While Bill McKibben tries to portray himself as just a concerned citizen out to change the world due to his fears of global warming, by running a “grassroots organization”, the reality is he’s quite well funded by the rich, as this investigation reveals.
From the Financial Post:
Nothing influences President Barack Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline quite like the protests against it, led by Bill McKibben, an American environmentalist, and his organization, called 350.org. On Wednesday, 350.org and the Sierra Club participated in an anti-Keystone protest at the White House and this Sunday they are holding another one on Capital Hill. They expect 20,000 people from across the United States.
350.org has the look and feel of an amateur, grassroots operation, but in reality, it is a multi-million dollar campaign run by staff earning six-digit salaries.
…
More than half of the US$10-million came from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, where McKibben, a trustee, was paid US$25,000 per year (2001-09). Since 2007, the Rockefellers have paid US$4-million towards 1Sky and 350.org, tax returns say. The Schumann Center provided US$1.5-million to McKibben’s three campaigns as well as US$2.7-million to fund the Environmental Journalism Program at Middlebury College, in Vermont, where McKibben is on staff.
Full story here: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/02/14/rockefellers-behind-scruffy-little-outfit/
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From above:
…the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, where McKibben, a trustee, was paid US$25,000 per year (2001-09).
Wikipedia’s surprisingly light entry describes it as:
The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy (formerly The Florence and John J. Schumann Jr. Foundation) was established in 1961, by Florence Ford and John J.Schumann Jr. The foundation states that its purpose is to renew the democratic process through cooperative acts of citizenship, especially as they apply to governance and the environment.
That last sentence is all over the web as being in their mission statement.
Doing my own checking to see if they funded 350.org, I see they did.:
Source: https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_09_PF/22-6044214_990PF_201112.pdf
Checking other IRS documents I note the one for 2008:
Click to access 22-6044214_990PF_200812.pdf
They state quite a bit of money for Environmental causes:
It seems clear to me by their mission statement and IRS filing that they are an “environmental” organization.
And doing further checking to see if in fact this funder of environmental causes paid McKibben, I find that to be true:
The amount of money he was paid isn’t much, and certainly nothing to get too worked up about, I wouldn’t have given it much thought by itself. Note also Bill Moyers of PBS, no wonder he is so biased, he’s a paid to represent and direct an environmental organization. Surely, this must be a conflict of interest? Or maybe it is just business as usual with PBS? The amount of screaming about my appearance on PBS last year makes more sense now.
But, even though the amount of compensation McKibben received is small. I have to wonder why Bill took exception to being called a “paid political activist” in this WUWT post and went to the trouble to email me a statement that he’s an “unpaid political activist” and never took any money from “any other environmental group”?
Here is his email to me the same day as the WUWT post about him:
I took him at his word then, and made a change to the post, but now, clearly, he has told me a lie.
I’m sure from his interpretation of facts, he doesn’t think so, but that’s an ongoing problem with Bill, as his interpretation of facts about global warming are a self distortion to suit his purposes. It’s a typical case of noble cause corruption that blinds him to his own lies.
Crosspatch – OMG. Nice work! Boy, have I learned a thing or two this morning! And one only cup of coffee, too (it’s 6:30 a.m. here). Time for another, I think.
Anthony, catching McKitten in a lie is like catching Oblarny in a lie. It’s far too easy a thing to do about which to boast.
… Oh, and McKibben will NOT be pleased with this!
Don’t forget your /sarc tag or people might think you’re serious. Besides, it’s all those pennies for all those years.
2.5 grams per penny
25,000 dollars per year
2,500,000 pennies per year
8 years paid
200,000 total paid (dollars)
20,000,000 total paid (pennies)
50,000,000 total weight of pennies (grams)
50,000 total weight of pennies (kg)
That’s a lot of pennies.
The bald faced liar may deceive. The equivocator more often exposes himself by his choice of language.
I can see vigilance in safeguarding the environment, but this CO2 stuff is really a virulently anti-American program that originated in the EU. They wanted to make a USE to compete with USA and they even have guys like Soros, and other financial misanthropes that have been supporting a totally unwarranted Euro-US exchange rate. Having essentially failed to compete economically right from the start, they have engendered ways to simply ruin economies and the economic basis for society. How can a nearly bankrupt and shaky union like the highly socialized, deeply indebted, irredemable EU have over a 30% premium on the USD. Hey, I know the buck is in trouble but even UK is talking about abandoning the EU. Shame on these organizations – particularly the duped US-based ones – who are using whatever might work to destroy the economic engine of the world along with scientific endeavor. The future of the world economy and the integrity of science seems to rest on the outcome of a conservative-liberal/socialist battle. Com’on you liberals that aren’t fooled, don’t let conservatives be the only saviors of prosperity and science.
There should be no surprise that McKibben’s been caught lying. I think he does it all the time.
I think though that on the anniversary of Gleick’s criminal acts, that its rather rich to see that Gleick was actually foccussed on entirely the wrong group to find out how much money they were getting. Try 350.0rg Peter. They have way more money than the entire population of skeptics.
Now why would the Rockefellers who refine oil from places other than Western North America wish to stop the flow of Canadian oil to refineries on the Southern US?
From crosspatch on February 15, 2013 at 10:11 am:
Ah, Google.
http://www.1sky.org/files/1sky-annual-report-y3-2010.pdf
4.4MB, Year 3 report.
Tried downloading, on dial-up. Looked like it was working, got 1.0MB, then it gave up.
http://www.1sky.org/files/1Sky-Annual-Report-Year-Two-October-2008-September-2009.pdf
4.6MB, Year 2 report.
Downloaded fine. Contributions of $250,000 or more, only one entry: Rockefeller Brothers Fund. $100,000 or more, 7 contribtors, one is Rockefeller Family Foundation.
http://www.1sky.org/files/1sky-annual-report-2008-final.pdf
Smallest, 1.5MB, Year 1 report. Download failed twice.
Maybe the links are overloaded right now.
Interesting 2008 tidbit, $50,000 or more contributor, Craig McKibben & Sarah Merner. Are Bill’s relatives giving money that Bill will get paid for being a Director?
Follow the GREEN Backs. The puppet master(s) who thought up the facade of fear over AGW was a master at miss-direction. The acolytes and hangers on get very very rich on the billions spent on this AGW and they will do almost anything to keep the tainted lucre flowing.
Russ R. says:
February 15, 2013 at 10:22 am
Mr. McKibben is just as free as you are to respond right here in public, Russ. Your idea that he is somehow not being allowed to respond is … well … let me just call it ungrounded in reality.
And “he might not have accepted the money personally”? Say what? You mean they handed it to his wife or something? The organization says the $25K was paid to a man named Bill McKibben … how is that not giving money to Bill McKibben, even if his wife did pick up his check.
w.
There might be some quid pro quo going on here.
1. The state department must approve the pipeline because it crosses the border with Canada. Currently the oil is being carried by Burlington Northern Railroad which is owned by Warren Buffett. Buffett makes money as long as there is no pipeline.
2. Secretary of State is John Kerry.
3. John Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz, heiress to the Heinz food empire. John and Teresa made a considerable amount of money this week when Warren Buffett bought Heinz. John made about $670K just yesterday on that deal. We don’t know how much his wife made as she is not required to disclose her holdings as she is not a government official.
4. Do you *really* believe John Kerry is going to make any sort of ruling that is going to potentially harm Warren Buffett’s revenue stream at this point?
Is this Bill McKibben’s dad? Anybody know? I cannot find anything, just curious.
http://www.commpro.biz/corporate-communications/business-ethics-corporate-communications/do-the-math/
I suppose that McKibben (and Moyers) would claim that they are paid to administer a foundation, with McKibben then doing his activism for free. This would probably be technically true, although it also contributes to giving McKibben enough of an income, and enough free time, to do his activism.
I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea to have people’s home addresses posted, even though McKibben’s is just a PO box.
It is my personal opinion that this entire “industry” should be deeply investigated for money laundering, racketeering, and anti-trust violations. What we actually have are what amounts to a series of cutout organizations. Ok, so imagine you are a director of GM and take a low salary of $25,000 from them. Now imagine each plant operates as a separate business identity and that you are also a “director” of each of those and collect a $25,000 salary from each of those. You are making a decent salary. Now imagine each plant also gets “revenue” but because each one operates as a separate unit, it becomes very difficult to add up what the total revenue of GM really is or where it really comes from. And they will all swear up and down that they are separate business entities. But you will find two things that are in common with all of them: 1. Tides Foundation and 2. Fenton Communications Tides is the money and Fenton is the “invisible hand” that coordinates the activities across the entire front of operations. They are doing the same thing for the Keystone Pipeline issue that they did, for example, on the war in Iraq issue. Veterans for Peace, Win Without Wars, Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink, MoveOn, etc. all had the same thing in common: Fenton Communications.
Willis is right–McKibben got the money (or he’d report it as stollen). Generally, whatever name is shown on the donations sheet is the name the cheques are made out to. William McKibben would at least have to put them in a bank account in that very name (even if he signs it “For Deposit Only”) or else he personally signs them for “cash” and takes it that way.
There’s the possibility he destroyed the cheques to maintain his noble sense of detached purity but I seriously doubt it (the donors couldn’t then claim it as deductions for IRS purposes).
McKibben is duplicitous like most other members of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Genocidal Warmista crowd and just as guilty.
But you have to remember its ‘different ‘ when the McKibben’s of this world do the exact same thing they attack others for doing .
Like some others have commented, if Bill McGlibbering was caught telling the truth, that would be news.
What I do like is forseeing the longterm fallout of this lying stealing scheming, otherwise known as CAGW.
The future is grim for most all charities, NGOs, enviro-agencies and the UN.
Enjoy.
Angry, impoverished and betrayed people, tend to be just a touch unreasonable.
This is wonderful seeing the sunshine peaking into the darkest corners of the left-wing progressive tyrants. These folks are as crooked as they come and I mean the lot of them. If they have a D next to their name I guarantee they are crooked and if they have an R next to their name the odds are probably half as good.
Every time you hear a lefty accusing someone else of engaging in some nefarious act, I can nearly guarantee that they themselves are engaged in the exact same activity and probably to a greater degree. It’s called misdirection and politicians and scam artists use it artfully (please note the only difference between scam artists and politicians is generally speaking, title and prison time- oh, and schools monuments and bridges that have been named after themselves).
When you start peeling back the layers of deceit as Crosspatch has pointed out, you start to discover the connections between them and realize while they are separate entities they are all engaged in facets of the same huge plan with the same goals being a Northstar for their multi-pronged attack. The Islamic groups all work this way as well. While they pose as separate entities, in reality they are all interconnected by goals and the people that run them, ex Al Qaeda is a single facet with the same long term goal as The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR. They are simply engaging in different strategic and tactical methods in pursuit of the same long term goals.
Slightly OT but semi-related:
I am curious if anyone is aware of this type of investigation into Josh Fox and his Gasland crapumentary assault on fracking? The Phelim McAleer (sp?) documentary Fracknation exposes the horrid non-sense and fraud that Mr. Fox engaged in very well, but I am curious about the funding connections and other relationships to these types of org’s.
This is probably the tip of the iceberg. You know what they say … $25K here, $25K there and pretty soon you’re talking a nice living. 😉 Might even end up being one of those hated 1%ers.
THANK YOU for this link. I knew nothing about her. When you combine this with knowledge of what a foundation is in the USA, what a picture.
I don’t know about Canada, but in the US (info a few years old, don’t know if changed), a foundation need only spend 10% of it’s initial capital, then 10% of annual income on its topic.
The remaining 90% can be spent by the foundation ‘owners’ on travel, food, residences, offices, whatever it determines is essential for its ‘operation’, like a private jet.
In effect, US foundations can be personal governments that expend largesse to their pet projects with a sleight-of-hand stipend of 10% to the host government. Remember the trouble the head of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, Nancy G. Brinker, got into after shutting off grants to Planned Parenthood? Reporters started looking into how she was handling the finances. The foundation was paying for Brinker’s multiple residences, expensive trips and private jet usage, medical procedures, and a myriad other things in addition to a good salary. Since she was raking in about $460 million a year (I think, somewhere around there), she only had to spend $46 million annually on grants.
I agree, this whole thing should be deeply, thoroughly investigated. This scam just get uglier and uglier – what’s it going to take to full exposure? I’m talking full MSM, everyone knowing about it, exposure. Why have we got a tiny group of people (pretending to be many more) holding the world to ransom? Where are the cops? Where are the investigators? I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me – but the mess will be cleaned up, even if it’s another generation that has to do it. The truth will come out.
“What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was prov’d true before
Prove false again? — Two hundred more.”
from Samuel Butler’s “Hudibras”, published 1675
Sadly, money has long had an impact on research, both it’s direction and, sometimes, the results. No doubt this was one of the reasons the Royal Society chose “Nullius in Verba” as its motto in 1660.
IRS Form 13909 anyone? McKibben being a Trustee and also a potential beneficiary looks like it could be a conflict of interest as well.
His easy defense is to say The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy is not strictly speaking an environmental group. They fund environmental groups among other things.
They are not strictly an environmental group like 350. That would be the argument.
Its like saying that Heartland is an environmental group because they fund things related to the environment, so care must be taken in your definition of environmental group.
The thing he will not be able to deny is his claim that he is an unpaid activist.
He is an activist. he is paid. Whether than money technically comes from an environmental group like 350, or from a broader group that funds environmental groups can be debated.