Former Greenpeace chief Patrick Moore thinks so, and his views have sparked controversy:
[Fuel Fight, ERICA HERRERO-MARTINEZ, Wall Street Journal Online, 2/12//2007] …"During my nearly 40 years as an environmentalist and student of sustainability I have only changed my position on one major issue: nuclear energy," [Dr. Patrick Moore, past director of Greenpeace, International] says.
His change of heart, however, has infuriated many of his former colleagues — and is symbolic of the wider debate raging between supporters of nuclear power and its critics. The late Robert Hunter, another founding member of Greenpeace, once referred to Dr. Moore as an "eco-Judas." Another fellow Greenpeace founder, Paul Watson, was even less restrained, calling him an "eco-whore" for switching to work for the nuclear industry.
Dr. Moore, 59 years old, shrugs off the attacks. "I am often confronted by the assertion that I am not an environmentalist because I support nuclear power…or whatever they don't agree with," he says. "I respond by saying that they are not in charge of giving out credentials for who is an environmentalist."
Dr. Moore, who left Greenpeace in 1986, insists he still holds true to almost all the policies Greenpeace initially pursued: banning nuclear testing, whale killing and toxic discharge. "I left Greenpeace because my fellow directors were drifting into policies that I did not believe had any basis in logic or science," says Dr. Moore, now chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., a Vancouver consulting firm. One such policy, he says, was a campaign for a global ban on the use of chlorine in drinking water, he says. (Greenpeace says it has no record of a campaign to ban chlorine in drinking water.)
Greenpeace, meanwhile, continues to fight against the construction of more nuclear reactors. "There is always that risk of a catastrophic disaster," says Mike Townsley, an antinuclear campaigner at Greenpeace in Amsterdam. "No one in the world has resolved the issue of nuclear waste." Another objection to nuclear power, Mr. Townsley adds, is that, if it spreads, so, too, will the technology for nuclear weapons. …
Dr. Moore was certainly a believer in the past. In 1976, for instance, he had written as part of a Greenpeace report that aside from nuclear warheads, nuclear power plants were "the most dangerous devices man has ever created" and that their proliferation wasn't just irresponsible but "criminal."
So what made him change his mind? Dr. Moore traces his metamorphosis to a day trip he took seven years ago to Devon in southwest England. There he met another controversial figure, British scientist James Lovelock.
"I had always been fascinated by [Lovelock's] Gaia hypothesis [which argues that the Earth functions as a kind of superorganism]...and when I found out he supported nuclear power I was even more intrigued," Dr. Moore says. "We spent an entire day walking, lunching, supping and into the evening discussing Gaia, climate, nuclear energy."
"Lovelock matter-of-factly said he would gladly take a bundle of used nuclear fuel, put it in his swimming pool and use it to heat his home," Dr. Moore recalls. "This shook my brain into realizing that nuclear waste is no more dangerous than many other chemicals. The trick is to keep it contained and limit our exposure to it."
Dr. Lovelock is considered by other scientists and environmentalists who favor nuclear energy as the pioneer who has helped pave the way for a movement, which sees nuclear power as a potential savior of the environment, as opposed to the dangerous poison it has traditionally been viewed as by mainstream environmentalists.
Drs. Lovelock and Moore aren't alone in embracing nuclear power as the answer to environmental ills. French scientist Bruno Comby in 1996 set up an independent and nonprofit organization, Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy. Members include Dr. Lovelock and former antinuclear activist Simone Weiss. In the U.S., Stewart Brand, an environmentalist and author of the Whole Earth Catalog, has also voiced his support for nuclear power, while in 2004 the late British Bishop Hugh Montefiore was forced to step down from the board of Friends of the Earth after promoting the use of nuclear power in the fight against climate change. …
Hat Tip: John Schrock, A Better Earth.
See also: Beyond Peak Oil: Teaming up Wind with Nuclear Power
Update, 2/17:From Sourcewatch.org [hyperlinks/notes not carried forward here]: Patrick Moore, grew up on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada where his family was involved in the fishing and logging industry. His father, Bill Moore, was past president of the B.C. Truck Loggers Association and past president of the Pacific Logging Congress.
After completing a Bachelor of Science in forest biology at the University of British Columbia and a PH D in ecology on the administration of environmental law relating to the mining industry, Moore became involved first in the Western Canada branch of the Sierra Club and later Greenpeace. His involvement in Greenpeace between 1971 annd 1986 spanned roles as a campaigner in Greenpeace Canada against whaling, uranium mining, sealing, toxic waste and nuclear warships.
He was President of Greenpeace Canada between 1977 and 1986 and as Director of Greenpeace International.
From 1984 he became involved in a family business, Quatsino Seafarms Ltd, farming salmon on Vancouver Island. Until 1991 he was President of the company and between 1986 and 1989 was President of British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association.
Following claims by the United Fishermans and Allied Workers Union about pollution by the industry generally, the Vancouver Sun reported "Moore called the union's concerns 'phoney' saying that we are not causing pollution and there is no such thing as genetic pollution”.(1)
In 1990, PR consultant James Hoggan (who had worked for Western Forest Products) told a meeting of forest executives that the industry was wasting millions on ineffective PR. He said he and Patrick Moore had designed a “green audit” program to sell to industry.(2)
Subsequently, Moore and two others formed Greenspirit to help business and government "incorporate the environmental agenda".(3)
In 1991, the year Moore created Greenspirit, he became a member of the Board of Directors of the timber industry created Forest Alliance of B.C.
In 1991 Moore was appointed as Director of the British Columbia Forest Alliance which was described by O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, as "a Burson-Marsteller created group, bankrolled by large timber companies", which "is waging a PR war with environmentalists upset with the logging of rainforests in western Canada.”(4)
Burson Marstellar employee, Gary Ley, was the Executive Director of the BC Forest Alliance in 1991. Ley subsequently headed up the Vancouver office of National PR, which B-M had a stake in. National PR had the BC Forest Alliance account.
Tom Tevlin, who was part of the initial Forest Alliance team and later succeeded Ley as Executive Director and then President at the Alliance, is now President and CEO of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd.
Burson Marstellar had worked for the Argentinian junta to "improve [its] international image" and boost investment. [Joyce Nelson, interview with Harold Burson (founder of Burson Marstellar) fall 1981, New York]. B-M's work for the Argentinian government occurred at the time that 35,000 people were disappeared by death squads.
In July 1991 Moore was asked by a Canadian journalist about B-M’s work for the Argentinian junta. "Forest Alliance Director, Patrick Moore, argues that Burson Marsteller's contract was with Argentina's economic ministry and its non-political role was to encourage foreign investment", Stephen Hume wrote. "It [B-M] has a record of truth in public relations as its bottom line," Moore said, citing the company’s role in the Tylenol recall.
Moore went on to object to the juxtaposing the reality of state murder of political opponents with Burson Marsteller's strategy for marketing the perception of Argentina's stability. Besides, Moore argued, "people get killed everywhere".(5)
In August 1993 Moore was part of the delegation that lobbied a US foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, against a decision to fund British Columbian environmental groups. Following the meeting, the Chair of the BC Forest Alliance, Jack Munro, told the Vancouver Sun “we are not opposed to them giving money to environmental groups. We are opposed to money filtering into protectionists like the people protesting the Clayquot”, he said.(6)
In January 1994, Moore claimed in an interview that while Greenpeace had acted within the law in all matters relating to the International Whaling Commission that they may have funded travel expenses for some delegates to the Commission. "This statement was in error", Moore wrote in a retraction several days later. (7) Download apology as a PDF document "
Two months later, Moore was criticised for claims that he made that Greenpeace "blackmail" had forced the rejection of The Times of London of an ad from the BC Forest Alliance. The Times rejected Moore claim: "The Times had not even received the art work for the ad from the alliance … we do not even know what this ad is supposed to look like so we can hardly be accused of censorship or bias". (8) See also these articles from Greenpeace's other founder Paul Watson of the Sea Shepard Society on Moore [3].
In 2000 Moore went to the Brazilian Amazon rainforests for the filming of a documentary by Marc Morano for American Investigator, According to an interview in the New York Post, Moore dismissed concerns about the impacts of logging, mining and clearning for agriculture on the Amazonian rainforests. "All these save-the-forests arguments are based on bad science ... They are quite simply wrong. We found that the Amazon rainforest is more than 90 percent intact. We flew over it and met all the environmental authorities. We studied satellite pictures of the entire area," he said.
"They are just about the healthiest forests in the world. This stuff about them vanishing at an alarming rate is a con based on bad science ... Anyone who has been in the jungle knows that if you want to live there, you'd better take a few machetes. Otherwise, it'll take it all back," he said. [4]
In October 2002, Moore was a keynote lunch speaker at the Best Practices in Communications: Wood Products and Forests, organised by the Wood Promotion Network conference in Vancouver. Moore's speech was titled "Declaration in Support of Protecting the Environment by Growing More Trees and Using More Wood". [5]
In October 2003 Moore endorsed the launch by The Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues (CGFI) of "Earth Friendly/Farm Friendly" Seal of Approval for the food and dairy industry. Monsanto, Dupont, Kraft/Phillip Morris, and the nuclear industry have funded the Hudson Institute.
In late January 2004 Moore was the key speaker at a 'teach-in' organised by Paul Driessen and hosted under the name of the Congress of Racial Equality on 'eco-imperialism' at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity ... The pain and suffering it inflicts on families in developing countries can no longer be tolerated," he said.
