Poor countries should hold Big Green groups and directors liable for deaths, ravage they cause
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
Fossil fuel and insurance company executives “could face personal liability for funding climate denialism and opposing policies to fight climate change,” Greenpeace recently warned several corporations. In a letter co-signed by WWF International and the Center for International Environmental Law, the Rainbow Warriors ($155 million in 2013 global income) suggested that legal action might be possible.
Meanwhile, the WWF ($927 million in 2013 global income) filed a formal complaint against Peabody Energy for “misleading readers” in advertisements that say coal-based electricity can improve lives in developing countries. The ads are not “decent, honest and veracious,” as required by Belgian law, the World Wildlife ethicists sniffed. Other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) make similar demands.
These are novel tactics. But the entire exercise might be little more than a clever attempt to distract people from developments that could create problems for thus far unaccountable Big Green organizations.
I don’t mean Greenpeace International’s $5.2 million loss a couple weeks ago, when a rogue employee (since fired) used company cash to conduct unauthorized trades on global currency markets. Other recent events portend far rougher legal and political waters ahead for radical eco-imperialists, especially if countries and companies take a few more pages out of the Big Green playbook.
India’s Intelligence Bureau recently identified Greenpeace as “a threat to national economic security,” noting that these and other groups have been “spawning” and funding internal protest movements and campaigns that have delayed or blocked numerous mines, electricity projects and other infrastructure programs vitally needed to create jobs and lift people out of poverty and disease. The anti-development NGOs are costing India’s economy 2-3% in lost GDP every year, the Bureau estimates.
The Indian government has now banned direct foreign funding of local campaign groups by foreign NGOs like Greenpeace, the WWF and US-based Center for Media and Democracy. India and other nations could do much more. Simply holding these über-wealthy nonprofit environmentalist corporations to the same ethical standards they demand of for-profit corporations could be a fascinating start.
Greenpeace, WWF and other Big Green campaigners constantly demand environmental and climate justice for poor families. They insist that for-profit corporations be socially responsible, honest, transparent, accountable, and liable for damages and injustices that the NGOs allege the companies have committed, by supposedly altering Earth’s climate and weather, for example.
Meanwhile, more than 300 million Indians (equal to the US population) still have no access to electricity, or only sporadic access. 700 million Africans likewise have no or only occasional access. Worldwide, almost 2.5 billion people (nearly a third of our Earth’s population) still lack electricity or must rely on little solar panels on their huts, a single wind turbine in their village or terribly unreliable networks, to charge a cell phone and power a few light bulbs or a tiny refrigerator.
These energy-deprived people do not merely suffer abject poverty. They must burn wood and dung for heating and cooking, which results in debilitating lung diseases that kill a million people every year. They lack refrigeration, safe water and decent hospitals, resulting in virulent intestinal diseases that send almost two million people to their graves annually. The vast majority of these victims are women and children.
The energy deprivation is due in large part to unrelenting, aggressive, deceitful eco-activist campaigns against coal-fired power plants, natural gas-fueled turbines, and nuclear and hydroelectric facilities in India, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and elsewhere. The Obama Administration joined Big Greeen in refusing to support loans for these critically needed projects, citing climate change and other claims.
As American University adjunct professor Caleb Rossiter asked in a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Where is the justice when the U.S. discourages World Bank funding for electricity-generation projects in Africa that involve fossil fuels, and when the European Union places a ‘global warming’ tax on cargo flights importing perishable African goods?”
Where is the justice in Obama advisor John Holdren saying ultra-green elites in rich countries should define and dictate “ecologically feasible development” for poor countries? As the Indian government said in banning foreign NGO funding of anti-development groups, poor nations have “a right to grow.”
Imagine your life without abundant, reliable, affordable electricity and transportation fuels. Imagine living under conditions endured by impoverished, malnourished, diseased Indians and Africans whose life expectancy is 49 to 59 years. And then dare to object to their pleas and aspirations, especially on the basis of “dangerous manmade global warming” speculation and GIGO computer models. Real pollution from modern coal-fired power plants (particulates, sulfates, nitrates and so on) is a tiny fraction of what they emitted 40 years ago – and far less harmful than pollutants from zero-electricity wood fires.
Big Green activists say anything other than solar panels and bird-butchering wind turbines would not be “sustainable.” Like climate change, “sustainability” is infinitely elastic and malleable, making it a perfect weapon for anti-development activists. Whatever they support is sustainable. Whatever they oppose is unsustainable. To them, apparently, the diseases and death tolls are sustainable, just, ethical and moral.
Whatever they advocate also complies with the “precautionary principle.” Whatever they disdain violates it. Worse, their perverse guideline always focuses on the risks of using technologies – but never on the risks of not using them. It spotlights risks that a technology – coal-fired power plants, biotech foods or DDT, for example – might cause, but ignores risks the technology would reduce or prevent.
Genetically engineered Golden Rice incorporates a gene from corn (maize) to make it rich in beta-carotene, which humans can convert to Vitamin A, to prevent blindness and save lives. The rice would be made available at no cost to poor farmers. Just two ounces a day would virtually end the childhood malnutrition, blindness and deaths. But Greenpeace and its “ethical” collaborators have battled Golden Rice for years, while eight million children died from Vitamin A deficiency since the rice was invented.
In Uganda malnourished people depend as heavily on Vitamin A-deficient bananas, as their Asian counterparts do on minimally nutritious rice. A new banana incorporates genes from wild bananas, to boost the fruit’s Vitamin A levels tenfold. But anti-biotechnology activists repeatedly pressure legislators not to approve biotech crops for sale. Other crops are genetically engineered to resist insects, drought and diseases, reducing the need for pesticides and allowing farmers to grow more food on less land with less water. However, Big Green opposes them too, while millions die from malnutrition and starvation.
Sprayed in tiny amounts on walls of homes, DDT repels mosquitoes for six months or more. It kills any that land on the walls and irritates those it does not kill or repel, so they leave the house without biting anyone. No other chemical – at any price – can do all that. Where DDT and other insecticides are used, malaria cases and deaths plummet – by as much as 80 percent. Used this way, the chemical is safe for humans and animals, and malaria-carrying mosquitoes are far less likely to build immunities to DDT than to other pesticides, which are still used heavily in agriculture and do pose risks to humans.
But in another crime against humanity, Greenpeace, WWF and their ilk constantly battle DDT use – while half a billion people get malaria every year, making them unable to work for weeks on end, leaving millions with permanent brain damage, and killing a million people per year, mostly women and children.
India and other countries can fight back, by terminating the NGOs’ tax-exempt status, as Canada did with Greenpeace. They could hold the pressure groups to the same standards they demand of for-profit corporations: honesty, transparency, social responsibility, accountability and personal liability. They could excoriate the Big Green groups for their crimes against humanity – and penalize them for the malnutrition, disease, economic retractions and deaths they perpetrate or perpetuate.
Actions like these would improve billions of lives and bring some accountability to Big Green(backs).
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
what is criminal is that Greenpeace & the likes are having it both ways, with the complicity of the MSM & vested interests. the CAGW policies have caused fuel poverty all over Europe & even in Australia, but this is now being denied as the cause, while more CAGW action is being called for!
4 July: DailyMail: Rachel Rickard Straus: ‘Government’s energy efficiency policies are in free fall’: Insulation and boiler installation plummets 60% in a year, campaigners warn
25,000 people die of the cold every winter, campaign group warns
The Energy Bill Revolution urged an overhaul of the government’s strategy to make our housing stock warmer, warning that the UK has one of the highest rates of fuel poverty in Western Europe, with an average of 25,000 people dying of the cold each winter.
It said that millions of households still need energy efficiency measures installed, at a time when installation rates could fall to their lowest level for more than a decade…
The alliance of 180 charities, businesses and unions campaigning to end fuel poverty has called for home energy efficiency to be made a UK infrastructure investment priority…
Ed Matthew, director of the Energy Bill Revolution campaign, said: ‘The Government’s energy efficiency policies are in free fall.
‘As a result, fuel poverty is getting worse and people are dying.”
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2680515/Governments-energy-efficiency-policies-free-fall-Insulation-boiler-installation-plummets-60-cent-year-campaigners-warn.html
EnergyBillRevolution: Who’s behind it
The Energy Bill Revolution is a movement of people committed to ensuring warm homes and lower bills for all.
We are an alliance of children’s and older people’s charities, health and disability groups, environment groups, consumer groups, trade unions, businesses, politicians and public figures.
(INCLUDES)
Greenpeace
Climate Bonds
Decarbonize
Friends of the Earth
Save the Children
Low Carbon Communities Network
Sustainable Energy Associaton
WWF
Sandbag
http://www.energybillrevolution.org/whos-behind-it/
Golden Rice is a patent license trap. They could make it truly free, but they only want to be pushers.
I’m not sure of the truth of the story many years ago where Nestle gave free samples of formula to poor 3rd world breastfeeding mothers, who dried up and then had to buy more or have their infants starve.
If Samsung can’t withstand Apple, and Java is used by Oracle to strangle Google, what chance has impoverished farmers, especially when other neighboring crops get the gene and then are owned by Monsato.
They could prove their altruism, but instead appear to be crony capitalist pushers.
more about Energy Bill Revolution:
.pdf (9 pages) E3G: The Energy Bill Revolution
Campaign briefing
Carbon emissions
The Government has a legal obligation to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 in order to help combat climate change. If the Government fails to meet its targets, we increase our risk of facing the serious environmental, social and economic impacts of climate change…
The answer is for the Government to use the money it gets from carbon taxes to help make homes super‐energy efficient – with excellent insulation, renewable energy and modern boilers.
Even though these things save money on energy bills and keep our homes warmer, many people simply can’t afford to pay for them – meaning they stay cold. That’s why the Government must do more to help.
Carbon tax revenue
The Government taxes big companies for the damage their carbon emissions cause to people and the environment. There are two main carbon taxes: the European Emissions Trading Scheme and the Carbon Floor Price. The companies eventually pass these taxes on to consumers. Over the next 15 years the Government will raise an average of £4 billion every year in carbon revenue.
These taxes are used by the Government to help combat climate change and wean the UK off dirty fossil fuels…
This money could be used to help all households or just to support the most vulnerable. There is, for example, enough carbon tax revenue to provide a grant worth on average £6,500 to every fuel poor home to make them super‐energy efficient, treating more than 600,000 homes every year for the next 15 years..
***The Energy Bill Revolution is a public campaign, coordinated by Transform UK (www.transformuk.org), a programme of the sustainable development organisation E3G (www.e3g.org).
http://www.e3g.org/docs/Energy-Bill-Revolution-Campaign-Briefing.pdf
About E3G
Governance and Funding
E3G is established in the UK as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. E3G maintains full independence in all its activities, and is funded by a mix of foundations, government bodies and NGOs.
E3G is established in Belgium as a not-for-profit association (ASBL) and in Washington as a private company with 501c3 tax exempt status.
We gratefully acknowledge funding from GREENPEACE, CLIMATE WORKS FOUNDATION, AVAAZ, EUROPEAN COMMISSION, WWF, NRDC, ROCKEFELLER BROTHERS FUND, ETC ETC…
http://www.e3g.org/about
E3G’s buddies, TransformUK, the same people who caused the fuel poverty in the first place and now want more spending on CAGW policies. how conflicted can u get?
TransformUK
Transform UK is the home of the Green Investment Bank Campaign.
Ed Matthew
Ed is the founder and Director of Transform UK, which is hosted by the
sustainable development organisation E3G.
Before that he was at Friends of the Earth where he led the Economics Team
for four years which specialised in climate economics.
***The team successfully campaigned for the introduction of Carbon Budgets within the Climate Change Act and the introduction of Feed in Tariffs and the Renewable Heat Incentive
in the Energy Act 2008.
Ed has 14 years experience as an NGO campaigner working on biodiversity and
climate change issues and has also worked for WWF, The Wilderness Society in
Australia and the Environmental Investigation Agency…
Dr Alex Bowen
Dr Alex Bowen joined the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and
the Environment at the London School of Economics in Autumn 2008 as a
Principal Research Fellow…
He has long been involved in aspects of economic policy, having worked in
the Bank of England for sixteen years, most recently as Senior Policy
Adviser, on both monetary and financial stability issues, including
responsibility for the Bank’s Inflation Report and Financial Stability
Review. He first became involved in climate change issues when seconded as
Senior Economist to the team that produced the Stern Review of the Economics
of Climate Change in 2006…
John Alker
John is Director of Policy & Communications at the UK Green Building Council
and has been there since it was established in 2007.
He is responsible for government and political communications, media
relations, campaigning and policy. John has worked as an MP’s researcher and
speech-writer in the House of Commons and in commercial public affairs for
Political Intelligence.
Prior to joining the UK-GBC John led political communications on the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme and sustainable homes campaign for the
environmental charity WWF-UK…
Jonathan Johns
Jonathan founded Ernst and Young’s UK renewable energy, waste and Cleantech
practice where he originated its influential global country attractiveness
indices.
He has advised on in excess of $3 billion of transactions in three
continents covering all major low carbon technologies…
Philip Wolfe
Philip Wolfe is one of the pioneers of the UK renewable energy industry.
He recently founded Ownergy Plc, to provide renewable electricity and
heating systems to businesses and consumers, supported by the government’s
new Renewable Energy Tariffs. He is also a Director of the Renewable Energy
Association and the Aldersgate Group…
Leonie Greene
Leonie Greene is Head of External Affairs at the Renewable Energy
Association and Manager of the We Support Solar campaign.
She co-led the Parliamentary campaign for Tariffs for renewable heat (RHI)
and local power (FITs) with Ed Matthew of Transform UK and Dave Timms of
Friends of the Earth. Previously she worked as Political Adviser to
Greenpeace UK and as a Sustainability Adviser to the Deputy Major of London.
Her Greenpeace report Decentralising Power; An Energy Revolution for the
21st Century was cited by David Cameron as particularly influential on
Conservative energy policy.
She holds an MSc (Distinction) in Environmental Change and is a qualified
yoga instructor
http://www.transformuk.org/en/aboutus/alliance/
The Greenies successfully lobbied to ban DDT because they claim it makes the falcon’s eggshell thinner. Nevermind DDT was saving millions of lives from malaria. Since its ban in 2004, malaria killed around 10 million people. A crime against humanity. I guess the Greenies also want to reduce world population.
[2004? Was the DDT ban not much earlier? .mod]
Re the “bat Boat”
it wasnt a greenpeace boat, it was a sea shepherd boat and it wasnt acting in any way about climate change.
It was in fact trying to stop the murder of whales.
dont tar sea shepherd with the same brush as Greenpeace, SS dont get on with greenpeace at all (too peaceful and too red centred) SS do what they set out to do and the only people they stop are murderers of whales and Dolphins, they certainly dont try and stop people in 3rd world countries from having access to technology that will save lives.
Stupendus says:
July 6, 2014 at 9:08 pm
“SS dont get on with greenpeace at all (too peaceful and too red centred) ”
Trying to damage the retinas of fishermen with high power laser pointers; a warfare technique that is outruled by the Geneva convention… (but of course perfectly fine with environmentalists, as humans are below animals especially when they’re enemy humans right?)
Stupendus says:
July 6, 2014 at 9:08 pm
“stop the murder of whales.”
That reminds me; yesterday I murdered a hundred baby tomatos. They were still seeds; I ate the tomato they were in.
Or should we reserve the word murder only for animals? Well, that’s discriminating against plants, isn’t it.
Or should we reserve it only to animals with big brains? Hmm, don’t the animals without big brains deserve more empathy? After all, they’re handicapped, brainwise.
Maybe it would be best to expand use of the word murder to things; to avoid the impression that we give life an unfair advantage just because we are life forms as well.
DDT banned in US in 1970s. The Stockholm Convention took effect in 2004 with 151 signatory-countries. BTW the inventor of pesticide DDT, Hermann Muller, won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Medicine. It was before the Greenies took over governments.
It’s all about politic. Thus the best thing to do in order to find tendensy as well as aim/intent is follow the money…….
The next thing to do is asking Greenpeace (and WWF for that matter): Where have all the money gone…..
not money used to “save” Polar Bears – they manage on their own
The latest value seaice extent Arctic: 8,553,014 km2(July 6, 2014)
given the figure 22,000 Polar Bears (max estimation) the seaice each Polar Bear have by him-/herself is above 388 square kilometer (close to 389)….. in other words close to three times Long Beach California’s land area and more than double same town’s total area (sea + land) …… I take it that it must be harder being an Polar Bear walking by myself on such a hugh area trying to find a partner than for humans in Long Beach 🙂
Data of Sea Ice Extent July 5, 2014, IARC-JAXA Information System, IARC, UAF P.O. Box 757340 Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-7340 USA
There are some aspects of Green Peace I relate to. Specifically, I wholeheartedly agree with the GreenPeace attempt to stop all whaling. We, as humans have not right, nor need, to “harvest” another intelligent creature like whales for meat, oil, or any other thing of value.
But GreenPeace’s crusade against clean nuclear energy, and coal as a transition fuel, is without any basis as long as sulfur and particulate (soot) emission restrictions are in place (which in China they are not).
So I wish GreenPeace would go back to stopping whaling, and simply advocate for clean energy whatever the source, even nuclear. That would be an honest and do-able strategy.
Are cows, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, monkeys less intelligent than whales? We don’t usually eat rabbits and monkeys but they are often subject of lab experiments where they suffer injuries and eventually die. The definition of animal intelligence is debatable. Some biologists think the ultimate measure of intelligence is the ability of the species to survive. In that case, rats would be very intelligent. Man could not eradicate this pest with all the poisons and better mouse traps. And whale would be less intelligent because it could not protect itself against man.
I’m in favor of protecting whales but I don’t find the intelligence argument convincing. I say don’t hunt animals to the point of extinction regardless of their intelligence. BTW whatever your advocacy is, do it legally. Greenpeace is committing crimes in the name of nature.
Brilliant report. Thanks.
At last some common sense about these dreadful NGO’s.
Thank you Paul Driessen for demonstrating how Greenpeace policies are inherently incompatible with fundamental rights. Keep it coming.
NikFromNYC. Greenpeace and ‘Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’ may share the same ancestry, but seem to have some scores to settle.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/news/paul-watson-sea-shepherd-and/
http://www.seashepherd.org/who-we-are/paul-watson-and-greenpeace.html
@ur momisuglyPatrick Guinness says:
July 6, 2014 at 8:05 pm
Thanks for the heads-up
E3G are utter shills for green hokum
scroll down to the bottom of this page to see
a scrolling applet which name all the suspect
organisations which fund their nonsense.
http://www.e3g.org/about
Transform UK is just part of E3G, as is evidenced
by the e-mail address of its director ……@ur momisuglye3g.org
Alexa rates e3g at 2,742,865 worldwide,
compared with WUWT rating at 9,398
According to his own c.v. @ur momisugly LinkedIn, Ed Matthew is
Head of New Economics at Friends of the Earth
London, United Kingdom
Therefore Transform is naught but a puppet of F.O.E. UK.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive”
– Sir Walter Scott
If Greenpeace disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice? Or, as is the measure in the business world, what have you (Greenpeace) done for me lately?
pat says:
July 6, 2014 at 7:39 pm
what is criminal is that Greenpeace & the likes are having it both ways, with the complicity of the MSM & vested interests. the CAGW policies have caused fuel poverty all over Europe & even in Australia, but this is now being denied as the cause, while more CAGW action is being called for!
////////////////
Too right.
In the UK, the politicians and media are spinning that green levies add less than 10% to the electricity bill total. In practice less than 50% of the bill is made up of the cost of supply. Over half of the bill is made up entirely because of the pursuit of green agenda and the drive for renewables.
Some 25% of the bill is made up of infrasture charges. This is decommissioning perfectly serviceable coal generaors and converting them to biofuels, errecting windfarms, coupling windfarms to the grid (which are sited in remote locations far away from the grid). Some 25% represents subsidies for home insulation and save energy incentives and to assiist those in fuel poverty. If the bill was halved there probably would be few in fuel poverty and most of fuel poverty is caused by having driven up the energy costs.
The costs of supply which represents only about 48% of the bill total is also higher than would be the case if they had stuck to conventional coal and gas power generation since it includes the costs of purchasing green energy at a fixed minimum price well above the market price. Also includes the costs of paying for electricity from back up diesel generators who again are entitled to sell their energy at well above market price.
The present debate in the UK is disengenuous in that it sugggests that green levies have increased the average bill by about £70 when in practice it has increased it by about £250, and with more future increases already built into the bill structure in the form of carbon taxes which are adding to the cost of supply (the UK has the highest carbon tax in europe) and of course because of impending brown outs/blackouts energy companies will soon have to pay energy intensive industries to stop working after 4 pm in the winter, so that peak energy consumer demands between 4pm and 10pm can be met. This compensation will be passed onto the bill payer.
The Greens and Politicians are in denial as to how much extra cost has been loaded ontyo consumers. The costs are substantial and this is why intensive energy manufacturing has uprooted sticks, resulting in loss of tax revenues, greater unemployment and welfare payments etc.
There is a big backlash awaiting the Greens and Politicians, and it cannot be swept under the carpet since so many people find that they cannot properly heat their homes and that number will increase as future locked in expenses begin to bite, and the floodgates will well and truly open should brownout occur, and that why Politicians are taking such despeerate meanures (using polluting diesel generators, asking industry to down tools ect). Madness,.
And if winter temperatures continue their downward trend, that will only add to the fury.
Watch this space, it is likely to become interesting.
Excellent article. I hope more countries affected by these malign organisations will follow the lead of India and ban them.
The relationship between Greenpeace and India reminds me of the Soviet Union and China. In the early part of the 20th century, the Soviets financed, trained, and otherwise encouraged the Chinese communists. Chiang Kai Shek was able to keep them in check but, when the Japanese invaded, that was just too much.
Similarly, Greenpeace et al. are financing, training and otherwise encouraging folks who are acting against the welfare of their countrymen. A rich country can withstand the activity of the environmentalists (it is often good) but, for poor countries, it is an extra pressure that they may not be able to deal with.
“Most of the greatest evil that man has inflicted upon man comes through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false” (Bertrand Russell, “Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind” in Unpopular Essays [1950], p. 149).
To most “environmentalists”, deaths of people is a feature, not a bug.
Very thoughtful. Great article but over here in Oregon it is probably hate speech. Yep another socially backward anti development state. We don’t want oil trains going through Oregon now because they “might” have a mishap. We don’t want to export coal because it contributes to imaginary global warming. And we protest and ban GMO everything blindly.
Martin says:
July 6, 2014 at 3:29 pm
“… I’m getting ti(r)ed to see golden rice sale pitch among climat septics.Should be sceptical about that too.
‘In order to meet the full needs of 750 micrograms of vitamin A from rice, an adult would have to
consume 2 kg 272g of rice per day.”
You are a doctor! Is zero better than half the required vitamin A? And are you assuming the people eating it are all 80kg westerners for your ‘dosage’?
I can’t see for the life of me why we can’t ignore these green zealots. I would say a campaign of speeches across Africa and maybe a widely distributed newspaper to tell these people exactly what is going on and why they never will have development and prosperity if they don’t kick these haters out.
Here’s a simple question
Which has helped humanity more, Exxon or the Sierra Club?