Ice Capades: Greenpeace recants polar ice claim, but “emotionalizing” is OK
2009
Well it is that time of year again, the Arctic ice begins to melt, as it does every year, and all sorts of crazy talk starts coming out. This time from Greenpeace. I am encouraged though, as they have come around to the idea that maybe they are doing more harm than good by overselling the alarmism.
NSIDC also has taken a more moderate tone, announcing that there will “likely be no record low ice extent in 2009“. This is a sharp contrast to last year’s ridiculous press statement from NSIDC’s Dr. Mark Serreze about an “ice free north pole”. Now that Greenpeace has come clean on their statement, maybe Dr. Serreze will finally admit his statement was “a mistake”. – Anthony
From Not Evil Just Wrong:
The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”
Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming.
Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.
“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.
Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present.
The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.”
Leipold’s admission that Greenpeace issued misleading information is a major embarrassment to the organization, which often has been accused of alarmism but has always insisted that it applies full scientific rigor in its global-warming pronouncements.
Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.
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Ice Capades: Greenpeace recants polar ice claim, but “emotionalizing” is OK Watts Up With That?