Greenpeace was founded on a pretense of humanitarian action - between 1969 and 1971, they gathered together because they wanted to put an end to hydrogen bomb testing. Later they lost their way and it became about whales and, in the US, being a political action committee for an entire raft of anti-science issues, protesting everything from clean energy to food. Thanks for doing your part to cause global warming, Greenpeace.

Canadian ecologist Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, has been on the outs with his former compatriots for decades. In 2008, they even released a statement saying he was not an environmentalist at all, and only a member of Greenpeace, no one important, who turned his back on them in 1986 - which was after they had swung into full-on crackpot mode about a lot of things that had nothing to do with humanitarian causes. Yet until 2007 they still listed him as a founder. In his 1979 book, Greenpeace co-founder Robert lauded Moore's science background and his environmental activism and said that was why he was put on the founding committee. They needed someone science-y.

But Greenpeace is clearly a big-money operation these days, as intent as feeding itself as any corporation is. They need new causes to keep fundraising humming along - and that has to be the reason they oppose Golden Rice.  Because Greenpeace is humanitarian and opposing Greenpeace is the least humanitarian thing imaginable. While Golden Rice has been opposed by Greenpeace and others as "Frankenfood", the  World Health Organization notes that 18 million children have died due to vitamin A deficiency and another 18 million have gone blind - all entirely preventable, while still feeding them.


Want to be an eco-terrorist and hate science? Join Greenpeace! Or any left-wing environmental group, really. Credit and link: Guardian.

Moore recently used their own tactics against them; his group had a two-day demonstration when the Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, visited Vancouver, to ask why a humanitarian organization hates poor kids.

He knows they aren't changing their culture completely - he isn't asking them to stop being anti-science hippies about all GMOs. He is just asking them to stop opposing Golden Rice, on humanitarian grounds, since that is supposedly why they exist:

"We are not demanding that they give up the (misguided) opposition to GMOs, only that they make an exception for Golden Rice on humanitarian grounds. Greenpeace is also the most powerful force actively working to stop Golden Rice," he wrote, and "We also believe they cannot maintain their position forever, as we observed during the demonstration how many of their own supporters favor an exception for Golden Rice."

That's likely true. While Greenpeace protesters are no more scientifically literate than any other protester, when they are presented with actual evidence of how their supposed humanitarian effort is having the opposite effect, only the real zealots will insist 3 harmless genes out of 30,000 in rice - not controlled or owned by any corporation - are doing more harm than all those dead and blind kids.


Credit: Allow Golden Rice Now.

Will they come to their senses? Probably not. But it isn't that they hate poor kids so much, Patrick - they just love money more.

Read more about Golden Rice:

UK Environment Secretary Labels Anti-GMO Activists 'Wicked'

Support Science, Condemn Golden Rice Eco-Terrorism

GMOs Don't Hurt Anyone, But Opposing Them Does

Golden Rice creator wants to live to see it save lives by Andy Coghlan, New Scientist

Has Greenpeace Lost its Moral Compass? by Dr. Patrick Moore