Patrick Moore, who made a point of noting he'd been a founding member of Greenpeace Canada, said he's appalled by the "campaign of fear" being waged by what he called the "left-wing extremists" who have taken over Greenpeace since he quit the group in the mid-'80s.

In a speech that kicked off Bio 2002, an international biotech industry conference at the Metro Convention Centre, Moore cited example after example of anti-biotech campaigns that he said have no basis in fact, including fears that genetically modified cotton is eliminating a species of parasite.

Moore's critics accuse him of being a front man for the logging industry. Moore acknowledges his family has owned a British Columbia- based logging company for four generations, called J.D. Moore Ltd., and he sits on the board of the B.C. Forest Alliance, an industry lobby group.