“In the middle of a swirl of bogus climate scandals trumped up by deniers, here is the real Climategate, waiting to be exposed.” writes Johann Hari, in the March edition of The Nation.
Hari is talking about the fact that many recognized and highly respected environmental organizations appear to have been bought and paid for, beginning as early as the 1980s, with donations from Big Business, notably oil and gas companies.
Case in point; the National Wildlife Federation, which – under the leadership of Jay Hair – allegedly switched its allegiance from environmental defense to corporate profit-taking, and its funding sources from the traditional wealthy but conscious-ridden elites (some of them members) to energy companies, most of whom are engaged in lucrative but highly pollutive coal, oil and gas extraction.
The proof of this, says Hari, is that the NWF (and The Nature Conservancy, or TNC) started giving these companies awards which recognized them as environmental stewards par excellence. This, in exchange for the energy companies’ financial support.
With companies like Shell and BP using such awards to polish their images during periods when the negative press generated by their environmental rape hit hardest, and the NWF able to spread its financially enhanced (albeit tarnished) wings over a bigger segment of the environmental landscape, the ethical conundrum of using oil funds to finance environmental defense was resolved, says Hari, and other environmental groups quickly jumped on the bottomless bank account bandwagon.
As further proof of his assertions, Hari cites the book Green Inc., written by Christine McDonald, who noted the case of Clorox promising the Sierra Club a portion of revenues from its new line of “green” cleaners in exchange for endorsement.
The Sierra Club denied the allegation, and most environmental groups are equally as vehement in defending their honor, but in fact this form of ‘greenwashing’ has reached its culmination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency giving out “Green Power” awards to such power providers as AmerenUE (for its marketing campaign, no less; Ameren’s generation mix is 84 percent coal, and far from award-winning).
And SourceWatch (our paradigm source for truthiness) says of these environmental groups – which are variously referred to as Big Green, The Group of Green, or Gang Green – that they are heavily staffed and well funded non-profits with eight-digit budgets and offices in the Capitol and other major cities, whose highly-paid directors, analysts and lobbyists spend money acquired from corporations whose members sit on their (environmental groups’) boards of directors.
With the exception of the Sierra Club, SourceWatch adds, corporate “spin gurus” (like Peter Sandman, Ron Duchin, et al) have spent decades finding ways for their corporate clients to silence the environmental movement in general, and environmental groups in particular, by using the timeless strategy of divide and conquer.
SourceWatch identifies the top ten environmental groups as: Defenders of Wildlife; the Environmental Defense Fund; Greenpeace; the National Audubon Society; the National Wildlife Federation; the Natural Resources Defense Council; The Nature Conservancy; the Sierra Club; The Wilderness Society; and the World Wildlife Fund.
Exempting the Sierra Club, we are still left with nine offenders who don’t, according to Hari, recognize the moral dichotomy of kissing the hand that kills the natural world we love and need to survive.
Not surprisingly, each of these environmental groups offers, in their defense, the possibility that they are influencing the behavior of the corporations who fund them for the better.
Hari says the reverse is true; that their “addiction to cash” (and lots of it) has corrupted the environmentalists, leaving watchdogs that no longer bark and thieves who dare steal resources (and leave behind filth) in the light of day.
But is the portrait as dark as Hari paints it? Perhaps not, since nothing is ever black and white, and we need to remember that Greenpeace’s CorpWatch, which ferrets out and exposes corporate greenwashing, has helped bring to light such duplicity as NWF’s 2001 Endangered Wildlife Friends campaign, in conjunction with BP, which sold stuffed leopards, wolves and elephants and promised to donate some of the money toward helping preserve endangered species.
Of course, a portion of the money went to BP – not an endangered species – and the animals were made in China, likely in a sweatshop, but even this major nonsense died an early death when revealed, proving that the best deterrent to crime is exposure, both metaphorically and in fact.
Another example would be GE’s 2005 Ecomagination campaign, launched on the premise that world-leading diversified corporation General Electric was greening its image through cleaner sources of energy and cleaner water.
Even Grist, our otherwise favorite truth-teller, got in on this one, praising the company (or perhaps damning it with faint praise). In any case, author Amanda Little’s statement, “If Immelt can merge altruism and profitability by selling technical fixes for the many challenges posed by global warming, more power to him”, sounded more like a compliment than a criticism.
Of course, little did most people know that GE was both manufacturing coal-fired steam turbines and investing in coal-fired electrical generation, though neither source of emissions was calculated into GE’s emissions profile when CEO Jeff Immelt said that the company had successfully reduced its emissions footprint by four percent between 2004 and 2006.
And this is the lure of money; that it turns everything a shade of green that can be mistaken for “right” (i.e., a good thing for the environment, or people), when in fact it’s simply about “might”.
Thus, Hari’s charges ring true, even if they are harsher than necessary. Besides, how can one support an organization like the NWF, which in 2008 gave Florida Governor Charlie Crist one of its National Conservation Achievement (“Connie”) awards?
Crist, as we now all realize, didn’t buy a rescue for the Florida Everglades. He bought a reprieve for U.S. Sugar, one of the worst environmental bandits of the southeastern U.S. – a move which U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio describes as, “The second most expensive photo op Charlie Crist has ever staged.”
Read other great articles on Celsias:
Exactly what is your point? You & Johann Hari are pure as the driven snow and everyone else is corrupt? It's a horribly cynical way to view life.
Written in March 2010