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.
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The “prestigious position of” reminds me of a certain Michael Mann emailing about nominations for prestigious awards, and now we have Bill McKibben a (paid) trustee of a foundation that funds a college to create a prestigious award,(on condition?) that he becomes the wonderful first “prestigious” recipient, so he can place that under his name, What for? to impress, or really impersonate? shades of the British buy a peerage dark ages.
Something rotten that needs to be exposed, but where is the Main Stream Media, held in check by derivitives of Fenton Communications ?
“Resourceguy on February 15, 2013 at 1:05 pm
In every revolution there are profiteers, con men, and serial criminals on the loose and using the cause to get ahead within the organization or on the fringes. See the Ira Einhorn story for comparison.”
True. But we must acknowledge that McKibben, his ilk and environmentalists, are all counter-revolutionaries.
I’d like to see his tax returns. Bet he takes in over 100k easy in his job as professional activist. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if he took in two or three times that amount.
KenB says:
“Something rotten that needs to be exposed, but where is the Main Stream Media, held in check by derivatives of Fenton Communications ?”
You’re jesting Ken? The MSM is part of ‘the club’.
Take CNN. Owned by Ted Turner and ‘Hanoi Jane’ who control the Turner Foundation which in turn funds (amongst others) the Tides Foundation, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, the Environmental Working Group, Environmental Media Services and the Center for Media & Democracy.
I bet you will find links with ‘activist’ groups, businesses and politicians and political parties pushing a particular agenda when you dig into the records of the other propaganda channels.
You will find that quite common. People seem to drift between Fenton and various activist groups and sometimes they actually change offices in the course of doing so but not always. What we probably need is a database of these people as they move around from one organization to the next. It is really the same organization, they just move their title around to make their resume look better. Saying they worked for Ingsoc for 20 years doesn’t present a very diversified work experience.
Tides operates as an incubator of progressive legal, journalistic, academic, and foundation organizations by the thousands.All their employees now get student loan forgiveness.
Willis,
Of course McKibben is “allowed” to comment here. He’s done so in the past, and I hope he feels that even though he may not agree with most of the community here, that he will been treated respectfully.
My comment was poorly worded. When I wrote “Perhaps we should allow Mr. McKibben the opportunity to respond” I should have added something to the effect of “… before we draw any conclusions (i.e. calling him a liar).”
I intended it as an invitation for Mr. McKibben to voice his side of the story. There may be an innocent explanation, or there may not… I don’t know yet.
And just exactly how do you think these “elitists” get their money otherwise? They can’t seem to function in a real market economy where their ability to generate wealth actually depends on succeeding at producing something. Instead they function in a world where their ability to generate cash depends on how articulate they are and if they say the things the people with the money want to hear/believe. In fact, their real productive output is destruction, not production. They increase costs of energy, increase costs of doing any sort of productive work at any level, increase red tape, increase overhead expense on everyone and eventually they produce a world that is exactly 180 degrees opposite of the one they were dreaming of. The more they try to “fight” poverty and create “fairness”, the more people fall into poverty and find an arbitrary unfair bureaucracy making life and death decisions for them. These people TALK well, but they are ignorant and don’t know how to produce anything. They are just sponges absorbing excess wealth. But if the world becomes what they are on track to create, they will find their source of excess wealth will be gone. But they probably don’t care.
This dude looks like and is a dweep, wheeny, knowitall! Scum of the earth. Hoodwinked to no end.
outtheback says:
February 15, 2013 at 9:30 am
Can we conclude then that the Rockefellers have no financial interest in the Keystone project but indeed have all the incentive to see it halted?
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protecting their oil interests by keeping US prices high. Keystone goes through and US oil prices drop. can’t have that.
Billy McKibben’s noble and “just cause” has been completely destroyed. He is a highly paid political activist seeding misinformation and deception in the name of The Cause. Great catch Anthony Watts and kudos to Crosspatch and others for shining a light on Billy’s money laundering process.
Few people could really care if the Keystone XL pipeline is built, except for the thousands who will have jobs because of it. For enviro-whackos opposing it, there is little genuine knowledge or insight — it has been made the latest cause celebre and that’s all most eco-fanatics need to hear.
McKibben and friends, PAID activists (often highly paid with 6-figure salaries), are engaged in classic astro-turfing of political opposition. Create fake “grassroots” movement with the aid of well-heeled donors.
astroturfing (ˈæstrəʊˌtɜːfɪŋ)
— n
a PR tactic used in politics and advertising in which actors are paid to display overt and apparently spontaneous grassroots support for a particular product, policy, or event
[ from Astroturf , the artificial grass, as this is artifical grassroots support]
Vivian Krause showed the way to expose the “charities” that funnel millions to the eco movement in Canada. She exposed the politicians linked with them and the tactics, including the cozying up of aboriginals on specific energy corridors. Vivian should receive the Order of Canada for her work. She is a courageous woman as these people have huge vested interests that can be counted in billions.
Anthony, readers should also be interested in what the former head of WWF in Canada is doing these days: Gerald Butts is managing the Liberal campaign for Justin Trudeau, the son of the former controversial Prime Minister.
Here is a link that explains the latest scandal affecting the media darling:
http://ezralevant.com/2013/02/the-truth-about-the-paid-papin.html
Edifying.
Mr. McKibben should spend some of that loot on a decent suit, IMHO.
@Crosspatch…excelllent work sir. Very valuable contributions.
Merovign says:
February 15, 2013 at 1:51 pm
A.D. Everard says:
February 15, 2013 at 12:49 pm
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 would they expose themselves? You don’t expect the Biggest Enablers, the MSM, to do serious reporting on the game they’re in on, do you?
*
I know they won’t. That’s why the rest of my initial post:
“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.”
Point is there are people out there in all walks of life who are not part of the scam. Those are the people who will – eventually – look into the whole ugly mess. Everything changes over time, even reporting – at least the eternal optimist that I am likes to think so. 🙂
One must also understand that lying, stealing, outright corruption, etc. is perfectly acceptable if you are a “progressive” if it is “for the cause”. The so-called “Progressives” of this era are probably the most corrupt political entity this country has seen in over 100 years, possibly ever. This is because, unlike years gone by, most cities are a one paper town. It used to be that papers were biased just like today but you had several different perspectives from which to choose. San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century might have had a dozen dailies in several languages. Today we have one paper and that one is generally in the tank for one political party. I am not aware of a major “Republican” newspaper on the West Coast or the Northeast. There is no press to hold these politicians accountable so they drift further and further into corruption. The political left in the US is at this point rotten to the core. They lie, they cheat, they steal from us, they steal from our children.
Just today we saw a corrupt Chicago Congressman and his corrupt Chicago Alderman wife brought on charges. The day before we saw the corrupt former mayor of San Diego in trouble but the party affiliation never mentioned in the reporting. If you search for that party and “corruption” you will find few matches because they are careful never to link them in the reporting but if you search for “corruption” by itself and research the individuals, you will find that one single party in the US is responsible for a vast majority of the corruption. This is the same party that wants to tax your conventional energy use in order to shovel the cash to their political allies in the alternative energy business. They are stealing from you while trying to convince you it is for the “greater good”. It is straight out of Orwell’s 1984.
Well done Crosspatch.
His page at Middlebury College http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/experts/mckibben/node/25001 doesn’t mention any classes or any academic work. It’s all about his activism.
Far from being an unpaid activist, he earns 100% of his money from activism.
Even if he’s not paid to be an activist, but he’s paid because he’s an activist. The difference may be important in his mind, but to the rest of us just looks like hypocrisy. If he takes money “to cover expenses” for going to activist events that he doesn’t have to go to for his job, then even that distinction is gone.
Weepy Bill should really lift some weights, do some push-ups, something, if he’s going to survive the hunter/gatherer world he’s trying to re-create. Throwing spears and rocks to kill your dinner won’t be easy with those spindly arms.
Crosspatch
Word on the street here in Omaha indicates that Buffett’s BNSF railroad has spent $400M plus in upgrades to the rail line for handling crude in 2012 alone.
Not much mystery where the fix is in.
And don’t forget Santa Fe Railroad in places like Texas and Oklahoma … look for opposition to pipelines there, too. This is the same game John D. Rockefeller played with Standard Oil in blocking pipelines from competing companies when he owned both the oil fields in Ohio and Pennsylvania and the railroads that carried the oil. You will notice that Buffett and Soros are buying up farmland over shale deposits, too.
To be clear: Buffett owns both Burlington Northern and Santa Fe
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5322
Whee, I never knew there’s so much money slushing around, thanks Crosspatch and company.
I have posted half a dozen times on WUWT about Vivian Krause research into Tides and how the Mayor of one of Canada’s largest cities was a paid hack. Krause also showed that David Suzuki (an iconic host of a taxpayer funded CBC television science documentaries) is a paid hack protecting the interests of the Alaska Salmon industry.
Read this article and especially watch Ezra Levant on Sun TV (linked video in the article)
http://www.ethicaloil.org/news/a-foreign-secret-plan-to-target-canada-exposed/