By: Ankita Kulkarni
April 20 2023
No, this video does not show a Greenpeace co-founder denying human impact on climate change
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
Greenpeace says that Patrick Moore "exploits his long-gone ties" to promote claims the organization opposes.
Claim ID 9c028a1e
Context
On April 17, a Facebook user named June Slater, who has 65,617 followers shared a video of Patrick Moore, a man claiming to be the co-founder of Greenpeace, an independent global organization campaigning to change people's behavior to conserve the environment. Moore talks about climate change, and states, "IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is only mandated to study human impacts on climate change." He argues that it is incorrect to point out that human activities are the main factor in climate change on Earth. "Because it has changed a lot more a long before humans were even here," he says in the video. However, the claims made in the post, as well as the video, are incorrect.
In Fact
We found that the video was first posted on the Twitter account named "Wide Awake Media," which regularly publishes climate misinformation.
Logically Facts contacted Greenpeace to understand Moore's affiliations with the organization. It directed us to a July 6, 2010, press note denying Moore's links with it. The 2010 note states that Moore "exploits his long-gone ties with Greenpeace" to promote unethical solutions, which Greenpeace opposes. The statement adds that although Moore played a “significant role for years at Greenpeace in Canada”, he did not co-found the organization. Greenpeace was established in 1970 by Phil Cote, Irving Stowe, and Jim Bohlen. The press release says he applied for a role in 1971, a year after the organization was started.
BBC News in 2019 reported that Moore was voted out of leadership roles at Greenpeace in 1986, and later he joined the CO2 coalition, a nonprofit organization that advocates that CO2 emissions are not bad for the environment.
Additionally, in contrast to statements in the viral video, various scientifically-backed reports show that human activities are indeed the leading cause of climate change. Information provided by governmental organizations like the MET office of the U.K. and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that natural causes like solar irradiance, volcanic eruptions, and others have caused climate change, however, the recent variability observed since the 1950s, it is "extremely likely (> 95 percent) that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming. Both organizations note that the industrial revolution, which began in the 1800s, has increased the global temperature at a faster rate due to burning fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide into the air and thus lead to global warming. The MET Office adds that the current variation in temperature cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun.
Moreover, IPCC aims to assist governments with scientific information to develop climate policies that guide the general public to act accordingly. However, IPCC is not "mandated to study only human impact," one of its recent reports notes fermentation from ruminant animals is also the main cause of increasing methane emissions, contributing to global warming.
The Verdict
Moore is no longer associated with Greenpeace. Additionally, it is scientifically established that human activity is the leading cause of global warming and climate change. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.