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NewsPatrick Moore & "The Future of Things"Last week world-renowned Canadian environmentalist and co-founder of Greenpeace, Dr Patrick Moore was interviewed by international organisation Forest Certification Watch. Here in Part 2 of that interview, Dr Moore looks at the critical issues facing the ongoing establishment of sustainable forest management practices around the world, the role of forest certifications schemes and considers how to deal with what he identifies as anti-forestry groups and their attempts to thwart sensible environmental outcomes.LEADERSHIP INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK MOORE Dr Patrick Moore & "The Future of Things" Part 2 - August 13, 2004 You are very much involved with the Wood Promotion Network, the industry network to promote wood in North America. Could you explain how your involvement in the Network from your perspective promotes sustainable forestry? More generally, what influence do you feel that you are having through your involvement? How would you respond to those who would suggest that you have become too close to the forest products industry? Patrick Moore: The good thing about my relationship with the Wood Promotion Network is that it’s at semi-arm’s length. Basically, the Wood Promotion Network supports me in getting my message out to the public, and a big part of my message has to do with wood, so we simply have an alignment of interest there. For example, on Earth Day, the Wood Promotion Network people organized for me to be in Central Park, New York, to broadcast to over 20 million people who watched me on newscasts as we did one market after another, live. I talk about lots of environmental issues when I’m working with the WPN, not just wood. I don’t believe that wood is the only answer to the future of the human race; it’s part of it, a big part of it, because it’s the most abundant renewable material on earth which gives it a very important role, but there are many other technologies and materials and energy sources and ideas that need to be part of a sustainable future. I focus on all of them. Basically the Wood Promotion Network is giving me a platform to be the Sensible Environmentalist in public and I’m very grateful to them for that. And they can count on me to focus on wood every time I speak because, as I said, it has a pretty special place in the sustainability formula for the future of civilisation. There has been some controversy regarding the LEED programme and the forthcoming Vancouver Olympics, where all the Olympic venues are to be constructed to the LEED standard. What is your take on the LEED programme and the fact that it only recognises FSC as a valid certification programme? Patrick Moore: I think that it had the potential to be a bit of a Trojan horse. In the bid containing LEED, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t just say LEED, it says LEED or equivalent standard in the language. The LEED standard is not a rigorous set of prescriptions; people don’t understand that. You don’t have to use FSC wood in a LEED building, you can use any wood you want; you just don’t get a point for certification, which I believe is ridiculous, but that is the case with LEED so you have to get your points some other way. The truth of the matter is that in order to get the Silver level of LEED, it’s very easy if you just pay attention; you don’t need to use FSC wood, you don’t need to do a lot of things. I think that the people in charge have recognised that the inclusion of LEED in the bid is not an obstacle in any way to maximizing the use of British Columbia-produced wood in particular. Another thing that is unfortunate about LEED is that it does not include hydro-electric energy of the kind which British Columbia produces as being a renewable or green energy, and that’s another weakness of LEED. We make 95% of our electricity from renewable hydro power here in British Columbia, which we think is environmentally better than using coal or nuclear power. We’re doing it with hydro and producing many tens of thousands of megawatts. And it’s too bad that this isn’t getting the credit, for example, if we were using that hydro in the Olympic venues. But regardless of that, LEED is not an obstacle, and this just gives us one more opportunity to highlight the weaknesses in LEED, to work with the people in LEED to correct these weaknesses. Again, just like in the FSC, those problems are there because there are activist agendas being inserted into LEED, and the two key ones in this case are anti-wood and anti-vinyl. Vinyl is now going through a big process within LEED as well, and we hope that comes out favourably. And we hope that eventually LEED will recognise that they have to include the other certification systems for certified wood. The other thing which is the craziest of all within LEED is the Rapidly Renewable Resources category that does not include construction lumber because it’s not “rapid” enough in it renewability. They’re supporting rapid rotations and hippy-dippy products like wheat straw cabinetry and sunflower seed board. On the other hand you have the environmental movement calling for the forest industry to use longer rotations in order to have more sustainable forestry and have more old growth-dependent species in the forest. And here’s LEED with their renewable resource criteria that calls for shorter rotations (10 years maximum) thus excluding construction lumber from the renewable category. There’s a real logical disconnect going on there. Do you think that the Wood Promotion Network has influence on green building standards these days or is it still at the early stage in terms of having more influence on those standards? Patrick Moore: I think the Wood Promotion Network is having a significant influence on green building standards and is working on a number of fronts, working with the National Home Builder’s Association in the US and with their counterparts in Canada on developing alternative green building standards and systems. Again, like with the FSC, we need some alternatives to LEED; we need to have a shopping cart of alternatives for people who are in architecture and construction and development to go to and decide which will be the best for them. Green building, just like sustainable forestry is a very complex multi-faceted situation with lots of apples and oranges being compared with each other, making it so that there is going to be decades of thinking and work and development on green building standards, on life-cycle analysis, on all those aspects. It’s a huge field that has opened up, and a very important one, of course, because the built infrastructure amounts to a very large percentage of our environmental impact and resource consumption. Other than that, transportation is probably the other biggest one. It’s an important area, and great strides will be made as we move into the future on reducing our footprint, reducing consumption of energy and materials, using better energy and materials. One of the things LEED doesn’t address is this: everybody thinks it’s good for things to be renewable and it’s good for things to be biodegradable. But it’s not good for your roof to be biodegradable. It’s not good for the walls of your building to be biodegradable. That’s the leaky condo problem [that is so prevalent in Vancouver.] What we want is durable material, especially on the exterior of buildings. Greenspririt Strategies is working with a number of industry sectors on the issue of green building and has developed a kind of triumvirate of technologies and materials. We believe that in residential construction we should work on combining wood and vinyl, and other plastics if they’re suitable, but vinyl seems to be the most suitable for most purposes. Wood is renewable and vinyl is durable. And if you then focus on geothermal energy, or ground-source heat-pump technology, for your heating, cooling, and hot-water needs, this immediately makes you house at least 50% renewable for energy consumption no matter what the source of the electricity you’re bringing in to run your geothermal system. If you use wind energy or hydro-electric energy to run your geothermal system, your house is 100% renewable all of a sudden, instead of being 75% non-renewable from the gas being burned to make your heat and hot water. So we believe that the core of wood, vinyl, and geothermal energy produces the greenest and most environmentally sustainable structure for residential building. Of course, you have to have some concrete, and hopefully that will have as high a level as possible of fly-ash and other industrial waste materials recycled into the concrete that’s being used. You also have to have some metal, particularly the nails to hold the wood together and some metal flashing etc. But by-and-large, if you take the three, wood, vinyl, and geothermal, you can have a cost-effective, environmentally sustainable structure. It’s almost the exact opposite of what the green movement is saying. And in terms of the LEED commercial building standard, you usually end up with a completely steel and concrete structure, and we believe that from a life-cycle analysis, energy consumption, environmental impact, greenhouse gas emissions, etc, that this just isn’t right. It does not actually amount to a greener structure than you would have if you focussed on wood and vinyl instead. What do you think about the current campaigns by Greenpeace and other groups on illegal logging, the boreal forest and endangered forests? Do you consider these campaigns as ’anti-forestry’? How do you see the role of these organisations in the sustainable forest debate? Patrick Moore: I think the orientation of these groups is still anti-forestry. Their goal in life is to get as much of the forestlands put into non-forestry use as possible. I don’t think they are in general all that well educated in the area of sustainable forest management. I think preservation is their key concern. And so be it; if it is, that’s fine. But I think a lot of the campaigns that they have now are largely fundraising campaigns; they are designed in order to be able to produce the mass mailings in order to raise funds to perpetuate the organisation. I’m not sure how important the boreal issue is. It strikes me that there’s probably 50% of the boreal that’s not worth logging anyways. Not to put it down completely, it’s a good thing that people are working together, but a lot of it is politics and a lot of it is grand-standing. There’s not as much substance in it as there should be in my estimation. You present yourself as the ’Sensible Environmentalist’. Can you explain the origin of this term? Does this term distinguish you from mainstream environmentalists such as Sierra Club or Greenpeace campaigners? Patrick Moore: Yes, it certainly does. The derivation of the terms is partly from my friend Bjørn Lomborg’s the ’Skeptical Environmentalist’ and I thought it was kind of a logical progression to go from the scepticism that he has very carefully put forward to adopting a more sensible approach to environmentalism, one that is based more on logic and science, and less on emotion and politics. I believe that much of the environmental movement’s policy today is ‘unsensible’. For example, the call to go back to organic farming - it’s just nonsensical. If we give up the advances in agriculture; fertilizers, chemicals, and genetics, it would mean that we’d have to use and vast amount more land to grow the food for the 6 billion people. This would mean cutting down more forest to get that additional land. It just can’t work and would result in damage to the environment and further impoverishment and starvation. Their blanket opposition to genetic modification is also nonsensical. It would be not only sensible but humanitarian to adopt the genetically modified Golden Rice to that could help prevent blindness in half a million children every year. I have a very strong critique of the policy of the movement based on policies, not personalities or name-calling, whereas I find that much of the criticism against me is pure name-calling. I’m the ’eco-Judas’; Paul Watson called me a ’bottom-sucking parasite’, and it turns out actually that if you Google “bottom-sucking parasite”, I’m the only one. There is no other bottom-sucking parasite. And as you can see that’s just pure name-calling, it has nothing to do with environmental policy. There isn’t even such a thing as a bottom-sucking parasite, except for me that is, because parasites don’t suck the bottom, they attach themselves to other creatures. I believe that I am putting forward a more logically coherent and consistent framework for global environmental policy in the various writings and speeches that I have produced. For example, the Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace - they all have orientations and policies that would basically reduce the amount of wood that we use. The main result of that would be to increase the amount of fossil fuel and steel and concrete that we use. And I think that is extremely counter-productive. It is obviously a much more sensible approach to grow more trees and use more wood as I have said over and over again. And thankfully, a bunch of people are figuring that out and listening to it. I think the sensible environmentalist will eventually have a considerable amount of influence over the public opinion on environmental issues and on opinion leaders. You are aware of the Alliance that was made by Boise with Rainforest Action Network. Was that a sensible move? What do you think about their policy? Patrick Moore: That quite surprised me. Boise has moved heavily into paper, and with the combination of the Staples campaign and the campaign against Boise I think what happened is that the senior management said ’Look, we have to make a deal with these people.’ It’s the same thing that happened to Citibank and Home Depot. I consider it a form of blackmail, myself, but apparently it’s legal. And so Rainforest Action Network got away with it. They have a lot of influence and a lot of power, and I perceive them as an extremely negative force from an environmental point of view. Do you see any problem with the content of the policy and compromise with Boise as it came out of these discussions? Patrick Moore:: I don’t think Boise had to do anything terribly profound in the way of changing their practices. They just had to bow down and kiss the feet of Rainforest Action Network. At an ITTO meeting in Indonesia, Jan McAlpine, the head of the US delegation and the current chair of the International Tropical Timber Council, stated in reference to your company Greenspirit that you had a ’mean spirit.’ Today, what are your thoughts on this incident? Patrick Moore: I think that was an unfortunate bit of name-calling. It strikes me that part of US policy is to focus the illegal logging issue on the developing countries. Maybe it’s a way for them to avoid focus being put on their own forest industry. I’m not sure what their politics are on this, but I do know that the campaign against Asia Pulp and Paper, which was the subject of my presentation at ITTO, and the campaign accusing the pulp industry in general in Indonesia of illegal logging is complete misinformation. The illegal logging that is occurring in Indonesia is almost entirely for high-value hardwood for veneers and hardwood lumber. Nobody is going to illegally log pulp chips; it just doesn’t make any sense at all. I pointed out that the only illegal thing that was happening with APP was that the local people were hijacking their timber off the barges coming up the river and selling it back to the pulp mill. The pulp mill was letting that happen, they said: "well, let these people who are poor and haven’t anything else to do take 5 percent of our wood and sell it back to us. It adds a little cost to our pulp wood price, but fine. We’d have to bring in police and arrest them, and that would cause an international incident, so we’re just going to let it continue and call it a social cost." I showed that in PowerPoint slides, the pictures of people stealing the wood off the barges of the APP, and I demonstrated clearly that APP was not involved in illegal logging, and that’s why she called me ’mean spirit’. I really don’t understand it. It was sort of as if I was bursting her bubble, I guess. The fact is that most of the illegal logging in Indonesia is being done by the police and the military, or at least in collusion with them, and is totally corrupt right up to the top. I’m certainly not in favour of that but I don’t think that it’s fair to blame the pulp and paper industry. They are converting the land to high-yield Acacia plantations but that’s the same thing that the FSC is certifying in Brazil, so why should it be any different in Indonesia? I was really quite annoyed with that. McAlpine, I thought, behaved in a very high-handed manner and was actually quite rude. You are probably one of the most controversial figures in world forestry today, with leading detractors such as Monte Hummel from WWF and David Suzuki from his foundation. Despite antagonism between you and these gentlemen, would you be interested in debating them in public? Patrick Moore: Actually, I have a lot of respect for Monte Hummel and always have had. We had our little set-to a couple of times but I’m very supportive of his orientation. I think there was a period where WWF seemed to find it necessary to close ranks with some of the more extremist positions, but I think WWF is moderating and realising that there is a more sensible middle ground that needs to be carved out. So I’ll support Monte. I wouldn’t only debate him; I would like to have a conversation with him about these things. Now Suzuki is a totally different matter. David Suzuki refuses to debate with me, and won’t allow any of his people to debate with me, and that is the actual policy of the Suzuki Foundation from my understanding. I find David Suzuki to be extremely disingenuous. Just yesterday, I found myself in conflict with him because he issued a media release about a new report they’ve commissioned about the sea-lice issue and the salmon in British Columbia. The headline of the release stated: “New Analysis Links Salmon Farms, Sea Lice, and Broughton Pink Salmon Crash.” But if you actually read the report and the conclusion of the report, it states clearly that “we have not seen any direct evidence to date linking transmission of sea lice from sea farms in the study area to wild pinks. This is complete misinformation, lies in fact, and it drives me a bit crazy. I personally consider the Suzuki campaign against salmon aquaculture in British Columbia to be a criminal act against the economic aspirations of the First Nations people in coastal BC. And yet, they are pretending that they have the First Nations people on their side and they’re using them mercilessly for this fundraising campaign to damage the reputation of our most important agricultural export, which is farmed salmon. I have no time for David Suzuki. He was my genetics professor at UBC for two years, he taught me well, he was a very good instructor, but I think he’s gone completely wonky. Would you enjoy having a programme like he has "The Nature of Things" on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation? Patrick Moore: Yes, I would actually. I’ve even begun to develop it. It would be called ’The Future of Things’. As you are certainly aware, there has been significant reduction in the enrolment to forestry related professions in universities and so forth, what do you tell the young generation? Would you recommend that they pursue a career in forestry or a related discipline? How do you go about developing a greater interest in the forestry profession among young people? Patrick Moore: That is a really big problem. In the final analysis, the demand for those skills will result in people going into them. There’s a bit of a lull now and it is a cyclical sort of thing. I think also a lot more people are focussing on wood science now. We have this big new wood science facility here at the University of British Columbia, and I think more and more emphasis will be placed on the science of forestry and in particular on wood science and product science on high-tech aspects of wood, engineered wood, and all of that. I’m not worried about it because the demand for the skills will pull people in. The stage of anti-forestry we’ve gone through will also end. People will become better educated, and the anti-forestry people will move on to being anti-something else, and we will in the end get a more balanced and more sensible understanding of the issues. Have you any interest in getting involved in teaching and so forth? Patrick Moore: Well actually I consider what I do to be partly teaching, only not in the Ivory Tower. My senior professor at UBC who was a systems ecologist and my mentor for a number of years there reminded me of what Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian communicator, had said, "If you want to have influence in this world, get out of the Ivory Tower and get into the control tower." I’ve always taken that as a byword that I relate to. I’d rather be out here in the real world, in the trenches, where it’s really going on, than in an Ivory Tower. I may decide to teach one day but I rather doubt that I’ll get into a career teaching position. I do a lot of guest lectures and a lot of speaking, and I think I’m doing more to educate people there than I would be if I was teaching in an educational institution. In relation to a Monty Python quote that you’ve added as a signature to your emails, "You’re not arguing with me, you’re just disagreeing with everything I say!" and the response, "No, I’m not" - could you elaborate on the application of this quote in the forest sustainability debate? Patrick Moore: I’m just trying to be funny by using an amusing quote from Monty Python which I think is brilliant. The full text of that quote is from the Argument Room, where the purpose of going in that room there is to argue with the person in the room. The person in the room won’t agree with anything you say. That’s the basis of that line at the bottom of my email. I think it highlights the fact that a lot of time this debate is going on at real cross-purposes. It’s as if you’re talking to the wall, and I’m sure the people on the other side feel the same thing. It’s very difficult to engage in meaningful dialogue with the sort of extremists, as I see them, on the other side of the debate. You get into a discussion about, say, sustainable forestry or genetic engineering or about aquaculture and fish farming, and you start off with a topic and you try to deal with that topic. Just when you think you’re barely making your point on that topic, they change the subject to another topic. I find that to be one of the key strategies of the anti-everything movement: they just keep changing the subject. You can never actually come to any kind of conclusion on any given point. They never agree with you, and you can never agree with them, and it goes around and around forever. And as the quote says, "you’re not arguing with me, you’re just disagreeing with everything I say." Are there any other topics you would like to comment on? Patrick Moore: Yes, I’d like to comment on the fact that the group I’m with now, Greenspirit Strategies, is developing its own non-profit; we’re just about to incorporate Greenspirit Foundation International. It will be an NGO that will seek United Nations status and will work on national and international issues that are philanthropic and humanitarian in nature. One of my goals is to bring more support for aboriginal aquaculture in Canada. I think it’s a very good fit for First Nations people to work with aquaculture, and there’s a tremendous potential for it. It needs NGO and non-profit support. I want to work in the international field on helping to introduce the new genetically modified crops which reduce pesticide use and fertilizer needs and increases yields and provides better nutrition to the developing countries. I’m coming full circle myself, in that I’ve been in the private sector for a long time since I left Greenpeace in 1986, but now Tom, Trevor and I are going to focus a considerable amount of our energy in going back into non-profit NGO-type involvement and hopefully provide an alternative model of the environmental NGO to the one that I believe has gone considerably astray, the Greenpeaces, Sierra Clubs, and Rainforest Action Networks. © Forest Certification Watch 2004. All Rights Reserved. Return to the News Archive |
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