Source: SPPI
by Dennis Ambler
Matthew 7:5 – Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
As Greenpeace publishes yet another attack on a reputable scientist, (Dr Willie Soon), who happens to disagree with the IPCC, they again ignore the massive funding going into the “green” movement, from corporations including “big oil”, foundations and governments.
Their constant attacks on the integrity of genuine scientists are classic diversionary tactics to avoid close examination of the millions of dollars going into the Global Warming project. A commentary by David and Amy Ridenour in the Washington Times of June 14th last year, showed the major extent of funding to environmental groups by BP, who were being attacked by those same groups over the oil spill in the Gulf.
BP was also a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, (not the same as the Climate Action Network) contributing substantial funding to the climate-change-related lobbying efforts of the environmental groups within it, which include the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nature Conservancy and the World Resources Institute.
The new “climate friendly” BP was first promoted by BP CEO, Lord John Browne in 1997, (then Sir John Browne), now on the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank along with Dr Pachauri of the IPCC and Professor John Schellnhuber of the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
A report in the Washington Examiner, entitled “Working for Big Green can be a very enriching experience” by Mark Tapscott, showed that the leaders of 15 top Big Green environmental groups are paid more than $300,000 in annual compensation, with a half million dollar plus figure for the top “earner”.
He mentions that Environmental Defense Fund President Frederic Krupp, receives total compensation of $496,174, including $446,072 in salary and $50,102 in other compensation.
Close behind Krupp among Big Green environmental movement executives is World Wildlife Fund- US President Carter Roberts, who was paid $486,394, including a salary of $439,327 and other compensation of $47,067.
Krupp and Roberts are particularly interesting because EDF and WWF-US both receive funding from the Grantham Foundation and both are on the joint management board of Jeremy Grantham’s climate institutes at the London School of Economics, (LSE), and Imperial College, London.
Jeremy Grantham is the chairman and co-founder of GMO, a $140 billion global investment management company based in Boston with offices in London, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney and Zurich.
His first excursion into climate funding in the UK was “The Grantham Institute for Climate Change” set up with £12 million, (~$19million) at Imperial College, London in 2007. The chairman of the LSE Grantham Institute, Lord Stern of the infamous Stern Review, is heavily involved in carbon trading via carbon ratings agency, Idea Carbon. He joined IdeaGlobal, the parent company in 2007, as Vice Chairman. He also advises HSBC on carbon trading.
Environmental Defense boast on their website of their influence on policy in Washington and how they get around the law on lobbying caps: http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=8943
“EDF has long been a powerful voice in Washington, and when the need began to exceed the $1 million annual cap on our lobbying established by tax law, we created a sister group, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, which is free of spending limits. This has enabled us to ratchet up our legislative efforts, particularly on climate, and to advocate strong environmental laws even as the stakes increase.”
A BBC investigation in 2007 by reporter Simon Cox found that the European Commission is giving millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to environmental campaigners to run lobbying operations in Brussels. Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE), received almost half of its funding from the EU in 2007.
Greenpeace also don’t mention the money that the EPA gives to NGO’s, for example National Resources Defense Council are currently in receipt of a grant of $1,150,123, (XA – 83379901-2) for promoting carbon trading.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) has received $3,879,014 from the EPA in the last nine years for propaganda projects and promotion of emissions trading schemes, $715,000 in the current period 2011/12. If the EPA really were interested in science, they would be funding the genuine research undertaken by people like Dr Soon, rather than policy promotion for their own agenda.
Members of the board of WRI, are Al Gore and Theodore Roosevelt IV. Mr Roosevelt is the chairman of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. and is the former chairman of the ill-fated Lehman Brothers’ Global Council on Climate Change and a board member of the Alliance for Climate Protection, whose chairman is Al Gore. The 2008 income for Gore’s “Alliance” was over $88 million.
Greenpeace really should be very careful when they seek to muddy the waters on climate science by discrediting opposing scientists, they may well find that the water is full of dirty green linen.
See also SPPI paper by Joanne Nova: Climate Money
and Donna LaFramboise, BP, Greenpeace & the Big Oil Jackpot , the text of which follows here:
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BP, Greenpeace & the Big Oil Jackpot
In what passes for debate about climate change one of the most tiresome allegations is that skeptics are lavishly funded by big oil. As a result of this funding, so the argument goes, the public has been confused by those who’ll say anything in exchange for a paycheck.
“Follow the money” we’re told and you’ll discover that climate skeptics are irredeemably tainted. Ergo nothing they say can be trusted. Ergo their concerns, questions, and objections should be dismissed out of hand.
It’s therefore amusing that the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now drawing attention to the close relationship between climate change activists and BP – aka British Petroleum, an entity for which the descriptor “big oil” was surely invented.
According to the Washington Post the green group Nature Conservancy – which encourages ordinary citizens to personally pledge to fight climate change – “has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years.”
Gee, didn’t Greenpeace build an entire ExxonSecrets website to expose the allegedly diabolical fact that, over a 9-year-period (1998-2006) ExxonMobil donated a grand total of $2.2 million to a conservative think tank?
$10 million versus $2 million. Who do we suppose has the cozier relationship with big oil?
But that’s just the beginning. The Washington Post also points out that Conservation International, another green group which insists climate change represents a “profound threat,” has “accepted $2 million in donations from BP over the years and partnered with the company on a number of projects.”
Funny, Greenpeace doesn’t talk about that. Nor does it mention:
- that BP is funding research into “ways of tackling the world’s climate problem” at Princeton University to the tune of $2 million per year for 15 years
- that BP is funding an energy research institute involving two other US universities to the tune of $500 million – the aim of which is “to develop new sources of energy and reduce the impact of energy consumption on the environment”
- that ExxonMobil itself has donated $100 million to Stanford university so that researchers there can find “ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming”
The only dollar amounts Greenpeace cites in its explanation of why it decided to launch ExxonSecrets is that measly $2.2 million. Versus 10 + 2 + 30 + 500 + 100. Let’s see, which all adds up to…wait for it…$642 million.
If the world is divided into two factions – one that believes climate change is a serious problem and another that thinks human influence on the climate is so minimal it’s indistinguishable from background noise – one group has pulled off a bank heist while the other has been panhandling in front of the liquor store.
In the same document in which Greenpeace talks about the ExxonMobil money it chillingly asserts that climate “deniers” aren’t entitled to free speech. Why? Because “Freedom of speech does not apply to misinformation and propaganda.”
Actually, the big thinkers on the subject have consistently taken the opposite view. John Stuart Mill was adamant that no one has the right to decide what is or is not propaganda on everyone else’s behalf. He would have looked Greenpeace in the eye and told it to stop imagining that its own judgment is infallible.
More than a hundred years later Noam Chomsky famously declared that if you don’t believe in freedom of expression for opinions you despise you don’t believe in it at all.
If Greenpeace would like to have a serious conversation about who, exactly, is spreading misinformation I’m up for that – since it’s overwhelming obvious that the big oil jackpot was awarded to those on the Greenpeace side of the debate.
The fact that climate change activists have enjoyed such a powerful funding advantage and yet insisted all the while that the exact opposite was the case is troubling. It tells us a good deal about their intellectual rigour. About their character. And about their ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
If there really is a climate crisis, if our grandchildren’s future really is imperiled, these aren’t the people to lead us out of the wilderness.
UPDATE (June 6): Reader Terry Kesteloot alerted me to the fact that the Greenpeace.org website is apparently infected with a “very low” risk computer virus. The links in this post to Greenpeace’s ExxonSecrets FAQ have therefore been replaced with links to a copy of the document that resides at Archive.org (scroll down once the page loads).
If your machine has virus protection, the document may be viewed directly on the Greenpeace website HERE.
..
>> Independent bloggers vs corporate environmentalists
>> Shielding climate orthodoxy from free speech
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Whenever I travel to Brussels, capital of the EU, by train or airplane, I am impressed by the number of posters put up by the likes of Exxon, BP and Shell, telling the Eurocrats what a good job they are doing on GREEN ENERGY and how more EU taxpayer money shoud be directed to them so they can carry on the fight for a greener future.
Big business in the EU LOVES green. Green equals more taxes, and more taxes means more money spent on EU big business that they don’t have to fight the Chinese for, so that means big profits.
What say we get an opinion poll going: “How fast do you think sea level is rising?”
I just got three answers ranging from .5cm to 1 ft per year. Then send the results to the press and see what happens (almost nothing?). Or has this been done? –AGF
Maybe Greenpeace should use some of that $642m to update their firewall and security procedures?
Not to mention the money that the Suzuki Foundation receives from other Foundations and Trusts, mostly out of the US. I am sure an interesting tree of connections could be made if the donors to the various trusts and foundations were identified. It gets murkier and murkier and very political.
Here is an article from the Toronto Sun. It may be off base and totally wrong, but boy it makes you think a little and wonder what is sitting below the surface. Where is the rest of the iceberg.
http://m.torontosun.com/2011/06/17/saudis-have-west-over-a-barrel
PS Not aimed at Saudis in particular, but just to say the Environmental movement funding is complex.
That virus on the Greenpeace website is likely tracking and ID software. Just the type of thing these paranoids do.
In other words, once again Anthony’s line of argumentation amounts to “But, mommy, mommy, they did it fiiiiiirrrrrsssttt.”
How does Greenpeace’s funding alter where Soon get’s his funds? Tribalism begets tribalism, Anthony.
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REPLY: My goodness how juvenile. Do all people from UPenn act this way?
Point of order: before launching juvenile attacks, at least learn to read the header and launch the attack against the correct person.
In saying “once again Anthony’s line of argumentation amounts to …” he fails to notice the most basic and important point:
by Dennis Ambler
Please be cognizant of who you wish to insult before engaging your rant. – Anthony
How intellectually bankbrupt for Greenpeace to presume Dr. Soon is a “pawn” of “Big Oil” when they are much more in that pocket than any one else. And do they say which one of his works are tainted, inaccurate, etc. by this? Nope!
Greenpeace and the rest of Big Environment are just like Captain Renault shutting down Ric’s cafe in Casablanca because of gambling.
Greenpeace: “I’m shocked, SHOCKED!, that they received money from Big Oil.”
Courier: “Your donation from Exxon is here.”
Greenpeace: “Thank you very much.”
Gotta admit, though, that Soon did get a lot of money over recent years.
‘Boo-hoo the enviros get money too’ is a rather weak argument to counter a concealed conflict of interest of that magnitude.
Logs aren’t sustainable. Perhaps it is a large piece of bamboo?
Excellent article. Information I will store and use for years to come. Here in Canada we’re also familiar with the Pembina Institute funded by Suncor Oil Sands.
The green movement wants to move North America’s economy away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy production and consumption, a model that coincides with what “president-elect [Barack] Obama has put forward.”
The Rockefeller Fund said it gave Corporate Ethics International a US$200,000 grant in July.
In a statement, Corporate Ethics said the money would be used “to stem demand for tar sands-derived fuels in the United States by building awareness of the growing amount of dirty tar sands fuels entering the United States from Alberta, Canada, and encouraging consumers, including companies and cities, to commit to avoiding use of these fuels.”
Rockefeller Fund manages about US$1-billion for descendants of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil Co., predecessor of U. S. oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, all of which are oil-sands developers.
Other major endowments supporting anti-oil sands causes include the US$6-billion Pew Charitable Trusts, a legacy of J. Howard Pew, founder of a company that eventually became oil-sands pioneer Suncor Energy Inc., and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a legacy of the co-founder of computer giant Hewlett Packard with assets of more than US$7-billion.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg of the Green groups interrelated throughout the western world. Nevertheless, it seems to me President Obama and his administration is the ring leader of this group of hypocrites and fools.
“Greenpeace.org website is apparently infected with a “very low” risk computer virus.”
This virus must be afforded all possible protection in its current habitat. The sensitive eco-system supporting the virus must be carefully and responsibly managed as we would hate to have another species extinction on our conscience as a result of any human interaction. Please support my bid for funding to study this delicate virus and its effects on the fragile environment.
Other than the fact that greenpeace SHOULD be classified as a terror organization, nothing better defines the phrase “follow the money”.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong but my interpretation is, they (env groups) are being funded by the very people they are complaining about. If so, it’s a good thing for the env. groups that those who grant the funds have thick skins. Otherwise, the env. groups might have to pan handle rather than rob a bank…
“one group has pulled off a bank heist while the other has been panhandling in front of the liquor store”
More like one used “normally accepted accounting practices” wink wink, and the other was caught DWNG (driving while not green) in an exclusivly progressive neighborhood (deserving of a hardcore beat down while “resisting authority” at a minimum).
Finally!!!!! Someone else has finally noticed!!!
Let’s not forget, Shell still remains as a member of http://www.us-cap.org/ Check out the other environmental organizations in bed with the corporations of the worlds. Huge mining outfits, energy companies, oil companies and more. The myth that big oil is funding skepticism is simply more of the same projection alarmists use. Big oil funds the warmistas, along with other major corporations of the world.
Berkeley and Chu lapping up the $500 mil like a dog would from a grateful master.
God I hate those people, and I told them about six months ago there was a virus on their crappy site lmao
The green movement is going away. Target just had a union vote in New England vote against unions. Walmart is shifting away from green marketing saturation. Just 1 week ago, a top engineer working on walmart stores let GE know they were into saving money and scaling back on the green bandwagon. In the next hot summer and frigid winter, there will be a lot of lashing out about energy price inflation and people will demand economical energy and not PCGreen dragon energy.
Contrary to what most people thing, Big Oil is pushing CO2 taxes and cap and trade for 2 reasons:
1. To price coal out of the market. Currently coal is the lowest cost fuel source, with the highest amount of CO2. By adding CO2 taxes to fuel, oil beocomes cheaper than coal, and major oil companies become big winners.
2, To pay oil companies to pump CO2 into the ground. Oil companies use CO2 to extract oil from older oil fields. They pump CO2 into the ground which costs them money. By forcing power companies to install carbon capture technology, oil compnies can then get paid to pump this CO2 into the ground increasing profitability.
This has nothing to do with the environment from the point of view of oil companies. There are simply using environmental regulations to eliminate competition and pass along costs to the consumer. Like a wolf in sheeps clothing, they are dressing themselves in “environmentally friendly” disguise to hide their true intentions. To lead the sheep (consumers) to the slaughter.
All the braying and hollering and impugning and finger-pointing and scolding and bluster and self-righteous hooey is a sure sign that the whole thing is groaning under the strain of untruth, and will rupture catastrophically one of these days. What a pack of lies these groups have wrought.
There should be a dollar sign before the “green.”
Big Green may also be getting money from the Saudis who do not want the West to develop their own oil / natural gas resources. Ezra Levant writing in the Toronto Sun on June 19, 2011 believes they may be contributors. You can do a lot with a trillion dollars. Column is here:
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/17/saudis-have-west-over-a-barrel
Cheers –
Prize winning physicist, Energy Czar Chu says BP will help save the world.
Of course they donated money to the University.
If you give people money, they will say good things about you. (that is scientifically proven principle in psychology)
I have long been puzzled by the view that the oil industry and the environmental movement are adversaries. The oil industry has a vested interest in the partial success of the environmental movement. If the oil companies conspired together to force prices up by limiting production, they would quickly find themselves in court on antitrust charges. So instead, they happily give a few hundred million dollars to the environmentalists, the greens lobby the government to limit production and force prices up, and everybody gets what they want. The greens can feel good for “saving the planet”, the politicians get more power, and the oil companies rake in their billions. Only the consumer is left out.
Money for environmental advocacy = Greenpeace = failing miserably despite the millions shovelled their way [pathetic], what a damnable waste of resources: promulgating a scandalous lie [AGW].
And in failure, all that’s left [for Greenpeace et al] is character assassination of good men, what a bunch of misanthropes they all are, their venal tactics betray and diminish the whole of mankind.