Guest essay by Eric Worrall
You might expect on the eve of a global food price crisis, a charity which genuinely cares about feeding hungry children would swallow their pride and prioritise accepting donations from any legal source. But Save the Children appears to have decided they care more about climate virtue signalling than their core mission.
Charity snubs £750,000 donation from gas company over reluctance to take cash from fossil fuel firms
- Save the Children rejected a large donation because it was from a gas producer
- The £750,000 donation from Neptune Energy for Ukraine was rejected
- Save the Children said they did not want the money because it ‘didn’t want to endorse fossil fuels’
By NIAMH LYNCH FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 12:55 AEDT, 23 March 2022 | UPDATED: 12:55 AEDT, 23 March 2022
Save the Children has refused an energy firm’s £750,000 donation to ease the Ukraine crisis because it doesn’t want to endorse fossil fuels.
It rebuffed cash from North Sea gas producer Neptune Energy two weeks ago, stating it was ‘committed to working on climate change issues’.
Despite refusing help for Ukraine, it said it would take cash for its Children’s Emergency Fund, which supports youngsters in crises around the world, because ‘this could be used in a crisis for which relatively little money is available’.
Neptune, which says it has given £1.5million for Ukrainian humanitarian efforts, challenged the decision with Save the Children’s trustees, saying its staff chose the charity and the snub had ‘shocked’ them.
Save the Children will now refuse donations from firms ‘whose core business is fossil fuels… following a lead by children who have protested about the threat the climate crisis poses to their future’, The Daily Telegraph reported.
…
This has got to be one of the most stunning examples of climate hypocrisy and bad timing I have ever encountered.
Every one of the “Save the Children” executives who made this fatuous decision use fossil fuel in their every day lives, in the clothes they wear, their household appliances, home heating, the roads they drive on. Their computers and telephones are largely made of fossil fuel based plastic, and powered by fossil fuel. Even if they drive an EV, their automobile is mostly made of fossil fuel, and recharged by generated powered by fossil fuel. Any metal components in their EV were smelted and shaped using fossil fuel powered machines.
The timing of this move could not be worse. The world stands on the brink of a food supply crisis, thanks to the interruption of 25% of the world’s wheat supply, wheat which normally comes from Ukraine.
Even worse, the rest of the world might find it unusually difficult to make up the shortfall, due to fertiliser shortages. A significant portion of the world’s fertiliser is manufactured in Russia.
Can you imagine a more ridiculous time for a food bank charity to decide to be fussy about whose money they accept?
My suggestion, if you normally support “Save the Children”, find another charity to support, a charity run by people whose focus is their core mission.
Virtue signaling knows no bounds. Here’s a charity organization that would rather play political games than help starving children. How can they sleep at night?
A climate nut-case at STC will find themselves in hot water the next time they have their program expense ratio meeting. Neptune Energy will simply donate the funds to be administered by another charity.
This rejection of a generous amount of money for a good cause, children, is an element of virtue signaling that exposes the dark underside of the CAGW crowd. They pretend to attack carbon to “save the children” then refuse the opportunity to actually help children. So, if it’s not about the children, what is it about?
It’s about this woke, de-growth, anti capitalist, Marxist movement of the Biden new world order and his minions!
Jon, the anti-growth, anti-capitalism, and anti-American movement originated well before Branden was President, even before he was Vice President. Think back to the 1980s when the United Nations founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to support those agendas.
Regards,
Bob
Think back to the 1980s when the United Nations founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to support those agendas.
__________________________________________________
How ’bout 1867 when Das Kapital was published. Marxists have been busy spreading their political cancer for a very long time. They are in it for the long haul.
We must replace the corrupt UN with something better. A new World Order is badly needed.
A new World Order is badly needed.
______________________________
A snappy acronym would be in order, some are already taken:
THRUSH
Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity
SPECTRE
Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion
Wikipedia has a nice list.
I prefer the one Rimmer came up with. But it was censored here before.
I knew you were joking…it was funny.
Nothing would be better than the UN.
(read that slowly…)
“ My suggestion, if you normally support “Save the Children”, find another charity to support, a charity run by people whose focus is their core mission.”
Yep
A local single issue charity is the best bet.
I seriously doubt that any actually starving children (other than those that have been driven to anorexia by their insane parents) have ever given a single thought to the “threat of the climate crisis.”
Agreed, writing observer. Your comment reminded me of the UN’s online pole back in 2015 (MyWorld, if memory serves), where, worldwide, climate change ranked last out of 12 listed concerns, and last here in the U.S., too.
Regards,
Bob
I’m picking that climate change would be at the bottom of the list for many people, no matter how long it was.
Bob, was that a 10′ pole?
We’re not going to touch that.
More hypocrisy from the Marie Antoinette Progressives. No doubt that every one of the people who made this decision has a standard of living times beyond the average. To them, paying another $25 every time they fill their tanks has no measurable effect on any other aspect of their daily lives. Sorry, kids. Eat cake.
These days charities are run mainly for the benefit of those they employ
Quite right, Martin.
I recall when I was considering giving to Wounded Warrior. I did a little research and what I found was that something like maybe 5% actually made it to any soldiers. Told me all I needed to know about them.
This is sort of like WHO, refusing to approve a COVID shot from Canada that used over $170M of tax dollars, because Phillip Morris owns shares in the company.
How many of the other donors have anything but clean hands and yet they have not been subject to careful scrutiny to see that their donations are not tainted money – perhaps gained by tax fraud or exploitation like having their products made in China by peasants? How about equal treatment as that promoted by supporters of equity?
Save the Children receive a great deal of funding from Government sources, woke foundations and the very large, very woke corporates
However callous, this virtue signalling is probably meant to appeal to even wealthier donors who are nut cases on the climate.
I have donated to them since 2009. I will stop now.
Another reason why it’s truly impossible to have one of these ugly gray demagogues for a friend. Their whole personalities are one Big Lie. Yeah, let the kids eat cake, that’s the ticket!
Save the children… unless they won’t sing the climate change songs.
This is good information to know. If I get a request from them I am ready to give them an earful.
It is one thing to make personal sacrifices because of religious beliefs. It is quite another to force others to make those sacrifices, particularly when they are forced to take the brunt of the sacrifices and those making the decision are little impacted.
I think that the word “arrogance,” is appropriate here.
I would call it “sick”. Sacrificing the furtherance of the declared mission; The very reason for the existence of the organization, for no reason other than political signaling.
The whole situation of ‘charities’ passing on a fraction of their intake, while those running it receive more-than-comfortable incomes, deserves close scrutiny. We might start with the Clinton activities.
when scrutiny was looming clintons offshored their biz to canada to avoid FOI via american. I see theyre planning to revive it again joes such a haven for them they feel safe to reboot the slushfund
With any charity one should determine how much of your contribution actually gets to the proposed recipients.
I don’t know what the distribution percentage for this particular charity is but, I’ve found that most large charities have incredibly small amounts going to the actual cause and instead have healthy corporate expenses for salaries and advertisement. They sometimes morph into a business machine to generate profits for the charity structure so constant vigilance is required.
RSPCA is one such in aus many now refuse to donate for obvious reasons
According to Charity Navigator 86.4% of their money goes to their programs. There are a number of websites of “non-partisan” organizations that monitor charities. It’s a simple process to check up on any charity. I culled my list when I saw what some of the CEOs were making and how much was spent on raising more money.
I’m sure that when supplies are sent anywhere to “Save the Children”, that they only arrive on sailing ships and are then transported by mules and wagons.
If they use fossil fuels in any way, then they are hypocrites and should resign.
Not sure, but I think UNICEF, among others, would happily accept the money. “Save The Children” has outed themselves as not caring particularly.
UNICEF is the United Nations fund. It’s likely worse. Unless you really like how the United Nations works, of course.
I hate to by cynical about good causes, but in my opinion, major charity organizations exist to pad the pockets of the executive staff and underpay the working staff. Too many of these organizations have excessively compensated leaders so your donations actually do little good other than provide income for management. How many NGO’s have CEO’s making more than $1 million a year? Even $100 K a year is to much for most of them.
I agree on the salaries. How hard is it to convince people that cancer is bad?
Many charities like Save The Children are no longer run by people whose sole interest is the welfare of the people they are supposed to be looking after. For too many it’s a nice, very well-paid job. For others it’s a route to political careerism. And for all of them their own political ideology is paramount, rather than the pragmatic needs of the people who need their assistance. The Red Cross, for example, dismissed one of their volunteers because he had the ‘wrong’ views on a social issue.
Ok, so no more donations to STC
They are beyond the pail
I have stopped giving time and money to ALL charitable organizations except local ones that I can vet myself. There are too many crooks and professional beggars in the business starting with all UN and most Int’l organizations like Red Cross.
Pecunia non olet!
As a slight tangent, concerning energy, renewables and fossils..
The UK wind fleet of 20GWinstalled nameplate capacity is presently providing 1.4GW into a demand of 32.5GW
Over 4GW of the supply is coming from interconnectors- either French/German nukes or German coal/lignite so lets say actual real demand is 36.5GW
Recently peak UK demand made 46GW and lets add on 9GW to charge 30 million electric cars
(No heat pumps in this calculation)
Thus: I calculate that UK would need 786GW of installed wind turbine capacity
Would that be about 80,000 windmills, each of 10MW nameplate?
make them =offshore turbines with a 12 year life expectancy means that even if they all got installed, they’ll need to be replaced at a rate of 30 per day – for ever more
Lets call them £15Million each gives an annual renewal/replacement cost of £166 Billion
With ‘carefully managed’ modest inflation, that number will double every 15 years
what we waiting for
I just checked:
The present day capex installed cost of an offshore turbine is £4.9Million per MW
I said £15Mill for 10MW so multiply the numbers you see above by a factor of three.
(a factor of 3.26 strictly)
Thus – £18,000 per year for every UK household
And it is The Children who will be paying that
Was there something wrong with saving them from that grotesque monstrosity?
Right now the UK is getting 0.2 GW of wind power.
Somehow I don’t think Ukraine is over run with solar panels or windmills. Maybe they shouldn’t do charity work in that country at all
This comes as no surprise to me – my brother in law was the CFO at Save the Children International until a few years ago.
The Biden Administration produces vast quantities of fertilizer. Unfortunately it’s not useful for food.
Or much of anything else, except memes re: how the pretender-in-thief fills his depends on occasion.
Let us dig into this a bit. The charity refused funds from a natural gas producer.
As it turns out natural gas prices have skyrocketed worldwide.
The rubber meets the road:
Natural gas is the critical feedstock for ammonia production which is via the Haber-Bosch process..
Ammonia is the first and a main constituent of agricultural fertilizers. When the price of natural gas went sky high, the price of fertilizer was forced way up. So far up, that many farmers have given up on the year while others will have poor yields due to insufficient fertilizer, or none at all.
this, and nothing else, is the primary source of the looming food shortages.
This charity rejects money from a natural gas company because “fossil fuels”.
Should they not also reject all foodstuffs from modern agriculture because they all depend in a critical way on natural gas for their very existence.
Follow the footprint. It is all in vogue to calculate “carbon footprints” up and down a product life cycle, from procuring the raw materials all the way to end of life.
Perhaps this charity could do a “carbon footprint” analysis on modern agricultural products and see the footprints going straight back to a natural gas well.
Why is it that everybody who raises the alarm over “carbon pollution” turns out to be singularly stupid?
Its bred into them via the collages they attended, and they have an evil agenda for the unwoke.
Oh, and they’re not stupid, just ignorant of how it will end. History has shown the ending time and time again. That’s where the “stupid” comes in. Always has, always will.
“Oh, and they’re not stupid, just ignorant of how it will end.”
Just ignorant??
No, it Runs deeper than that.
It is in the colleges for sure.
But so is BIO-101/102. The freshman full year Intro to Biology, not that watered down, one semester “Concepts in Biology” course. All the environmentalist students need is to take Intro. Bio. and it would disabuse them of the vast majority of their pet “environmental disaster” and “ecological catastrophe” ideology.
The campus environmentalists will pay any price, do whatever is necessary to Save The Planet. Except take a science course. That they will not do, way too hard.
Ever wonder about “carbon pollution” and how it went from ground level to international “cause celeb” in just a few years? Simple. The environmentalists simply do not know that CO2 is the “staff of life”, so they fell for the propaganda. No idea that CO2 is the primary feedstock of photosynthesis, how plants grow. No idea what photosynthesis is, never heard of it.
In a college student, this is willful stupidity.
A society that gets in to the rut of virtue signalling absurdity will find the rut delving the depths of atrocity. The core mission of the organisation-its very being, has been usurped by a different agenda. That agenda is absurd anyway- since when is refusal to debate a sign an argument has been won?
To quote Voltaire-“Those that can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Permutations of this also apply. Those that FORCE you to believe absurdities will FORCE you down the road of mass atrocities. It only takes 2 years of constant propaganda to turn a lunatic idea in to accepted “fact.” It only took Hitler a couple of years to get Germans (an otherwise civilised society) to accept genocide. It only took 2 years of the Hutus demonising the Tutsis to ignite the genocide in Rwanda. It has only taken 2 years of fearmongering, data manipulation and propaganda for people to be happy with persecution of those that refuse to take untested, experimental drugs that claim to be a vaccine, but kill more people than are “protected.” Years of climate propaganda – spreading the nonsensical and absurd message that we must destroy the very basis of our society (cheap, reliable energy) and possibly the human race itself to prevent a 3% increase in essential trace gas levels has led almost all political “leaders” to believe and act on this absurdity.
Looks like Save the Children is off any donations from me. Indeed, ALL organisations of any type that get drawn in to absurd politically correct nonsense must be boycotted and allowed to implode and fail. It is our DUTY to make this happen.
It is our DUTY to preserve our civilization by making them collapse.
Societies being led down the path to atrocity is nothing new. The Pied Piper describes such a situation. Sodom and Gomorrah is possibly another example. The Emperor’s New Clothes is another such cautionary tale. History is littered with the ashes of societies that chose the path of failing to question.
Indoctrinate The Children
What this tells you: like most “charities”, Save the Children has too much money. Most charities have too much money, waste too much on administration and “gala events.” Give to small, local charities; they know who is really in need.
I went to a United Way appreciation dinner as a guest once. Salmon and filet mignon were the dinner choices with white and red wine served in carafes on the table. It was a semi formal awards thingy with lots of company brass and politicians congratulating themselves.
When you are a non profit as all these charities are, it’s very important to never have a profit. So high salaries and high expenses are normal, I was told.
The coal, gas, and oil industries have saved more children from poverty and hunger than Save the Children ever will.
So true! A few billion more.
To complete the thought: if STC and other deluded NGO’s are successful at eliminating fossil fuels, children will suffer the most, including increased poverty, food insecurity and hunger.
Whereas, if fossil fuel use continues, more CO2 is emitted, and the planet warms, all that will be beneficial to children and to food production and distribution.
Warmer Is Better for children and other living things.
I would suggest a charity, if you can find an honest one, that isn’t run by complete loons.
How do they think the food gets delivered to the needy children? I don’t see air cargo planes going electric soon. I also don’t think electric semis will be delivering food to the far places that Save the Children reaches out to.
Well, if they can do without $750,000 then I guess they won’t miss my measly $50 bucks…
A $750,000 donation turned down?
The 2019 IRS Form 990 for “Save The Children” is available at https://www.savethechildren.org/content/dam/usa/images/annual-report/2019/2019-scus-990.pdf
It’s 125 pages long.
Contributions and grants: $758,975,741
Salaries: $107,645,274
Employees: 1603
I guess they can afford to turn down a measly three quarters of a million.
Salaries divided by employees = $67,152!
G’Day Robert,
“$67,152”
That’s the same figure my calculator came up with. Then I went into the 990 to see what the officers were paid. On the 990 page 7:
President and CEO: $560,749 (plus another $57,362 estimated)
That’s a ‘base pay’ of about $280/hour for her 2,000 hour year.. Not too shabby.
The Corporate Secretary: $136,247. Aw shucks – just $68/hour.
At the foot of page 8: Total number of individuals (including but not limited to those listed above) who received more than $100,000 reportable compensation from the organization: 328.
It might be a charity but they’re working with some fairly substantial figures.
The rest of the story. I spent 11 seasons with H & R Block. I prepared just one 990 in those years. April 15, 1994 was my last day as a preparer. In 1996 I was passing the office, the boss lady’s car was out front. To my wife, “Let’s go in and say Hi”. The receptionist took my name back to the kitchen where the boss (an EA) and two other preparers were working on a 990, trying to describe how the charity’s activities benefited the community. The receptionist came back, grinning, “She says go on back, you’re the biggest bullsh*tter she knows.” It had been two years, but my coffee cup was still hanging on the rack over the kitchen sink. One cup of coffee and 45 minutes later they had more than enough ‘community benefits’ to satisfy the IRS.
All institutions are corruptible, and over time get corrupted. It’s inevitable, regardless of whether are “charities”, governmental or non-governmental organizations. Over time, their internal bureaucracies take control and focus on self-perpetuation and aggrandizement. Look at our universities, for example. The bureaucracies grow faster that the segments devoted to teaching, for instance.
Fat Cats!!
The food they feed to the children would not be gown without fossil fuel,….
Save the Children? millions annually, globally, we’ll call “ghost children”. Don’t elect (i.e. one-child, selective-child) to abort human life for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes. Divest from the wicked solution. Lose your “ethical” religion.
I have been a fairly regular if not particularly large donor to STC (ie I certainly cannot meet the Neptune donation). I do hope that STC don’t send me my reminder in the next few days. The response will be particularly blunt. I have cancelled my standing donation. If asked why I have cancelled, I will point out that I am a fossil fuel user so they won’t want my money.
It does leave an unanswered question which is how can I help kids in the developing nations without fools like these deciding that it is preferable those poor kids continue to starve rather than be helped by fossil fuels.
The up side is that as a shareholder in some fossil fuel companies, perhaps the directors will be less willing to use my profits to virtue signal and instead pay increased dividends so I can decide what to do with my money.
children who protested climate change affected their decision??
ah yes dearest greta can clock up a few more
“save the planet from humans- by causing their Death “then I guess?
because the kids protesting sure arent the ones starving are they?
Unfortunately there are far to many charities that have chosen to run themselves like a business and pay their high officers large commercial rate salaries. These people then move from one well paid job to another giving not a dam about what the charity was set up for only thinking of their own greed. Also large amounts of the money collected goes on needless activities, consultants and focus groups.
I could list several that have worked their way through virtually all that was donated with a mere pittance going where it was meant to. The Princess Diana Fund spent very little of the millions raised in her memory, Captain Tom who using his walking frame walked miles to raise funds for the NHS (Britain’s health service) only a small amount actually went where it should have and everyone knows (or should) that millions raised by BLM went to buy homes (yes that’s plural) for one of the founders of that organisation. It’s getting harder and harder to find charities that do what they were set up to do with dedicated people with the drive, the desire and the honesty to do what the organisation was set up to do. Most seem to be small local and have a narrow purpose, once those that set them up retire and pass it on is when things start going wonky.
James Bull
“It’s getting harder and harder to find charities that do what they were set up to do with dedicated people with the drive, the desire and the honesty to do what the organisation was set up to do.”
We have one of those organizations in Alberta. Their leader has spent weeks in solitary confinement for trying to do real charity.
Somebody should report them to the State of Texas.
This exposes the real reason for the Climate Change Cult’s position on the essence of life, CO2. Which is to kill off a large proportion of the world’s human population!
ANYONE reading this article and this post who believes in the Cult’s message that CO2 is bad, must do some soul searching and ask yourself if you really are anti life and hence supporting evil! Step outside of your brainwashed mental fog and get real!
Read this essay for starters (to any who are moderately, or whole heartedly for the Climate Change propaganda):
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/
Now we know what’s more important—political posturing for the garbage elite’s climate change scam or feeding children. But this isn’t the first time that leftists have indulged in such insanity.