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 and others,
Thank you for your info on the very revealing web of funding activities. I hope that an investigation will be done and charges brought. I’m not sure where the IRS would stand in this. It sounds like racketeering and possible money laundering.
Crosspatch, you’ve done a lot of digging on this and if you could be reimbursed through the ‘whistle blower’ fund it would be a good reimbursement for your efforts. Like myself, I’m sure you have revealed something a lot of others were not aware of. Hijacking and manipulating the funds in these foundations is a gold mine for those involved.
I have actually brought nothing new here. This is stuff that has been brought forth time and time again on blogs and in other fora. It is nothing new. The political left is at this point in the US absolutely corrupt and it is organizations such as Tides and Fenton that are enabling the corruption though they probably see it as exactly the opposite. They see lying and stealing from people and impoverishing people as perfectly acceptable if it is for the “greater good”.
I was first made aware of this from the community of users at a blog called Sweetness and Light ( http://sweetness-light.com/ ) around 2003.
Bravo crosspatch,
Your postings deserve to be elevated to a full post.
Sure, he should get all the respect he deserves, as a liar.
Mark
Crosspatch, don’t overlook a the lash up of Hilltop Public Solutions with the Tides and Fenton.
Skiphil says: “Thus, McKibben could easily be in a six-figure income at Middlebury College for the purpose of training his activist students/acolytes to spread out into activities for 350.org and related activist groups. This is one way that activist dollars are laundered through colleges and universities…”
This is a real problem – the generation of thousands and thousands of “experts” which are now being released from the Academic institutions upon families like mine. They graduate with Environmental/ Sustainability/Resource or Energy Management/Nonprofit Management and Leadership/Science Policy type degrees and are going to be deployed in every private and public sector of life.
Please! Have Progressive Scientists no mercy at all? Death by experts has got to be the cruelest and most unusual punishment imaginable – a form of slow torture. I do not deserve this invasion of psych-art-environmental majors saving the planet through endless legislation, regulation, and environmental activism based on shoddy science and manufactured consensus. I actually am quite a nice person and this is an unbearable punishment for no reason.
Then there is DEMOS
Demos is another ‘third way’ think tank (Take a look at its Partners such as British Energy, British Gas, Scottish Power, Shell International, Solar Foundation, and its advisory board.)
….a new online forum jointly sponsored by the progressive intellectual center Demos and The Democratic Strategist Stan Greenberg is a founding editor of The Democratic Strategist and co-founder of Democracy Corps See Source Watch Greenberg was campaign advisor not only to Clinton but also to Tony Blair.
The statement in the opening article by the joint venture is quite amusing.
Don’t miss the comments. I particularly loved this two.
Rosa Delauro is the witch who spent a decade pushing a “Food Safety” bill that would let the Federal government regulate home gardens
Her husband who once was a contractor to Monsanto is the same Stan Greenberg. He is a strategic consultant to the Climate Center of the Natural Resources Defense Council on its multi-year campaign on global warming
(I dislike the republicans too, but the media already does republican bashing so I am just evening things up.)
Look to see who the trustees of the foundation are. It is they who decide upon the awards.
McKibben is not “paid.” In order to be paid you have to do actual work. Rather he is “compensated.” To be compensated you have to be a rump swab.
So Bill Moyers is on the take. Should’ve known. Funny how that information never seems to be part of his shows. I wonder how many others at PBS ought to be subject to “full disclosure”. Here’s the URL for the PBS Ombudsman. http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/feedback.html
My favorite riff on McKibben is this “climate control” ad from Mitsubishi. McKibben (love that bald pate!) gets into an argument with his wife when he tries to change the thermostat. There’s even a reference to New Orleans (Katrina!).
This used to be the lead-in ad every day on the Weather Channel. Every time I saw it, I thought again of cranky Bill.
This “expose” is almost identical in content to one written by James Tracey on Global Research, a hard left site, on Novemeber 8 2012.
marty says:
February 18, 2013 at 11:23 am
No it’s not, it’s totally different, which people could see for themselves if you had actually linked to the four-paragraphs-about-McKibben piece you refer to.
w.