Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Michael Bloomberg has fulfilled an earlier promise by commiting to paying $4.5 million dollars to the United Nations, money which federal taxpayers would have paid had President Trump kept the USA in the Paris Agreement.
Bloomberg gives $4.5 million to help U.S. keep Paris climate accord commitment
APR 22, 2018 10:58 AM EDT FACE THE NATION
BY EMILY TILLETT / CBS NEWS
Former New York City Mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg says he has a responsibility to help the environment as the Trump administration has backed down from its role in the Paris climate agreement. He said on “Face the Nation” he will write a check for $4.5 million this year to fund that mission.
“America made a commitment and as an American if the government’s not going to do it we all have responsibility. I’m able to do it. So, yes, I’m going to send them a check for the monies that America had promised to the organization as though they got it from the federal government,” said Bloomberg.
“It’s dangerous to keep doing what we’re doing,” he said.” If everybody would do the right thing, yes, it would be better. But if some people or some countries do the right thing we all benefit from that.”
…
Bloomberg’s empty political gesture seems unlikely to win over many of the people who voted for President Trump. From what I have seen most Trump supporters are utterly fed up with pointlessly lavish handouts of US taxpayer’s money to foreigners, money which should be used to address pressing problems back home.
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More money than sense,
That statement becomes true at $20.
If he thinx $4.5 million is going to win anyone’s heart he’s sadly mistaken. The catastrophists only think in billions when they’re dealing in other peoples’ money.
Classic virtue-signalling.
More money than sense.
Well if he thinks he can contribute on behalf of the U.S. and publicize it as a legitimate payment from the U.S., I suppose it’s now fair game to buy an NRA life membership for him and tout his commitment to the organization as if he bought it himself.
Check out the salary bill for administering the Green Fund. I wish.
Publicity/aren’t ion getting stunt from a rich, arrogant hypocrite, who uses up more fossil fuels than 100 of the average people on the planet. How is donating millions of dollars,going to cut back on fossil fuels and save the planet from catastrophic man made climate change?
Especially considering the planet just experienced the best 4 decades of climate and CO2 levels for life in the last 1,000 years. We still have not beneficially warmed or increased CO2 levels enought to reach the optimal level for most life but we are getting closer.
WTF is his donated money supposed,to,do anyway? That is, other than make him look,like he is trying to save the planet or meet important obligations for a country that would be dumb enough to,pay billions of dollars for belonging to a bogus, climate science hijacking scheme being used to extort money from rich counties that will do nothing to change the climate.
His donated money will buy one or two somewhere a new Merc.
Cold rain in Missouri tonight as solar cycle #24 ends and solar cycle #25 begins
Will he claim this as a charitable contribution on his tax returns?
Possibly, but for Bloomberg $4.5 million is nothing more a rounding error.
Wouldn’t a charitable organization have to be approved by the IRS in order for any donations to be tax deductible?
This, of course, is dirty money, generated on the back of fossil fuel. How otherwise did he get his hands on it?
Now, if he built a wind farm and undertook to operate it for 100 years WITHOUT ANY SUBSIDIES; that would be putting money where his mouth is.
“Bloomberg’s empty political gesture seems unlikely to win over many of the people who voted for President Trump. From what I have seen most Trump supporters are utterly fed up with pointlessly lavish handouts of US taxpayer’s money to foreigners, money which should be used to address pressing problems back home.”
What a very typical curmudgeonly comment, Eric.
First of all, why the hell should Bloomberg be wanting to win over anyone who voted for Trump? What on earth has this got to do with Trump and his base? Secondly, everyone on this site should be overjoyed by Bloomberg has made this magnificent charitable gesture. Thirdly, he is a far more successful businessman than anyone on WUWT and, as such, doesn’t simply throw his money away on lost causes. Bloomberg is fully aware of the threat posed by climate change and is acting in the US’s best interests. A huge number of Americans will be applauding him for his $4.5 million donation and this should encourage other billionaires (Not Trump as he is too mean) to chip in…
What on earth has this got to do with Trump and his base?
In May 2016 during his election campaign, Trump announced that he would cancel the Paris climate deal if he was elected. Trump was subsequently, despite all the bizarre propaganda to the contrary, elected.
Therefore, Bloomberg, a proud member of the ruling caste masquerading as a philanthropist, is essentially saying that he not only doesn’t respect the wishes of the people who voted for Trump’s polices, but he plans to undermine their decision on the basis that his financial might makes his policy the right one for the U.S.A. He is essentially spitting in the face of Trump voters while showing his contempt for representative democracy.
And you seem to be lovin’ it.
http://www.luminist.org/archives/rich.htm
Trump is also a proud member of the ruling caste as he hob nobs with his billionaire pals at Mar el Lago so no different to Bloomberg in this respect. I don’t think Bloomberg cares one jot for Trump voters – why should he?
Looked at the luminist.org link. How you can subscribe to that and also believe in the Donald bemuses me – he epitomises the rich corporate elite, particularly in his case when he has bankrupted several business, shafting his investors along the way as he wriggled out of bankruptcy. Trump standing up for the working man and the underprivileged – don’t make me laugh 🙂 If you believe that line he pulled during his election campaign, they you’re very gullible my friend.
Driving unemployment to historical lows is anti-workingman, Ivan?
Look around the world Dave and unemployment everywhere is at historical lows so it is not just the Trump effect but a vibrant global economy. I see some positives – he is right to take in China and bring business back to the US, to punish US companies for stashing their cash overseas, and for highlighting the opiod crisis. I am also pro his tackling illegal economic migration which is also the curse of Europe. But to say he is doing all of this in the interests of the working man to me smacks of hypocrisy.
This is b.s. Khwarwizmi. Bloomberg is expressing his own opinion and backing it up with his own money. You may not agree with Paris’ climate goals and I may not either. But Bloomberg is among many in his individual support of the climate goals, and does no harm to U.S. interests in expressing this support. He’s making a payment that Trump has passed on, and a payment which was U.S. policy before an election made it unpopular.
Is this a silly expenditure of one’s own money? Probably. But that’s my opinion and people have different opinions. Some people think sending money to the Trump campaign is seditious, and this is equally stupid.
Why can’t we respect other’s opinions, so long as its legal, particularly if they back up their mouth with their money? This looks to me like kneejerk partisanship. Why does this have to become of feature of this blog?
If it’s merely him doing what he believes is right, why call a press conference to tell the world about it?
MarkW, calling a press conference is part of expressing one’s own opinion. He’s keeping others of like mind informed of what he’s doing, and he’s obviously hoping others will do the same.
“He’s making a payment that Trump has passed on, and a payment which was U.S. policy before an election made it unpopular. ”
No, it wasn’t U.S. policy. For that to be the case, the U.S. Senate would have had to vote in favor of the Paris Climate Agreement. Obama didn’t submit the agreement to the U.S. Senate, so it is not official U.S. policy. It was Obama’s policy. Now we have a new president who has decided not to continue Obama’s policy.
If he’s merely doing what he believes is right, he doesn’t need to tell the world about it.
In fact bragging about being good is solid evidence that what you are doing isn’t good after all.
scraft,
“Why can’t we respect other’s opinions, so long as its legal, particularly if they back up their mouth with their money?”
Because it is not just his opinion. He will follow through in trying to force action, based on “his opinion”, on everyone else in the USA.
His opinion is that his security detail should carry guns, but my security detail should not.
He has the opinion is that my fossil fuel use should be restricted through various means, but his use need not be altered in a manner that he will feel the impact.
He has the means to try get others to force his hypocritical opinions on me. I don’t respect his opinions or his efforts of force and I never will.
Ivanski, if you don’t understand that this is nothing more than a cheap political gesture, then you are even more clueless than you have proven in the past.
Funny, that Bloomberg; worried and making donations about vague threats of future climate change and at the same time funding anti-gun attempts to deny people the protections they need from real, current threats.
What are guys from the IRS going to say? Is it tax deductible? Then the US citizen pays nonetheless.
The man really needs a tax deductible…..
Maybe Bloomberg could start a “Go fund me” page on Facebook book for the Paris Accord. He could pledge to match every donation and then all the people who really believe in the cause can use their OWN money to support it.
This is what comes of half measures. The President should have exited the entire UN Climate Framework and declared the premise junk science for a global cabal. A full skeptical team should have been assembled and the political firestorm would have benefited his agenda. Instead he pandered to the Greenshirt authority which remains in place.
$4.5 million buys a lot of “carbon” indulgences, and tons of virtue-signalling. Of course, that money could have done something actually useful, like helping homeless people, or any of hundreds of worthy causes. But no, instead, he wants to help a “cause” which is actually anti-humanity. Shows where the priorities of Warmunists actually lies. Disgusting.
Agreed, I mean think what you could do of benefit to a city, with $4.5 M not spent wastefully? A LOT!
What an idiot.
The fact that he started his career as an employee of Salomon Brothers tells you something about his intellect, judgement and integrity.
If rich people donate, it may be good. Soros helped eradicate communism while helping to blow up the Ukrainian conflict and migration. Blomberg’s current action is certainly a good thing.
Ya but donate to what? Perpetuating a lie? handing money to idiots is not a good use of money.
fully rearming anti-american propagandists..
A fool and his money are easily parted.
Putting money in the pockets of his world government masters at the corrupt and evil UN.
Good for him. It’s his money and he can spend it anyway he wants, legally that is. If it makes him feel better so what. Just like donating to your favorite church or charity. But it does go to show the other elites that they all need to put THEIR MONEY where their mouths are and stop asking us to foot the bill for their follies.
Didn’t Obama send over a billion dollars to the UN climate group? I seem to remember they got around $1.5B in money Obama stole from US taxpayers and used it to build a new climate bureaucracy Taj Mahal.
If so, $4.5 million will not come close to covering the Obama tithe.
Close, Scarlet.
From wiki, re the Green Climate Fund:
Gums sends…
If there were a gold standard and money was real, instead of printed currency, you can bet none of this could happen.
The monetary system in the hands of Keynesian’s and war inflationists were the founding junk science of the 20th century. We lost the logic compass long ago and climate idiocy grew out of it.
Guarantee that money will be dirty — laundered from some under-the-table source. Perhaps originally taxpayer money.
Doubt if that money would be his — prb’ly laundered from some NGO foundation.
Remember, Bloomberg will take this as a tax deduction so the American taxpayer will be footing at least part of this payment anyway.
Pretty sure this is actually illegal.
yep. All Trump has to do is stir Jeff Sessions into motion, and Bloomberg is done with subverting US policy.
Please bring the usurper to justice, Mr President.
I’m guessing that he’ll be able to write this off on next year’s federal tax return.