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.
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>> Independent bloggers vs corporate environmentalists
>> Shielding climate orthodoxy from free speech
Related articles
- Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout (rkadlec.wordpress.com)
“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.””
Well, i guess we all know that they follow the old adage of accusing the enemy of your own biggest crime here. The first time i noticed they’re liars was when they exaggerated the tonnage of oil in the Brent Spar by a factor of 100. So they’ve been lying for decades now.
The call for a boycot of Shell stations in Germany led one Greenpeace follower to attack a gas station with a gun; shots were fired. So they have some mentally unstable whackjobs amongst their followers; i became pretty suspicious of all peace loving hippie mass movements at that time. Still don’t trust them.
So when Mike “Hokey Schtick” Mann talks about shills for big oil, he was really talking about Greenpeace, and not the people who question his research who DON’T actually get money from big oil. I understand now.
Let me try to summarize:
Illegal CRU-Hack was a good thing, because everyone should know I often read here.
It seems to be important to know who funded environmental movements.
But it seems not to be ok to know, who funded Willie Soon, although the fundings were revealed by a legal FOIA request.
As a interested reader I always appreciate to know all facts. And it’s a fact, that Willie Soon got about 1.2m $ from fossil fuel industry in a decade. I think all readers are able to draw conclusions by their own, there’s no need to protect us from some facts.
This is very valuable information. I hope that Mr. Ambler can be persuaded to keep us updated and maybe do more in-depth posts.
Long ago, when the true deep “red” of Greenpeace’s new Democrat Underground leadership became clear, this Apache was asked to leave Greenpeace notwithstanding my life membership.
They made it real clear in the parking lot after some of U.S. spoke up.
It is a large mote with a mean dangerous red streek down its back.
Grantham means well, but he could not tell a lepton from a leprechaun. I worked for his firm for a while. He is not evil, just stupid when it comes to science.
Greenpeace actually sells energy.
“We are second largest green energy supplier in Germany”
http://eurocoop.coop/events/en/conferenceclimatechange/CorinnaHölzelgreenpeace.pdf
If they are against nuclear or natural gas or oil or coal, it is only because they are competitors.
Shoveling money at Greenpeace is good business. It keeps ’em from invading your refineries. Better have ’em chasing Japanese whaling boats.
Joshua says:
June 29, 2011 at 9:25 am
In other words, once again Anthony’s line of argumentation amounts to “But, mommy, mommy, they did it fiiiiiirrrrrsssttt.”
Hmm, funny, my read on the article was that if you’re going to criticize your opponent’s funding sources, you should make sure you’re not taking the same kind of “dirty” money or you’re just making yourself look bad.
Further, as pointed out in the article, two of the biggest enviro-groups receive money with links to carbon trading, which obviously benefits from the CAGW theory. The implications of a conflict of interest are fairly blatant there, but of course we’re supposed to believe that these organizations couldn’t possibly be in it for the money (despite the mid-six-figure salaries of the presidents of these groups) because they’re “charities”.
So, to sum up, if you’re an “evil denier”, you need to make sure your money is clean as a whistle, but if you’re a “charity”, it’s okay that your money quite possibly comes with strings a mile long attached. Glad we cleared that up!
Capo ,
1.2 million over a decade is a drop in the bucket compared to the figures shown above . In other words , so what ? That the oil companies play both sides of the street should come as no suprise . The disproportionate amount they give to the greens should .
Thanks, by the way, for the link to Afterall.net. New to me, at least.
OK S.
Capo says:
June 29, 2011 at 11:05 am
Let me try to summarize:
Illegal CRU-Hack was a good thing, because everyone should know I often read here.
It seems to be important to know who funded environmental movements.
But it seems not to be ok to know, who funded Willie Soon, although the fundings were revealed by a legal FOIA request.
As a interested reader I always appreciate to know all facts. And it’s a fact, that Willie Soon got about 1.2m $ from fossil fuel industry in a decade. I think all readers are able to draw conclusions by their own, there’s no need to protect us from some facts.
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lol, almost sis.
I don’t care who funded Soon I don’t deem funding sources proxies for validity. Irrational whack jobs do, but that’s only because they lack the ability to discern for themselves whether the science is valid or not.
If oil industry funding of Soon taints his work, what does it mean about the oil funded green work?
Seeing that you errantly summarized the post, let me help you with this. The funding meme is over. The post is about the consistent unrepentant blatant hypocrisy constantly displayed by the warmistas. (I thought most would recognize that by the scripture invoked,…. but morality is sooo passe for some these days.)
BTW, you have absolutely no proof there was an illegal hack done at the CRU. But, thanks for displaying the type of behavior which has become so typical of alarmists, but we have enough poster-girls and poster-boys for the amoral watermelons.
Thanks again,
James
The argument being put out be Greenpeace is that Willie Soon took money from the fossil fuel industry, therefore he is putting out research to say what the fossil fuel industry want him to say.
The knee jerk response the reader is supposed to feel, is that Dr Soon’s research is anti AGW propaganda. But as every astute reader should know, the fossil fuel industry also funds the AGW movement (and to a much larger extent). Are the AGW people therefore also putting out propaganda for the fossil fuel industry? Why would they fund one group to put out an anti AGW message and the other to put out a pro AGW message? The argument is so self contradictory that one wonders how Greenpeace thought they would get away with it.
No, that is called greenmail (blackmail but above board).
Henry chance says:
June 29, 2011 at 10:51 am
If you give people money, they will say good things about you. (that is scientifically proven principle in psychology)
If there is one thing I have learned since getting involved in the Climate Change “discussion”, it is never to make an assertion without being able to back it up with solid evidence. So, what is your evidence for the above assertion (that it is scientifically proven that giving people money means they will say good things about you.) References to the appropriatre peer reviewed science will be sufficient.
Oh, and by the way, it doesn’t appear to work with Greenpeace, who have been given shed-loads of money by Big Oil but they keep on badmouthing them.
Capo says:
June 29, 2011 at 11:05 am
“Let me try to summarize:
Illegal CRU-Hack was a good thing, because everyone should know I often read here.
It seems to be important to know who funded environmental movements.
But it seems not to be ok to know, who funded Willie Soon, although the fundings were revealed by a legal FOIA request.
As a interested reader I always appreciate to know all facts. And it’s a fact, that Willie Soon got about 1.2m $ from fossil fuel industry in a decade. I think all readers are able to draw conclusions by their own, there’s no need to protect us from some facts.”
But, Mommy, he does it too!!
Really? Some of you think $1.2M per decade is a lot of money? That’s what I make… except we don’t call it a “grant”, it’s a “salary” and also comes with a health plan and dental. And I can assure you, for that kind of money, my employer doesn’t own me or my opinions.
“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.”
And that’s the conundrum of all “climate” NGOs.
It used to be that hippies had to work long hours, put in their own cash by the numbers, to get to a position of leadership. But it all changed in the 90’s. Don’t know which organization was first but I know NGOs in my country points WWF. Instead they took on hard core financial geniuses, not proper capitalists mind you, but from the plain greedy ranks, who, of course, started to lead with a top down hierarchy thereby scrapping the grassroots democracy.
They literally took on the same people they were fighting, or their friends and what not, so of course they today, even in official capacity, claim it is better to work with the “bad guys” rather than fighting them.
But who is more greedy? The greedy bastards, and their friends, who now effectively rule the NGOs from the inside (although, like I said the NGO zealots claim it’s the other way around) or the dumb grassroots hippies who brought them in just to up the money flow in the first place.
Even a few years ago it took one million people donating $6 per person to cover the salary and expenses for the head of WWF international and that was about one million dollars more than what WWF international “donated” to the poor polar bears (which major cost, apparently, was helicopter fuel and rent.)
People think UN is a black money hole, but it is nothing compared to the “major” NGOs money sinks.
People who for what ever reason feel bad, can be made to feel worse, and therefor want to donate to feel a little better, which is why they don’t question where their money goes (because they do not want to feel bad again.) It’s really become that simple and sad and evil.
coeruleus says:
June 29, 2011 at 9:38 am
Gotta admit, though, that GREENPEACE did get a lot of money over recent years.
‘Boo-hoo SOON gOt money too’ is a rather weak argument to counter a concealed conflict of interest of that magnitude.
FIFY
coeruleus says:
June 29, 2011 at 9:38 am
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.
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lol, is a goose and gander discussion.
Why do you people believe the funding is a proxy for valid vs invalid? Either the science is correct or not. It has nothing to do with funding. What kind of nut job thinks that only oil money causes a bias? Here’s a revelation for everyone that doesn’t understand this, Wealth, or the prospect of wealth, is a temptation towards corruption regardless of the source.
It really isn’t that hard to understand. Now, run along and go find me some science done without funding. Then you’ll see unbiased work. It won’t necessarily be correct, but it won’t be tainted by money.
Well done, Anthony! Darn well written.
If oil funded automatically invalidates research, they better start by scraping CRU work given the amount of money they taken form ‘fossil fuel companies, OK that is perhaps not the best example becasue both sides would agree with that idea.
But if the source of funded is enough reason to reject research, regardless of the quality and validity of the research, there is an awful lot of research they have to reject on their own side . But you know I have I feeling that would ‘different ‘
Well. There’s an interesting turn of logic. You’d suggest characterizing some tens of thousand of people based on the email address of one commenter? Is this is the kind of logic the grounds the WUWT tribe? Hopefully not. I’d prefer to believe that you’re the exception.
Allow me to explain in somewhat more detail. When I was a child, my parents explained to me that crying “but….but…. they did it first (or they did it too),” was no excuse for my own poor behavior.
Anthony reads of a potential conflict of interest in Soon’s science, and his response is too instead suggest that the work of others is tainted by dint of where they get their funding? That was the kind of behavior my parents taught me to stop engaging in.
If Anthony’s outrage is based on the opinion that the origin of a scientist’s funding is not sufficient to cast doubts on his/her work – then I would agree with him. But if he felt that way, then one would think he’d address the tens of posts in virtually every thread in the history of WUWT that cast aspersions on the work of thousands of climate scientists by dint of their funding source (that evil of all evils known as “the government”).
On the other hand, if Anthony’s concerned about the potential conflict of interest among “consensus scientists” by dint of their funding sources, then he should apply the same concerns to Soon’s work, and only after his work receives the highest of scrutiny, should he deem it above criticism based on his funding sources.
No matter how you slice it – Anthony’s post is based on a juvenile, and tribal, approach – and unfortunately, such an attitude predominates on both side in the climate debate. That isn’t a generalization based on a limited sample. It’s a description of what happens.
A pox on both your houses.
REPLY: And once again, Joshua can’t read the author line. Bizarre. – Anthony
Finally you got round to covering this. With normal posts and hat tips I must have raised this issue at least a dozen times only to be ignored.
I am a nobody so go ahead and ignore me but here is a blog that nobody who frequents this site should ignore
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/
It points to NOT ONLY funding of Green activist organizations but it describes how money is laundered through third party “shell” companies. It also suggest that elections in Canada are possibly being manipulated by American Corporate Wealth funds in order to limit competition from Canadin
Please explain.
REPLY: Are you blind or just some kid out of high school without a clue? Look at the author name. and you are making the words as if I wrote them. By your logoc then shall all press releases carried here become my words? – Anthony