The Green of Green
Steadily alleged by the climate change advocacy is that compensation for those repudiating the theory arrives from gas and oil companies.
In 2017 on a different platform, I wrote, “Greenpeace claimed that that the Koch Brothers gave $88 million towards studies challenging the validity of human-induced climate change. The contributions were made over a period of some 20 years– it was a monumental discovery on an absolutely major scale and the Koch Brothers faced crowds of protests, hate mail, and death threats. The demonstrations and hatred continue to this day. The greens have investigated Exxon on a daily basis, but have only established a contribution totaling $2.9 million” and , “On the other hand, last year alone in the United States, taxpayers dished out over $4 billion for proponent climate change, studies, research and activities, and the world’s taxpayers, through government expenditures, contributed a total of $1.5 trillion. The latter value is about 38% of the total USA budget or just about the same as the budget of the 3rd ranked country in expenditures, Germany.”
Of the Koch brothers, Charlie and David, the younger brother, David passed away in 2019.
While there is no other substantiated proof of oil and gas companies providing climate change refuters with money, studies, papers, or otherwise, one can be assured taxpayer dollars for climate change activities in the last seven years have increased extensively.
How much are environmental organizations paying their Chief Executive Officers or Presidents? Let’s find out – these values were extracted from the subject environmental groups’ “990 tax filings”:
Carter Roberts, World Wildlife Fund - 2022 - $1,204,775
Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund 2021 - $922,022
Jennifer Morris, the Nature Conservancy - 2021 - $758,013
Elizabeth Gray, National Audubon Society - 2021 - $751,972
Mitchell Bernard, Natural Resources Defense Council - 2021 - $705,195
Janis Searles Jones, Ocean Conservancy - 2022 - $692,836
I was going to stop at five, but when I saw the name “Ocean Conservancy”, it also made me recall another article from 2017 about a competitor to Ocean Conservancy, “Ted Danson (best known for Cheers and Becker and perhaps Consumer Cellular) was a contributing founder of American Oceans Campaign an environmental group that has since merged with Oceana and adopted the latter's name. In initiating the American Oceans Campaign in 1988, Danson said, “We only have ten years to save the oceans.” – Despite the colossal faux pas, Danson is still on Oceana’s board of directors”.
That statement has aged 36 years now.
Clicking on the E&E News article, “Meet the top-paid green group bosses”, it will display total compensation values for the top chiefs of 30 environmental groups. These salary values are 2 or 3 years old, so I’m sure appreciation for additional seniority has kicked in.
None of these compensation values will reach the amount accumulated by King Campaigner of Climate Change, Al Gore. In 2000, when Gore lost the presidential election to George W. Bush, his net worth was $1.7 million – it now sits as $300 million – in other words, Gore’s net worth since the election loss, has averaged $24.5 million yearly.
Suppose one clicks the ever-present “donate” button on an environmental group’s website. In that case, you can be assured that the president’s salary, and their staff, will be satisfied, long before any environmental or propaganda work begins. Naturally, they are also compensated by taxpayer funds through non-governmental organizations (NGO).
Jo Nova at joannenova.com.au writes, “One former President of the WWF was William K Reilly, who was also at one time director of DuPont, ConocoPhillips, and of Royal Caribbean. He was Administrator of the US EPA from 1989 to 1993 and headed up the US delegation to Rio in 1992 while he was also President of the WWF. Get the picture? It just goes to show how the WWF is just another arm of Big Government and Big Business.In terms of where the $450 million in revenue end up each year, about $44 million was used just for fundraising. And according to InfluenceWatch salary expenses were $70 million in 2020 plus another $4 million in “executive compensation” and $17 million for “other employee benefits”. So that’s a third of the budget. It is a machine that feeds itself. Environmental non-profits are corporate conglomerates and political lobby groups masquerading as a charity.”
It should also be noted that The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is one of the world’s largest real estate companies. They receive millions in donations as well as government funds and use the money to advance their cause of nationalizing private land and they do so at a profit – yes, they sell it to the government for more than they paid for it. In 2007, TNC said that it owned or had under conservation easement 1,177,000 acres in its private preserve system.
I wrote about the TNC multiple times on another platform. I link one such story here.