Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Don't support Greenpeace if you care about the environment

Greenpeace are anti-science - from destroying scientific research to misrepresenting data; and their simplistic stances, such as "No GM" or "No nuclear power", aren't good, as the issues are considerably more complex than a straight no. For example, GM crops could mean a reduction in the amount of pesticides sprayed on crops, and nuclear power could provide a lot of emission free energy. Yes there are issues with these two technologies - but if they can be investigated, and overcome, think of the benefits!

Today we learn that they will, with malice aforethought, lie to you to achieve their aims, in this case, fabricating a lot of misinformation about Shell. As has been observed"Even if you think Shell is evil and will lie to achieve their goals, now you know Greenpeace is the exact same way." How does this make them any better than those they are trying to combat? Given that they will deliberately deceive you, how can you trust the claims they make about what other companies are doing? 

This campaign involved criminal behaviour that does nothing but inconvenience people, and hurt franchise owners. What a waste of time and money.

There will almost certainly now be Greenpeace supporters spending their efforts campaigning against practices that Shell don't actually do, as opposed to channeling their energy into highlighting Shell's genuine ills. This is because, if an original false "fact" fits with your prejudices, getting a correction will only reinforce those prejudices, not make you adjust your knowledge. As Ben Goldacre has said on the research:  "...smears work, and what’s more, corrections don’t challenge them much: because for people who already agree with you, it only make them agree even more." 

Greenpeace should be avoided. There are fairer, better, more sensible ways to tackle the genuine environmental issues we're facing today. If you care about the environment too, don't turn to the Storms, but to the scientists.



1 comment:

  1. Very useful, I was looking for someone who agreed with me. Thank you for all the references!

    ReplyDelete

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