The Hive is not a forum for the debate of science. But politics is our field. And it was some of the political commentary that interested us most when watching last night's showing of the Great Global Warming Swindle on Prime.
Thanks to MySky we have just watched one section again and have taken a transcript
But the new emphasis on man made carbon dioxide as a possible environmental problem did not just appeal to Mrs. Thatcher.
Patrick Moore - a Founder of Greenpeace
"The shift to climate change being a major focal point came about for two very distinct reasons.
The first reason was because by the mid-1980s the majority of the people agreed with pretty much all of the reasonable things, we in the environmental movement were saying they should be doing. When a majority agrees with you it is pretty hard to be confrontational with them. The way to remain anti-establishment was to adopt ever more extreme positions. When I left Greenpeace it was in the midst of them launching a campaign to ban chlorine worldwide. Like I said you guys this is one of the elements in the periodic table. I am not sure that it is within our jurisdiction to be banning an entire element.
The other reason that environmental extremism emerged was because world communism failed and wall came down. A lot of peaceniks and political activists moved into the environmental movement bringing their neo-Marxism with them and learned to use green language in very clever ways to cloak agendas that have more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalisation than they do with ecology or science."
Does this sound familiar to any New Zealand readers? In the late 1980s and early 1990s we have a whole lot of neo-Marxists with no home. What do we do? Some (eg Russel Norman) went Green and subverted that Party's agenda. Others (eg Claire Curran) went Labour. But both continue to pursue relentlessly an anti-capitalism/anti-globalisation message. What more perfect victory than an Emissions Trading Scheme that will force big chunks of NZ industry to close, deter foreign investment and render the most successful industries in the New Zealand economy tourism and dairy uncompetitive? The frightening thing is that the policy came so close to being introduced. It still might be, though in slightly less dangerous form.
