I’ve never had a headline like this, but Greenpeace deserves it for their mind-bending defense in a defamation lawsuit: basically their defense is “we publish hyperbole, therefore it isn’t actionable because it isn’t factual”. GMAFB!
Dr. Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, whom they have tried to erase from their website, resigned from the organization because:
The organization I co-founded has become a monster. When I was a member of its central committee in the early days, we campaigned – usually with success – on genuine environmental issues such as atmospheric nuclear tests, whaling and seal-clubbing.
When Greenpeace turned anti-science by campaigning against chlorine (imagine the sheer stupidity of campaigning against one of the elements in the periodic table), I decided that it had lost its purpose and that, having achieved its original objectives, had turned to extremism to try to justify its continued existence.
Now Greenpeace has knowingly made itself the sworn enemy of all life on Earth. By opposing capitalism, it stands against the one system of economics that has been most successful in regulating and restoring the environment.
Get a load of this:
Greenpeace Claims Immunity from Lawsuits Because Its Claims Are ‘Hyperbole’
2:02pm EST March 3, 2017
by Katie Brown, PhD
There’s been an interesting twist of events involving Greenpeace, one of the major groups pushing the failing #ExxonKnew campaign: They’ve been sued by Resolute, a Canadian forest-products company, for defamation and false claims about the company’s operations.
But when Greenpeace had to answer for its actions in court, the group wasn’t so sure it could defend its claims. In fact, they admitted those claims had no merit. As Resolute’s President and CEO Richard Garneau explained in a recent op-ed,
A funny thing happened when Greenpeace and allies were forced to account for their claims in court. They started changing their tune. Their condemnations of our forestry practices “do not hew to strict literalism or scientific precision,” as they concede in their latest legal filings. Their accusations against Resolute were instead “hyperbole,” “heated rhetoric,” and “non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion” that should not be taken “literally” or expose them to any legal liability. These are sober admissions after years of irresponsible attacks. (emphasis added)
No “forest loss” was caused by Resolute, the groups concede — now that they are being held accountable.
As the Financial Post also reported,
But now Greenpeace says it never intended people to take its words about Resolute’s logging practices as literal truth.
“The publications’ use of the word “Forest Destroyer,” for example, is obvious rhetoric,” Greenpeace writes in its motion to dismiss the Resolute lawsuit. “Resolute did not literally destroy an entire forest. It is of course arguable that Resolute destroyed portions of the Canadian Boreal Forest without abiding by policies and practices established by the Canadian government and the Forest Stewardship Council, but that is the point: The “Forest Destroyer” statement cannot be proven true or false, it is merely an opinion.”
In other words, Greenpeace is admitting that it relies on “non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion,” and because its claims are not meant to be factual, the group believes it cannot be held legally responsible for what it says.
Notably, Greenpeace has been actively pushing for legal action against ExxonMobil, alleging the company “knew” about climate change in the 1970s and 1980s before the world’s top scientists had come to any solid conclusions. When the Rockefeller-funded InsideClimate News and Columbia School of Journalism produced their #ExxonKnew hit pieces, Greenpeace immediately called for the Department of Justice to investigate ExxonMobil, saying,
“The Department of Justice should open a federal investigation immediately and hold the company legally accountable for misleading the public, lawmakers, and investors about the impacts of climate change. A DOJ investigation should be broad and look into the role of other fossil fuel companies, trade associations, and think tanks in sowing doubt about the risks of climate change.” (emphasis added)
Greenpeace claims it cannot be sued because its misleading claims were not meant to be factual, but it then claims the U.S. Department of Justice needs to investigate an energy company for what it calls “misleading the public.”
It will come as no surprise that Greenpeace is also funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund, the same groups that have been bankrolling #ExxonKnew every step of the way.
Representatives from Greenpeace were in attendance at a secret strategy meeting in January 2016, held at the Rockefeller Family Fund offices in New York, where the activists met to brainstorm how “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution,” “delegitimize them as a political actor,” and “force officials to disassociate themselves from Exxon.”
A former member of Greenpeace’s Board of Directors, Kenny Bruno, last year tweeted,
“I don’t want to abolish Exxon. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
If it wasn’t already abundantly obvious, these latest developments just go to show how much credulity Greenpeace has.
I hope Resolute takes these eco-clowns for every penny they have and they get shut down. Like the case won against Gawker for defamation, they deserve it.
Translation: We don’t tell the truth. We are activists, not scientists and we just want your money. Send more. Do it today. Save our budget.
I always thought their name should be spelled Green Piece (of the $$$$$$ pie)!
Excellent post Anthony.
In my opinion, the Rockefeller organizations are the main driver of natural resource global control and restrictions and all that follows.
Fun fact: Rockefeller money helped create the International Press Institute shortly after WWII. At one point, they had over 1000 news sources around the world under it’s wing. Now its funded in part by George Soros.
What major US news organizations are under it? Below are some of them from their 2011 annual report:
Andrews McMeel Universal USA
Associated Press (AP) USA
Columbia University School of Journalism USA
CNN USA
Delphos Herald Inc. USA
GlobalPost USA
LA Times-Washington Post news Service USA
Missouri School of Journalism USA
San Francisco Bay Guardian USA
Scripps Howard Foundation USA
St. Petersburg Times USA
The Boston Globe USA
The Honolulu Advertiser USA
The Manhattan Mercury (Seaton Newspapers) USA
The New York Times USA
The Oregonian USA
The Philadelphia Inquirer USA
The Plain Dealer USA
The Seattle Times USA
The Toledo Blade & The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette USA
The Week Magazine USA
University of Miami School of Communication USA
University of Missouri School of Journalism USA Watertown Daily Times USA
source:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20141130184500/http://www.freemedia.at/fileadmin/resources/application/IPI_Annual_Report_2011_Final.pdf
Do the Koch Brothers have anything under their wings that compare to this?
If you can’t monopolize, make it harder for your competition to do business because you can absorb the cost. That’s been the Rockefeller way since they couldn’t sabotage the competition the old fashioned way.
Its still a monopolistic practice. And therefore BAD for economic prosperity.
The solution is to make impossible for government to help one company over another.
Reality, sanity, scientific integrity, factual observed data, and time favors the skeptic view.
The null hypothesis prevails, there is no difference in global temperature caused by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. The biological effect of increased CO2 from 300 ppm to 400 ppm is a positive benefit for global ecosystems.
Notice how the vast majority of those newspapers and magazines are located in hotbeds of Marxist/Socialist Progressive (aka communist) Democrat-controlled areas–be they cities or states.
Apparently they’ve been successful at “educating” their readers.
The best outcome is that Greenpeace loses the case horribly AND it becomes generally recognized that their opinions are about as honest and serious as an SNL skit.
“Greenpeace IS full of sh*t … let me preach on it.”
Amen, brother.
So isn’t Middlebury College… My guess is weepy Bill Mckibben, Van Jones and the former Queen of the US too….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-03/middlebury-professor-assaulted-injured-while-escorting-conservative-speaker#comment-9123656
Full of scheisse and should lose tax exempt. Someone put that bug in Trumps ear!
Is this another example of Fake News?
This is an article about the source of fake climate ‘change’/environmental news.
It is an obvious in your face fact, that Greenpeace and a cottage industry of cult of CAGW supporters/groups/political parties tell lies to push a ‘vision’ which is completely removed from reality.
CAGW is 100% fake news.
Fake news is required if facts and logic do not support a cult’s agenda.
Patrick Moore should be near the top of any list of experts on the subject of how global climate relates to global biology/ecology.
Here is his summary of the issue delivered to the GWPF in 2015
http://www.thegwpf.org/patrick-moore-should-we-celebrate-carbon-dioxide/
“To conclude, carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the stuff of life, the staff of life, the currency of life, indeed the backbone of life on Earth.”
Also, his insider knowledge of the workings of Greenpeace makes him a true weapon against their claims.
“It will come as no surprise that Greenpeace is also funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund, the same groups that have been bankrolling #ExxonKnew every step of the way.”
It seems that the Rockefeller Foundation got a lot of influence:
“At a special advisory meeting at the United Nations held on 11 January 2002 where science for sustainability was discussed in a day-long meeting with the Secretary-General, it was publicly requested by Kofi Annan speaking to Bruce Alberts that the IAC should work with the Rockefeller Foundation to produce a list of recommendations for him within 12 months.”
IAC is Inter Academy Council – the reviewer of United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
http://interacademycouncil.net/23450/27010/27025.aspx
Smells fishy.
Peter Foster: Resolute Forest Products uses mafia laws to go after the eco ‘mob’
Peter Foster…
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/index.html?q=resolute+forestry
Greenpeace have ideals. That’s easier then principles.
Principles need trust (or hope) that you understand what the right thing to do is. That’s impossible for a fundamental relativist.
But it is possible for those who think that a simple rule is enough justification to act upon. Now, I agree with the Golden Rule “Do unto others as you want done unto you”; but that is simple…
Some others believe “Might is Right” or it wouldn’t work. Wrong. In my opinion.
But Ideals are easy.
So for Idealists what you do is closer to the Ideal – so you can do something, anything, with confidence (take that relativism!)
And you don’t need to judge what you do – everything that feels ideal – then – is right at that time. At ‘then’.
And ideals are for the ‘then’. They don’t need to be right for all time. So if they are dipping in Right.
as they speak then that is acceptable. Rightness moves in waves, unless you believe that truth is (or tends towards the…) real and permanent.
Greenpeace act as though they believe that truth is never real, that there are no principles.
Just convenient for now.
MC a friend of mine – a professional boxer – had this Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have others do unto you……..but do it first!”
The version I heard was more pointed:
“Do unto others . . . first!”
Niccolo Machiavelli put it this way or something like it in The Prince: “Treat men generously or destroy them. It is the wont of man to take revenge for the slightest injuries. For fatal ones, they cannot.”
The problem is that even the dead still have friends and relatives, who can and will take revenge on their behalf. So then you have to kill the friends and relatives as well. The problem is that these people also have friends and relatives ad infinitum.
Of course. The philosophy of the New Left is massively muddled when it comes to truth: Having got the point that truth is relative to language and culture, they failed to get the point that its also relative to something that is actually real. Any farmer or engineer can tell you that there are things that simply happen or don’t happen whether you believe in them or not. Overwhelmingly the New Left is liberal arts as opposed to science, and urban.
They exist in a world constructed by humans, so its natural to think that everything is a human construction – even climate, and so what people believe naturally becomes the truth.
Hereabouts we call that ‘magic thinking’
The easiest and a cheap way to expose their hipocrisy and to destroy Greenpeace and its devil child Sea Shepherd is to open a ‘Go Fund Me’ to send their leaders to protest the dredging and coral destruction in the Spratly Islands.
No Lawyers required.
Sue the donors and sponsors like Bob Barker who donated their pirate boat. Sue the foundations that collaborate with GP to plan how to slander, liable and defame.
Sue the faux journalists who enable them by repeating unchallenged their press releases as if they are actual news.
Etc.
Good point.
Solyndra went bankrupt…but its CEOs didn’t.
Instead of just holding a company or origination responsible legally and financially, we need a bit more of holding the individuals involved responsible.
(Might also be nice if they stopped treating whatever a John or Jane Doe left behind as if there was suddenly a new person named “The Estate of ….” and then taxed what they left behind for their kids or whoever as if “The Estate of ….” was a real person who, as suddenly as they came into being, received an income that needs to be taxed.)
98% of estates are not taxed. And much of the wealth in the other 2% has NEVER been taxed. It is stocks that are passed on, companies, or properties.
It has ALL been taxed. YOu need a better fake news source.
Wrong.
My Dad paid taxes on his income and property all his life.
After he died, his estate was taxed again, taxed to the point that the Government took a larger part of what he’d worked for and had already paid taxes on than any of his heirs.
Even if true, so what?
In my experience, the people who are opposed to letting others inherent, have no chance of inheriting anything themselves.
Let’s say Greenpeace wins. That is the end of slander and defamation lawsuits. One just has to say it was hyperbole and sarcasm and I didn’t really mean it (sarcastically noting afterward that yes you did).
BE, not this time. They are well and truly caught out.
GMAFB!? The F word fad is getting very, very tiresome. Express yourself like an adult or you will discourage people from reading valuable information.
Sometime it’s a life saver as it was for this North Staffordshire Regiment contingent whose hard swearing identified them.
Even by the standards of the British Army, the Regiment (and the 1st Battalion in particular) seems to have gained a reputation during the First World War for profane language. When the 1st Battalion was relieved in the front line following its defence of Delville Wood in September 1916, one of the advanced posts was missed out by mistake. The Lance-Corporal in command, suspecting something was amiss, sent a man back to the front-line trench to investigate. The soldier realised he was at some risk of being shot by his own side, and so “when he had crawled within shouting distance he enquired politely but firmly what —— bastards were holding that —— trench. The 9th East Surreys, who were the troops thus addressed, recognised the North Stafford idiom and let him in unhurt.
@Ken
Not a fad. I learned my profanity skills from my WWII navy vet father and salty friends. That how men talk, you may be confused by boys imitating men trying to be cool. It is also the responsibility a father or uncle to teach the approach time and place. Usually at 13 years old. You can never tell your mother to FO and can only say that to your father when you think you can back it up.
Never said to my father. Came close one Thanksgiving home on leave. I found my self off the ground and at the end of the block before my feet touched the ground again with my Korean War vet brother-in-law showing how the army breaks up a fight between sailors old and young. It took my sister and I a long time to understand survivor guilt was the root cause of dysfunctional family holidays.
Best communication I heard in the control room of a nuke was, “Whoever f**k*n did something un-f**k*n do it.” Damn negative temperature coefficient.
My wife, the church lady, likes me to refrain from the use of the F-word. And that point I was working at a desk. Oh phooey my computer crashed.
My wife and I were sailing in a regatta (a f**k*n race followed by beer drinking and lying). We were the last boat in a line of six on the same tack with the bigger faster boats pulling away. It was text book start and a beautiful to watch.
So while we were at risk of a collision, while racing everyone is paying attention. Except for Darryl 20 feet in front of us. In front of Darryl, the boat had lost control and the dynamics were such that Darryl’s was going ton be decapitated. I yell, “hey Darryl”. Darryl smiles and waves looking back at us. Church lady screams and Darryl looks in the direction he should have been looking all along putting the helm over at the last minute but too late to avoid a collision. The fore stay was sheared but the mast did not come down. Easier to replace than body parts.
If ever there was a time for the F-word.
Foul language was never allowed to be used in my family. When parents use foul language, then their children will learn to do this as well.
This lends itself to so many bad jokes:
/rimshot
Need to read this: http://business.financialpost.com/news/agriculture/court-dismisses-vexatious-allegations-by-resolute-forest-products-against-greenpeace
Canada, not US. And appealable.
“Need to read this:”
Yep.
johnfpittman March 3, 2017 at 4:29 pm
note the date of your link. “Sean Craig | September 2, 2016 4:46 PM ET”
note the date of the article under discussion
“2:02pm EST March 3, 2017
by Katie Brown, PhD”
Events have moved past the information within your link and it is now only a irrelevant footnote in history.
You don’t have to concern yourself with it, rest easy, G.P. is going to be scalped and skinned, so be of good spirits
michael
The Sept 2016 Financial Post article cited by johnfpittman, does however, include an amount of $7M requested by the Resolute Forest Products Inc. in its suit against Greenpeace. And according to the financial report for “GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL & RELATED ENTITIES,” 2015 (I assume 2016 is not yet available) Total Assets were €59M. I assume this is the Greenpeace being sued. Don’t know about the Rico suit and just being a humble engineer, I hope I read the annual report correctly.
History of the decisions sets the stage for what can be expected. I don’t want to see them scalped as much as see the manner of the scalp. That will be more important when it comes to the Georgia case. Many of the same or similar motions are likely to be made in the US case. Bet the US lawyers suing GP are familiarizing themselves with the motions and arguments in preparation for the same or similar in US Court.
If Greenpeace have admitted they make up their claims, that could prove interesting in any Law Court that they may find themselves in, whether as Witnesses, or Defendants.
If sections of their fundraising activities are based on false claims, some may regard it as fraud.
It took a while but maybe Greenpeace has finally gotten enough rope to hang itself. Its useful life is far past the expiration date.
AW has a much stronger case against the defamation of him (not mere hyperbole but malicious falsehoods) on the SourceWatch site. A win against them would have great impact in several ways.
Resolute is well named.
I wish more corporations would show a bit of backbone. Too many of them appear to think that the likes of Greenpeace might leave them alone if they bow down, afraid of adverse publicity. The reality is that appeasement fails in the long term. The rabid environmentalists will never be satiated.
So, is Greenpeace filing an amicus brief on behalf of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg regarding “hyperbole” and aggressive assertions of opinion? Would Greenpeace agree that characterizing a dispute regarding statistical analysis as “molesting the data” and an — arguably — oversimplified and over-advertised graph as “fraudulent” are fair comment on a public issue? Will Greenpeace and CEI/NRO make common cause against SLAPP-happy litigants like Michael Mann, (PhD, Nobel “Laureate”, and ringmaster of the the tree-ring circus) ?
Will pigs fly?
Indeed, NRO(but not Mark Steyn) makes the exact case of ‘non-verifiable’. This doesn’t mean the statements are false, merely that Greenpeace feels they are within the bounds of free speech. Greenpeace should make a submission on behalf of NR and CEI.
Didn’t you get the memo? Mike Mann’s climate papers were just “hyperbole”.
Perhaps the judge could require Green Peace to add the disclaimer “Parody” to every communication they issue. They’ve admitted that the statements were false. As such, any other statement they make must be suspect, including any other explanation of their intent in making the original false statement. Therefore the judge could estimate their intent in any way he chooses and it would be more trustworthy. And, since they did nothing to warn readers of the falsity of this or any other statement, a permanent, ubiquitous disclaimer would be justified.
Other possible disclaimers are left to the reader.
The court should also permit anyone who made a donation to GreenPeas based on these falsehoods to have their donations refunded. Perhaps with interest.
It varies some by state, but your general premise is clearly wrong. Corporations are ‘legal persons’ under US law so subject to first amendment rights. See SCOTUS Citizens United lest you have any doubts.
FG, that is one reason countries are different, as Trump’s Deplorables have asserted.
Proctor and Gamble has sued people who claimed that it’s corporate logo was a satanic symbol.