Last updated on March 1, 2013
Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International appeared on the BBC show “Hardtalk”.
When pressed about a specific issue where Greenpeace appeared to have exaggerated their claims, Leipold admitted they are “emotionalizing issues”, and that they do it willfully and consciously. He went on to defend this practice saying that they do not feel they gain enough sympathy for their statements if they do not “emotionalize” their messages.
We, as a pressure group, have to emotionalize issues, and we are not ashamed of emotionalizing issues.
Gerd Leipold – Executive Director of Greenpeace International, 2009
He may call it “emotionalizing”, but that is merely a euphemism for scare-tactics, FUD and propaganda. When he calls it “emotionalizing” he is in effect green-washing the act of lying.
Greenpeace was not late to react to this and the signature “Brian” posted a blog entry lambasting BBC, saying they got it wrong about the factoid that triggered the confession. But while that blog post may be technically correct, it is insignificant because Leipold still admitted that “emotionalizing” is indeed a Greenpeace tactic.
If Greenpeace cannot argue their cases without “emotionalizing”, they are not only justifying skepticism, but rather necessitating it. This confession shows that scrutiny is long overdue. It proves it’s time we started looking at if they know what the heck they are talking about or just bilking sympathizers for money with whatever fairy stories they can come up with.
After all… we don’t exactly lack examples of “emotionalizing” in the nuclear issue from Greenpeace…
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well, every organization has a nut, not saying Gerd is one but, everybody uses scare tactics, its how we get ahead of the competition. You’ve gotta see thats what this all turned into, so stop looking at the people and look at the facts. And greenpeace has lots of those. so do you. but they have moar. 😀 legion rules!
Why do you think we started this site? You may think it’s allright to replace facts with spin… I don’t.
And no, Greenpeace does not have any “facts” on their side in this. Their entire campaign is based entirely on scare tactics.
/Michael
whoa, entireley? you’d think they would have been shut down by now.
Why? Scare tactics work.
I hate to go Godwin but… well… entire countries have fallen for scare tactics… even though the claims were much more rediculous than what the anti-nukes are presenting.
/Michael
clearly edumakated people should run countries! do they not?
I’d say that educatable people should run it… whose that haev the ability to quickly take in information… analyze it objectively and come to a conclusion.
I’m kind of Douglas Adams on the issue… with The Ruler Of The Universe as my theoretically ideal government. No prejudice and a keen sense of self-analysis and self-awareness.
/Michael
…analysis seems to be lacking, and i do know how to spell, thank you very much mr. smatypants!
I wasn’t attackign your spelling, I was making the distinction between educated and educatable people. Beaing able to learn quickly is more important than already being learned.
/Michael