrick Moore, a former prominent member of Greenpeace, says the current green movement is “anti-modernism” and “threatens an intellectual gulag.”
Moore made these comments in an interview with The Daily Caller as President Obama arrived in Paris to attend the Global Climate Conference.
During remarks made in Paris on Monday, Obama said that fighting climate change would be an effective response to terrorist activity.
“What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it,” Obama said to over 150 world leaders.
The president downplayed people’s concerns about terrorism saying one woman at a town hall recently asked him about climate change as opposed to terrorism.
“And let there be no doubt, the next generation is watching what we do. Just over a week ago, I was in Malaysia, where I held a town hall with young people, and the first question I received was from a young Indonesian woman,” Obama said.
“And it wasn’t about terrorism, it wasn’t about the economy, it wasn’t about human rights. It was about climate change. And she asked whether I was optimistic about what we can achieve here in Paris, and what young people like her could do to help.”
Dr. Moore was aghast at the claims made by the Obama administration and some congressmen over the issue of climate change, including the Department of Defense’s conclusion that climate change is an “urgent and growing threat” to national security.
Sen. [crscore]Bernie Sanders[/crscore], a Democratic presidential candidate, went as far to say that climate change causes terrorism.
“Well I think it’s completely ridiculous, but I think it’s compelling to combine the biggest, as they like to call them existential threats — terrorism and climate change, into one basket, so it plays into one narrative, when they call it an existential threat,” Moore said. “Is all the terrorism in the world caused by climate change? Or is it just this particular this particular terrorism that was caused by this climate change.”
Moore later said, “It’s amazing how powerful the president is in being able to manipulate all of his appointees into supporting this.”
“He is going to look like an idiot in retrospect. His legacy will be that he pushed possibly the most anti scientific least scientifically based position that has ever been adopted by a major power.”
A week before the president arrived in Paris, Obama said at a news conference that just by showing up at the Global Climate Conference, he would be taking a stand against ISIS.
“Next week I will be joining President Hollande and other world leaders in Paris for the Global Climate Conference,” Obama said. “What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children.”
Last February, during an interview with Vox, the president said the media “absolutely” overstates the level of alarm about terrorism compared to the “threat of climate change.”
“Absolutely. And I don’t blame the media for that. What’s the famous saying about local newscasts, right? If it bleeds, it leads, right? You show crime stories and you show fires, because that’s what folks watch, and it’s all about ratings.”
Obama added, “And, you know, the problems of terrorism and dysfunction and chaos, along with plane crashes and a few other things, that’s the equivalent when it comes to covering international affairs… And climate change is one that is happening at such a broad scale and at such a complex system, it’s a hard story for the media to tell on a day-to-day basis.”
Moore, who says he fears “an intellectual gulag with Greenpeace as my prison guards” says the green movement, the media, the science establishment, subsidized green businesses subsidies and politicians are key reasons why climate change continues to have legs.
“I believe what we have in the green movement today is anti modernism. And it threatens an intellectual Gulag in our society,” Moore says, noting that bringing third word communities into the 21st century should be a priority.
“I really think we can say for certain that the industrialized countries have much cleaner air and much cleaner water than the developing countries do. So we need to bring [developing nations] up to our standards, and that means not thinking that everything is going to run out and that we are all going to die from lack of everything.”
“We are a very resourceful species and if we set our minds to it like Naranda Modi in India. He is my favorite world leader because he wants to give electricity to the 300 million in India who don’t have it and he is a modernist. I believe what we have in the green movement today is anti-modernism. And it threatens to be an intellectual gulag in our society.”