Unfortunately these kind of stories, disingenuous as they are, do serve to undermine the good efforts of groups such as Greenpeace. That is why it is so important that local groups take to the streets in their own areas to help educate and galvanise the public.
The environmental activist group Climate Rush are doing just that in September.....they will be trotting through various towns in South West England in horses and carts complete with solar panels and wind turbines. Their roadshow aims to highlight the importance of the upcoming Copenhagen talks in December in setting the course of future government action and hopefully turning up the pressure on the British government to act rather than waffle.
Please visit our website www.climaterush.co.uk for more information and how you can get involved.

Beautifully put Brian, well done!

No what is unfortunate is that this "clarification" is coming out only after you scared people.

Greenpeace seems to have quite a problem with its former leaders speaking out in contradiction of their former policies.

re Not Evil just Wrong and Jeremy - As is abundantly clear from the original web piece, this post and the video, at no stage did we make the claim Steven Sackur attributed to us.

So, we did nothing wrong, haven't changed our position and, I think this is the important point here, we're right.

my mother reckons that climate change is to put it basically, just a natural nature change that has happened before? I wonder if this has anything to do with the said incoming planet X in 2012 that is bounding around the net and youtube in particular. I read somewhere that all the planets are heating up? Can Greenpeace clarify any of this as it is also said that greenpeace has been and is infiltrated with Government

I saw that interview when it was aired originally. I think the BBC should change the name of their show to 'Hard to Talk' as they clearly don't know what the f#$k they are saying (or trying to say) half the time. In any case, well done Dr. Leipold.

Actions must be taken at earliest to aviod apocalypse. International communities should come closer to share information on such issues...

@Jeremy: Looking at the original article the only thing I see here is a journalist not doing his job. Maybe even doing a dishonest one as the Greenpeace article is clear to everyone but the most casual reader.

If climate sceptics have to use this kind of misinformation as a real argument they're pretty similar to people defending a flat-earth theory in a time of space flight (or everyone living after Aristotle discussed some good arguments in the lovely SF novel "Physics")..

Jeremy: Gerd is hardly a "former leader". He's still gonna be around for a few months.

It's a pity that eager journalists such as Sackur would try to get a career bonus by asking a hard or smart question without thinking of the consequences. Misleading or should I say manipulation is not good journalism. He has, unfortunately, missed the point from the start, which is that sea-ice is threatened, but the subject subsided, gone from the conversation all together. But there's a lesson here, much more information is needed out there on the streets, hard facts, not fiction, so that questions like these would sound senseless from the start! Hang in there.

What about his contention that the pro AGM camp should instill "emotionalism" in the public in order to further your agenda?

Sorry. I'm still not impressed. No contribution for you!

Greenpeace!I trust u full

Everyday we hear more bad news about our planet. Reports tell us that wild-life and forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Newscasts give the latest word on how quickly earth is losing its protective shield and warming up. Newspapers lament the pollution of air, water, and soil. What can we do in the face of such widespread gloom?
In fact, we do not have to feel helpless. We can each learn practical ways to better our environment.

For example, saving and recycling newspapers has a number of positive results. First, recycling newspaper saves trees. The average American consumes about 120 pounds of newsprint a year-enough to use up one tree. That means close to 250 million trees each year are destroyed for paper in this country alone.

Can you see the sea ice?

I'd rather trust the information coming from NASA than a jumped up wanna be BBC reporter trying to twist out a mistaken nuance that someone has feed him to try and catch a scientist out on public TV.

Nice try Stephen Sackur and those with vested oil interests. Bzzzz FAIL!

if we don't stop climate change, things like droughts,floods ,epidemics etc will happen and then you will get emotional art read.

Oh, they've done things like that to Greenpeace before, in Germany for example they claimed it was funded by a discounter chain to improve pesticide rankings. it was always an uproar and they always had to admit Greenpeace was right... As an organization so popular and dangerous to big industry, Greenpeace sadly has to watch out for slander such as this.

The specific factoid in does not matter. What matters is the fact that Leipold admitted that Greenpeace International "emotionalizes" issues; "Emotionalizes" being a greenwashed word for "scare-tactics", "appeal to emotion", "un-scientific behaviour" and in the worst cases "lying".

If GI can't argue their cases without "emotionalizing", they are not only justifying skeptisism, but rather necessitating it. This confession shows that scrutiny is long overdue. It proves it's time we started looking at if you know what the hell you are talking about or just bilking us for money with whatever fairy stories you can come up with...

It is getting beyond a joke now. I too fell for the global warming nonsense at one point, but it is now time that everyone starting admitting that they have been fooled and started to move on. Blaming any attempt to discredit the lies that the environmental organisations constantly promote (and rely on for their funding) on "right-wing groups" is an old tactic that clearly isn't working any more in the 21st century. Grow up and give up on the global warming baloney because it is blatantly obvious to anyone that cares to educate themselves that the world is not warming.

Unfortunately the BBC is full of its own importance, and its so-called journalists, who get huge unwarranted and undeserved salaries (public money don't forget), never give anyone a chance to speak without interrupting; they love to hear the sound of their own voices. Also, big business is behind the BBC, so no wonder stories are twisted and lies told.

Greenpeace´s information about climate changes, smelting icebergs, tornados,epidemics and how fast we are approaching and end...is based in years of research, studies and scientific experiments.
How can a reporter wait that millions of people trust him instead of the important work of all the people that IS DOING something to avoid the worse?

Eagerly tuned in to see Gerd "handling the rest of the interview with his customary flare", but sadly no burning end to the BBC set to be found. I think you mean "flair" :)

All power to you though.

Editor: DOH. Thanks, Shaun. Corrected.

this video is on youtube,somebody should post a video response to that.anybody talented?

Your "either-or" dichotomistic ultimatum prompts my response, Michael Karnerfors.

Whether we are talking about the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, when a volcano will next erupt, or which horse is going to finish first in the 3rd race we are talking about the future. No one simply knows the future.

In scientific context Climate is different than the other two. My life, and I am sure the lives of many others, will continue as usual whether I and they never ever hear of what horse and which race. Volcanic eruptions are most often similar though there are exceptions. Most volcanic eruptions have little global effect and are directly noticeable only by the people close to the volcano. Climate is different.

With climate the scientist is part of the observed; s/he can not remove him/herself from Earths climate. The chemical composition of Earths climate is dependent upon life; s/he is part of it.

Now add in the fact that we do not simply know the future.

- - - - -

Our Home Earth did fine for many years without epidemic obsession with trade. The infection really did not start taking hold until 400, 500 years ago. Human-centric economy doesn’t really define the science of climatology, so if we are talking science let’s talk science.

Gerd seems to have clearly shown humility in addressing the subject. Given our ignorance, and the fact of our co-dependence with Earths climate, I think humility is a rational and logical approach.

Pulling one sentence out of context is a common mistake, and making a mountain out of it where no mountain was before seems perhaps inevitable given the interviewers position.

We might hope and think that Stephen Sackur would admit to the mistake. It's almost funny, in a way, this new reduction-then-expansion to a fantasy land. I might find it funny if mass media didn't run on and on with over simplifications of our intricately connected Earth, I might find it funny if not for the expected consequences of spinning in circles confused.

---

Dear Stephen Sackur,

WRONG!

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Yeah, Brian, this is worth spreading 'round and expounding upon.

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Seems media has been learning better that they are fallible as time goes on, Pepijn, but I expect there will be the diehard denialists that may drag this latest diversion out in the coming years ... Yup, it needs to be shot down, and shot down hard.

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Ug; more out of context quoting and false conclusion. "Investors Business Daily" ( I never heard of them before ) and Yahoo propagate the misinterpretations:

"I don't think (the Greenland ice sheet) will be melting by 2030," he said. "That may have been a mistake."

"We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth," Leipold told the BBC's Stephen Sackur in the same interview in which he acknowledged Greenpeace's mistake."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20090820/bs_ibd_ibd/20090820issues01

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=504012&Ntt=Consensus

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Yeah, Martin. Well said.

"But this wasn't a fair fight. This was Gerd being asked to defend a distortion of what our web story said. Bottom line: there's nothing to repudiate -- just something to clarify."

Fix a distortion?? He read it word for word from the article. If Gerd is a climate scientist as you claim he should have easily been able to point out as you claim that the wording only applies to sea ice and has nothing to do with the 3 km thick land ice. Instead he is also 'deceived' just as any non-climatologist would be (as intended) and launches into some startling admissions on how they try to elicit emotional responses to drive their agenda by playing fast-and-loose with facts (or at least their wording of facts).

This response does not offer any real of defense to anyone who actual watches this clip objectively.

What I find greatly irritating is the religious zeal of too many of the Global Warming Movement. The idea that Global Warming is an “existential threat” (a quote from the Greenpeace speaker in the video clip) is ludicrous from a scientific perspective.
Global Warming theories vary, but from what I’ve heard NONE of them predict an apocalypse, the end of humanity, etc... It is left to the loonies in the crowd, which like any such group tend to get the most airtime and tend to do the best at discrediting themselves.
It is unfortunate that Greenpeace would debase themselves by pandering to the alarmist crowd. Greenpeace should be at the forefront of calling for a balanced and holistic view towards environmentalism, not this kind of debasing environmentalism into some kind of new religion.

The world has become more perilous than vested interests would have us believe. What deeply concerns me is WHY are they trying so hard to stymie us????

There has to be an agenda besides money and power to so inspire them to continue their mindless aggression against us.

Many thanks Dr Gerd Leipold for your ongoing efforts to keep the establishment honest, or at least running scared. More Power to you. God Bless ;)

Sadly those who must still keep their heads in the sand must perhaps take the brunt of the global warming consequences harder than the rest of us, due to the time and shock factor that their denial has engendered.
Denial has been growing stronger of late due to increased collective fear, fear which is transported through the collective human psyche much like hysteria transmitted in a soccer fan riot scenario.

We can never convince those too instilled in fear to wake up, as it is too painful for these ones to ever live in truth, that they leave to others so that they have something to jeer at, so they feel justified in their position.

Hello every body you can see that the gorverment do not want to take part in a major GREEN CHANGE,

WHY?
Because there is less money to be made when going green, Eg there are ideas of a small windturibe on your car so, it can power your car when your car is moving, when you fist buy the car it would need a small electric to power it but only the first time.

There are other ideas to water powered cars to water powered batteriys that can be reused, this is possible to make energy with water there is very small products that are powered by water Eg there is a water powered clock.

To Dean: And just where have you been educating yourself? Maybe you should turn a little of that skepticism upon your own sources and see what lies you find.

The world is warming - granted, it won't be hotter every year than the last since climate is always variable - but there's an upward trend that could in time see us struggling in a world that's far less conducive to human life than the world we live in today. And I'd say that's worth getting emotional about! We have only this earth, nowhere else to go. Just remember that.

What an egoistic dumbass, this Mr. Stephen Sackur from BBC!

Either, he is too stupid to understand a normal-language text where you can't rip something out of its context or he wants to profit at the Earth's expense!

Nobody should even listen to such an idiot! He should be sued for damaging Greenpeace's reputation!

Dear Friends,

These medias are just doing their business.Let us move on and forget these scientist who are victimizing us greenpeace.

Maybe this is just a systematic way to introduce a destructive technology.Climate change for me is created by imbalance of world ecosystem,like the destruction of forest that serves as mechanism to absorb heat and the production of oxygen in the planet.The melting of Antarctic is connected to the patterns of the Sun or movement of the equator and the destruction of forest in the southern hemisphere connected to the heat in the northern hemisphere.Greenhouse gasses for me is not true,it contributes in confusions and next to that is economic problems.Keep pace is the answer to promote economic recovery.Seeds is the answer to rebuild ecosystems,to rebuild planet shield from the heat of the sun.

"Your "either-or" dichotomistic ultimatum prompts my response, Michael Karnerfors. "

I think you replied to the wrong speaker since nothing I wrote is even close to what you responded to.

/Michael

Conclusion - If GI can't argue their cases without "emotionalizing", they are not only justifying skeptisism, but rather necessitating it. This confession shows that scrutiny is long overdue.

Either-or dichotomistic ultimatum - It proves it's time we started looking at if you know what the hell you are talking about or just bilking us for money with whatever fairy stories you can come up with...

Oh, I replied to the right person, Michael Karnerfors.

When ignorance is a pertinent and significant part of a scientific analysis as it is in this case of projecting the trend of a dynamic system, in contrast to, say, observations of a chemical reaction or a physical balance, many observers and analysts struggle with the realities of the observed. It's a common human fallacy; admission to ignorance is a defacto admission to vulnerability. Some people, too many people, are loathe to admit so; admission to ignorance is not very popular in both economic and political contexts.

Yet our ignorance of climate is a fact. Climate is unconquered. Humility in our analyses and projections of climate is scientifically rational and logical.

It might be good at this time to look for examples of how in reality we are vulnerable, but either way, rather than get lost down tangents of the blame game or lost in semantics, me, I’d like to thank Gerd ( and others )for the foresight of a deep analysis and for his courage to stand ( alright, sit ) in public and expound upon that analysis. Oh, and don’t forget to bark like a dog.

Arf Arf,

listenin

It's kinda sad that many are still in denial, and that the sooner the world wakes up, the sooner we actually care enough to do something about this earth we're killing.
I always hear people argue back that climate change issues aren't real problems, but exaggerations. Ignorance is bliss, true, but it's not going to solve our problems.

What the world really needs I think is roll back the prices of fuels to be able for us to effectively do what is necessary.

FYI, the BBC is still, itself, using the phrase, "...Arctic will be ice-free by 2030..."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8213884.stm

This isn't emotionalizing the issue, or inaccurate in any way. If you read the sentence in context then sea ice context is there (same as with the Greenpeace press release).

"it is blatantly obvious to anyone that cares to educate themselves that the world is not warming."

Where exactly did you "educate yourself"? Obviously not by looking at the actual peer-reviewed science (found, for example, on realclimate.org), which completely contradicts your claim.