(May 3, 2007) Although it's hardly reflected by reality the nuclear industry is doing very well in rhetoric's and nuke-speak. Not only have they managed to let people believe that new nuclear plants are being build all over the globe, more and more people also believe that we need nuclear energy to combat climate change. Patrick Moore is often mentioned as a Greenpeace founder who now believes in nuclear energy. But what about his credentials?
(655.5798) WISE Amsterdam - In this PR battle the nuclear industry has been organising help from former environmentalists like former Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore. They never tell that he is paid by a group bankrolled by the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). NEI represents nuclear power plant operators, plant designers, fuel suppliers and other sectors of the nuclear power industry. Hill & Knowlton is NEI's public relations firm, though it's not the only firm working to build support for nuclear power.
In January 2006, NEI signed an US$ 8 million (Euro 5.5 million) contract with Hill & Knowlton. The objectives included developing "a national coalition that would 'activate and expand on' existing nuclear energy supporters, engaging employees, shareholders, academics, health experts, and environmental organizations," and "'pre-empting and offsetting' criticism from opponents,"
Building the Nuclear CASE
With Hill & Knowlton's help, NEI launched what is possibly its greatest PR triumph. The Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy) held its inaugural press conference on April 24, 2006, just two days before the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. CASEnergy is fully funded by NEI, and supported by Hill & Knowlton.
CASEnergy is not the first business-funded coalition to support nuclear power, but the others never received the attention that CASEnergy is now enjoying.
That's due in large part to the choice of Patrick Moore as CASEnergy's co-chair and most public spokesperson. As he explained at the group's launch, Moore's role is to "speak and write to press the group's agenda, as well as to coordinate efforts," reported Nucleonics Week. His past work with Greenpeace has proved an irresistible hook for many reporters, even though his association with that group ended in 1986. Moore has now spent more time working as a PR consultant to the logging, mining, biotech, nuclear and other industries (since at least 1991, or 16 years) than he did as an environmental activist (from 1971 to 1986, or 15 years). Part of the thinking, surely, was that the press would peg Moore as an dedicated environmentalist who has turned into pro-nuke cheerleaders. And it works. From tiny local to influential national daily papers and television Moore is being referred to as either a Greenpeace founder or an environmentalist, without mentioning that he is also a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry.
Both NEI and Moore decline to say how much he's paid. Presumably, the nuclear industry feels it's getting its money's worth. A Nexis news database search on March 1, 2007 identified 302 news items about nuclear power that cite Moore, since April 2006. Only 37 of those pieces -- 12 percent of the total -- mention his financial relationship with NEI.
Industry representatives don't just showcase Moore to reporters. In response to a safety question at a public debate on nuclear power in Wisconsin (USA) , on December 7, 2006, another NEI's spokesperson said, "Patrick Moore, the former co-founder of Greenpeace -- he's now very in favour of nuclear power -- often brings up an example of the Bhopal disaster in India, 1986 -- a huge chemical accident. ... It was a disaster. But the response was not, 'We have to close down the chemical industry.' The response was, 'We have to make the chemical industry safer.' And that's exactly what nuclear has done, after Chernobyl and after Three Mile Island." She did not disclose Moore's paid position with NEI. When asked about it, the NEI spokesperson responded, "You can't change his mind with money."
Current Greenpeace leaders and other environmental activists have repeatedly distanced themselves from Moore and questioned his claims. According to Greenpeace advisor Harvey Wasserman "Moore exaggerates his role in Greenpeace and his credentials as a scientist to serve as a public relations hack." But these protestations have mostly been ignored. When they are raised, Moore dismisses them as further proof of the irrationality of his former colleagues.
Source and contact: extracted from a much more detailed article written by Diane Farsetta, Centre for Media and Democracy, March 14, 2007 and published at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/5833