A Much Needed Term

but I have been beaten to the punch. Someone else has invented it.

Wikipedia currently has a page

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greenwashing&oldid=894118152

which starts out 

Greenwashing (a compound word modelled on "whitewash"), also called "green sheen", is a form of spin in which green PR or green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that an organization's products, aims or policies are environmentally friendly. (my emphasis)

I only just found the word! I'd never heard it before. But the reason I did find it was that I about to invent exactly the same word myself, as a compound modelled on "whitewash" and "brainwash" perhaps with "hogwash" thrown in for good measure, and apply it to Greenpeace, following some other experiences in Wikipedia. So I googled it, and found that others had beaten me to it... and had even written a Wikipedia article which I hadn't even looked for! 

And this existing usage will do fine. It's exactly what I mean too.

On This Page

Some background

If likening greenwashing to brainwashing seems harsh, have a look first at sex lies and Nuclear Power and check me. As I say there, nothing discussed on that page is secret.

And then maybe have a look at Patrick Moore and Greenpeace . Now I don't agree with everything he says, any more than Greenpeace does. But I must agree with him that they've lost the plot. They've even been caught greenhanded, dishonestly rewriting their history to try to minimise the damage Moore represents.

So who can you trust? Difficult question! Which I won't solve here. But what we can establish here is that you definitely can't trust Greenpeace. Moore may or may not be pure spin and occasional lies, as Greenpeace would have you believe. Maybe. But Greenpeace are now themselves exactly that, which brings us back to how to reveal yourself without really trying. 

What I want to ask here is, why has the movement and organisation, which started with such lofty principles, sunk to this? It's not just their falsifying history that interests me. This seems to me to be indicative of a more general attitude, that they know how to save the planet and that information is not important except as it promotes their cause. And that therefore, disinformation, misinformation and even downright lies are OK.

And it's not just Greenpeace that is guilty of this greenwashing. The Wikipedia discussion and related ones contain some rather bizarre claims, claims along exactly the same lines as the Greenpeace stand on Moore.

The spin at Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia and spend a lot of time contributing there.  See what_use_is_Wikipedia and the Wikipedia creed for why! But again as I hope those pages show, we should not take WIkipedia at face value (any more than Greenpeace).

Again, see  here for what I'm taking about in this section, and Patrick Moore and Greenpeace for the contrast between the facts and what Greenpeace would have you believe. And note the similarity between what Greenpeace say and what was said on Wikipedia.

Probably many, perhaps all, of the contributors to the Wikipedia discussions here have no direct connection to Greenpeace, and if any do then as far as I can see they have not disclosed it as required by Wikipedia. So we assume good faith and assume that they have no such connections. There may be undisclosed conflict of interest and even meatpuppetry, but I have no evidence either way and don't particularly care. It's the arguments that interest me. Only that.

In detail

I have not included diffs below quite deliberately. This is not about attacking the people who have posted these arguments. It is about assessing their arguments. Diffs are available if you need them (but I can't imagine why).

We're told there that he wan't a founder of the organisation, despite many reliable sources (as Wikipedia defines that term) that say he was... understandably as so does Greenpeace still on some of their pages (see it while it lasts) and their other pages did for many years until they were greenwashed. The only evidence offered that he wasn't a founder is that Greenpeace now say he wasn't.

We're told that he wasn't part of Greenpeace at the time of the 1971 voyage of the Phyllis Cormack, despite his name being on the (non-greenwashed) crew list as one of the three explicitly representing Greenpeace. We're told that the boat wasn't renamed Greenpeace for the voyage, it was just a nickname... whatever that means. We're told that Greenpeace didn't organise the voyage anyway, despite their logo being on the letterhead of the letter (on their website, see it while it lasts... but it's page two of the file, so scroll down) inviting Moore to join the voyage.

We're told that Moore is not an environmentalist. That seems to mean, he doesn't support our manifesto any more. But in that sense it's arguable, in the context of Wikipedia's article naming policies.

But we're then told that he's no more an ecologist than an environmentalist, which is a bit strange when he has a PhD supervised by two ecologists. When it's pointed out that his PhD was awarded for studies within the Institute of Resource Ecology, we're confidently assured that no such institute has ever existed... without any evidence being offered, so see the obituary of Dr. William (Bill) Wellington, 920 – 2008 for a mention of the Institute... At U.B.C., he was Director of the Institute of Resource Ecology from 1973 to 1979. When it's pointed out that many sources (not just his own website) describe his PhD (awarded 1974) as in Ecology, we're told that the University in question doesn't award PhDs in Ecology. When it's pointed out that they do, we're told that really, no University awards PhDs in anything, they just say they do as a sort of jargon.

Bizarre enough? These arguments are not even remotely related to reality (see Patrick Moore and Greenpeace  for some of them examined in more detail). They are spin. 

And that seems to be not just what Greenpeace do best, but what they are focused on doing. Which is exactly what Moore says too.

The renaming of the Wikipedia article on Moore to term him a consultant rather than an environmentalist or ecologist may or may not be overall in line with Wikipedia's policies. But doing it on the grounds of the above arguments (and on the basis of persistent personal attacks and other slimy tactics) is not only sad, it is indicative of other agendas and pro-Greenpeace spin, which is even sadder.

Wikipedia will survive.

Why it matters part 1

But the other problem with all of this is, environmental issues matter. You can't fool all of the people all of the time, and in insisting that they and their supporters are the only environmentalists (and even the only ecologists) they give environmentalism (and potentially even ecology) a bad name. That is not science or scholarship of any sort. It is spin.

I'm glad Greenpeace exists, see Greenpeace is a great idea. Even when I disagree with what they say I am normally glad someone is saying it. And I agree with most of what they say.

But if some of what they say is so blatantly spin, they risk ending up like the little boy who cried wolf. We almost suffered catastrophe in the 20th century, to be saved by the Montreal Protocol.

We are likely to face similar challenges in the future. Perhaps carbon emissions are even one such, see a double skeptic.

Will we be ready for them? Or will we be so blinded by spin... be very afraid.  

But why would a greenie be a greenwasher?

Good question! We all have agendas.

But the best is probably one that George Orwell answered some time ago in his book 1984.

Power

Orwell was perhaps parodying rather than describing any organisation, or perhaps not, but the relevant paragraph is worth quoting at length either way.

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others ; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?

And this is a trap for any organisation. The driving force of Greenpeace was once the environment, but now it seems to be political power. The environment and related issues have just become the means of achieving this. Orwell was even more prophetic than I ever imagined.  

Saving the World

And this is the other half of the answer. If you are saving the world, the end justifies the means.

The problem of course is, who decides what is good for the world? And what if they get it wrong?

Greenpeace have decided that nuclear power is bad, and this has become an article of faith... to the point that anyone who contends, however logically, that nuclear power might be a good idea, is deemed ipso facto not be an "'environmentalist" or even an "ecologist".

And in this Moore is right. Greenpeace no longer care for science in making decisions, only in justifying the positions already taken. Their behaviour now exhibits all the worst characteristics of a fundamentalist religion.

It's certainly not science. Science changes its theories to fit new data, as Moore claims to have done. Pseudoscience on the other hand selects and even changes the data to fit its theories, as Greenpeace have done.   

And this is dangerous. As the events leading up tot the Montreal Protocol demonstrated, we do have the ability to severely damage the environment. And we need valid science to guard against doing exactly that.

More to follow