I admit it. I want to know if this has anything to do with this:
Greenpeace Steals My Trash
It was spring. Young men’s hearts turned to fancy. And Greenpeace started stealing my trash.
I noticed that my garbage was getting collected much more efficiently than normal — and late the night before it was scheduled to go. I also noticed that soon, the media revealed a secret cabal I orchestrated from my basement. At least, that’s how London’s left-wing Guardian wrote the story, cobbled together from unrelated, offal-smeared notes plucked from my refuse. If I ever questioned the hippies’ dedication to their cause, no more: in those summer months of mystery trash abductions, I rededicated myself to strict obeisance of local requirements to collect the weekly output of my two large breed dogs.
“You too!?” howled the amused wife of a White House aide when we realized we were experiencing the same, selectively hyper-efficient, midnight garbage service. Apparently Greenpeace was just certain that her husband, who in fact hardly spoke to me, was part of my cabal.
Soon, European Greenpeace franchises were issuing press releases in German about who had lunch with me in Brussels, and spinning phony tales to Spanish newspapers of secret meetings I supposedly had with pretty much anyone they found problematic.
I had arrived. If they would spend so much energy to, well, trash me, I must be important, right?
But I soon learned from others that this is standard operating procedure for the global warming industry — which regularly does much worse things. They have ruined careers, blacklisted scientists, knowingly spread lies about dissenters, called for the imprisonment of skeptics, and used government pressure to cut off rivals’ funding. One scientist has had the lug nuts on his wheels secretly loosened when publicly voicing his rejection of climate orthodoxy. Threats now regularly issue against individuals, and the broader idea of free thought and expression.
Which got me thinking: shouldn’t the public know about this? Are these tactics consistent with the environmentalists’ image as philanthropic, self-sacrificing, earth-lovers? Doesn’t their desperation reflect a fundamental weakness in the truth of their arguments and the soundness of their proposals? Wouldn’t the media expose such tactics by the other side?
Isn’t it relevant to the debate about global warming that the alarmist side engages in this systematic campaign consisting of intimidation and threats, wheels falling off cars, abuses being inflicted on schoolchildren, demands of censorship, revising history, and telling flat-out lies?
Well, yes. People should know. And now they will.
This is the Introduction, in toto, from Red Hot Lies, released in November and which so far has done quite well, much to Greenpeace’s chagrin. I’m also aware it, and this opening anecdote, has gotten the attention — and concern — of a broad array of policy-relevant types.
Greenpeace’s release indicates that Passacantando has nothing lined up, and for this and other reasons the idea that one is related to the other does make quite a bit of sense. Here’s how.
My guess is that Greenpeace’s board rushed to convene upon reading (or reading of) this allegation, ready to take action against such a damning claim. Surely, they must have been shocked to learn they had no recourse and that, in fact, Greenpeace under Passacantando had sent forth its charges to make off with my trash and that of White House aide Phil Cooney and no doubt others, on a weekly basis. Among other stunts, by the way.
The trash caper led to public exposure of the fact that the stories they peddle to media are in fact derived from such dumpster diving. Who was dishonest in cobbling together the stories I cannot say for sure (though the Guardian not bothering to call me is as indicative of their likely culpability as is Greenpeace’s tactics).
John is a genuinely pleasant fellow who happens to be a radical and often engages in rather childish rhetoric (e.g., “tobacco scientist!”). Greenpeace’s private behavior on his watch has been exposed as embarassing and, worse to them, likely unacceptable to the middle-of-the-roaders whose sympathies they hope to cultivate. My guess is that this sin proved unforgiveable, but it is of course only a guess. I suppose I could steal their trash to find out, or at least put some unrelated things together to make the claim to buddies in the press anyway.
I wish John well — but hope also that in future both he and his former group act a little more classy, and a little less trashy.