This is known as being economical with the truth

Actually, the technical term for this is lying but economical with the actualité sounds so much better.

I was scrolling through the Big Hollywood site, the right-wing answer to just about everything that passes for film and related criticism these days, and found this interesting little story.

It would appear that Greenpeace has not been telling the truth. Well, they say they made a mistake but since this mistake was quite a crucial one and since many of the climate change fanatics base all sorts of demands that include higher taxes and more stifling regulation on that mistake, one cannot help wondering.

First of all, let us look back at the press release issued by Greenpeace on July 15 of this year, in which they asserted that urgent action was needed as Arctic ice was melting.

Arctic ice is melting at an unprecedented rate. As scientists on board the Arctic Sunrise gather more data showing the urgency of the situation, world leaders stay inactive.

For the past two weeks, scientists and crew from the Arctic Sunrise have been busy gathering data, collecting samples and setting up cameras to record the break-up of the Petermann glacier, one of Greenland's largest. A large crack has been forming for the past few years, and a massive piece of the glacier is expected to break off soon.

Dear me, one might say. Well, one can say all one likes but, it appears that this press release is deeply misleading. According to the story on Big Hollywood, “Lies Revealed — Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration, by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney,

The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.

Oh really? And, ahem, how did this mistake come about? That is not quite clear from the piece but what appeared rather odd was that Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, admitted this while being questioned rather severely on the BBC. The BBC? Whatever next?

Apparently, there is a programme called Hardtalk, which is shown on BBC World News and broadcast on the BBC News Channel (so there can be no fears of any domestic audience finding out about this) and Stephen Sackur attacked Mr Leipold in no uncertain terms.

In fact, he did a good deal more than just suggesting “that confrontational campaigning may not be the best way to win the argument over climate change”. He accused Greenpeace of putting out highly misleading information, particularly on the subject of that supposedly melting Arctic ice.

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.

So it is perfectly all right to tell lies in the cause of some higher truth and to insist, also falsely, that the lies are, in fact, scientifically proven truths. Furthermore, on the basis of those lies Mr Leipold can, quite shamelessly, still assert that growth in the United States must slow down because it is not sustainable, even though the evidence he has produced for its lack of sustainability is false.

Let us not even talk about the fact that economic growth in the USA is more than just lifestyle for the rich but a considerable improvement for the poor, many of whom would otherwise live in conditions Mr Leipold cannot even envisage.