The Greenpeace Defense

We can’t be sued because we deliberately lie engage in hyperbole.  That’s Greenpeace’s new story, and they’re sticking to it.  As cited by Watts Up With That, we get this from the Financial Post.  The proximate subject is Greenpeace’s accusations against Resolute Forest Products Inc, a Canadian forest-products company that’s suing Greenpeace over those, which Resolute holds are false claims and defamatory about the company’s forestry operations.

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.”

And

Greenpeace adds that its attacks on Resolute “are without question non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion and at most non-actionable rhetorical hyperbole.”

Hmm….

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