One of Greenpeace’s original founders said he hopes to see Greenpeace USA lose a lawsuit that threatens the group’s existence.
Patrick Moore, who was listed on Greenpeace’s website as one of the original founders as recently as 2007 before the organization attempted to distance itself from him, would like Greenpeace USA to lose the massive lawsuit filed against the group by a company called Energy Transfer, he told the DCNF.
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The company is seeking $300 million in damages from Greenpeace USA in a North Dakota lawsuit that alleges the group or its entities incited major protests against Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access Pipeline, funded various attacks meant to damage the project and orchestrated a smear campaign against the company and its development.
“They’ve got to embrace what is really true science…. They ignore massively important facts, and then make lies up to replace them. So yes, I hope they are going to learn a lesson from this,” Moore told the DCNF regarding his old group and the lawsuit it faces. “Science is about truth, and then you decide your policy. These guys, they personally decide the policy, and then they lie about the underlying scientific aspects. It just completely bastardized science in much of the world, especially in the Western world … they have become sort of spoiled brats, I would say, and they don’t have good science.”
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Greenpeace USA “would certainly deserve” to lose the lawsuit, Moore told the DCNF. “They are basically attempting to destroy the means of transportation and so many other things. There’s no doubt about it that pipelines are the safest way to move liquids, especially flammable ones. There’s simply no question.”
According to Greenpeace, Moore went on to play “a significant role” in Greenpeace’s Canadian arm, but he left the organization in 1986 because he felt it had become too radical. Despite listing him as a founder as recently as 2007, Greenpeace now has an entire website that explains that Moore does not represent the organization and that he is not a founder.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Energy Transfer’s billionaire executive chairman, Kelcy Warren, is behind the company’s lawsuit.
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Warren, who once said that green activists ought to be “removed from the gene pool,” views climate activists as a significant threat to the energy industry and has stated that he is unafraid to go after them for the problems they caused for the company and the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Meanwhile, according to the WSJ, some of Greenpeace USA’s top leaders have fought internally about what kind of settlement may be acceptable with the company. However, even if Energy Transfer wins the lawsuit, enforcing penalties against Greenpeace’s central coordinating body in the Netherlands may be difficult because that entity does not hold assets in the U.S.
Representatives for Greenpeace USA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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