The late, great humorist P.J. O’Rourke used to quip that everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to wash the dishes.
Well, now that can be said for traditional environmental groups that seem to have lost their way.
Green groups are supposed to be about keeping our rivers, lakes and streams clean. They are supposed to be about fighting litter and keeping toxic chemicals out of the air. Their job is to maintain the beauty of our national parks and save elephants and tigers.
Not anymore. The New York Times recently reported in a disturbing headline: “Environmental Groups Cut Programs as Funding Shifts to Climate Change.”
In other words, the Left’s climate change hysteria and its campaign to end fossil fuels is interfering with a commonsense green agenda. Worse than that, the climate agenda is in some ways making the condition of the environment worse.
According to the Times story: “A significant shift in donor contributions to nonprofits fighting climate change in recent years has left some of the nation’s biggest environmental organizations facing critical shortfalls in programs on toxic chemicals, radioactive contamination and wildlife protection.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council, “the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Environmental Working Group, which have been at the forefront of efforts to clean up waste water, regulate pesticides and adopt tougher standards for atomic power plants, are facing similar financial problems,” said Times reporter Ralph Vartabedian.
This is all being driven by a mad pursuit of billions of green dollars for stopping global warming. That is, they are chasing and spending money on a cause – changing the planet’s temperature – that they can have almost no impact on.
How much money are we talking about? In 2022, environment groups spent and raised $8 billion on climate change activities. That doesn’t fully include the tens of billions of dollars that central governments are spending on climate issues. All of this money has funded scores of ritzy climate change conferences around the globe, as well as virtue-signaling protests, propaganda campaigns in schools, and a war against oil, gas and coal, cars, stoves and air conditioners. And now eating meat is verboten.
Yet, the climate agenda is often pushing policies that destroy the planet rather than save it. In poor countries, the war against fossil fuels has meant that villages are burning wood, or even feces. Instead of spending money on ensuring the world’s poor have safe drinking water, we are spending billions of dollars pushing windmills and solar power.
These “green energies” use 10 times more land than a coal or gas plant. The landscape of America is being paved over and industrialized by our pursuit of zero-carbon policies. How is that a pro-environment policy?
Moreover, raising the cost of energy makes people poorer, which is counterproductive if we want to keep the planet clean. The richer a country, the more money they spend to clean the air, the water and to preserve wildlife.
The bigger question environmentalists should be asking is: What has the half-trillion dollars that have been spent on climate change bought? No measurable results.
Fossil fuel use reached an all-time high in 2022 and 2023, and carbon emissions have been climbing rather than receding. The more governments spend, the more money the United Nations insists we need to spend. The U.N.’s latest report says more than $4 trillion needs to be spent each year until 2030 to stop global warming.
With that much money, we can end global hunger and illiteracy.
Instead, the fanatics in the Biden administration and the billionaire donor class demand that we save the planet from carbon emissions at any cost, and if that means diminishing funds for fighting real pollution that kills people, so be it.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist at FreedomWorks. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.”
Reprinted with permission from The Center for Individual Freedom by Stephen Moore.
Just remember that the IRA created a $350 billion dollar slush fund to promote the “green agenda” and that Biden put John Podesta (yes that John Podesta) in charge of doling that money out as he personally sees fit. So, since most of the so-called “green” organizations mentioned in this article are little more than front groups for the globalist agenda, it would be expected they would all being lining up to do whatever it takes to get their big piece of the taxpayer-funded pie. If that means crushing our economy in the name of climate change and ramping up energy costs and inflation along the way, then so be it. The same folks going to COP and WEF every year, are the same people that stand to make billions to tens of billions in the next few years as the West’s largest economies beggar themselves and their citizens at the altar of climate change. The world’s greatest financial scam will do everything but benefit humanity.
The headline describing all the planet saving organizations and groups and the UN should read THE SCAM OF ALL SCAMS The coup ne plus ultra
The global elite don’t care about the average person! More dead people, more resources for the elite! It’s always about those who want power and control and how to get it!
Green groups are all about money – was BLM all about black people, NO, it was about the mount of money that the originators could bring in for themselves and get them that million dollar house!! There are environmentalists and Washington elite who have invested in companies that are set to profit from the sale of EV’s so the federal government decides that it’s a good idea to mandate the EV’s, make even more money for these arrogant, selfish liars!!!
The lefts Green Movement is as phony as their Women’s Movement.
The green groups should be forced to give the money back to whomever they got it from.
They are creating a method to fatten their wallets and bank accounts. Stop trying to complicate the situation.
Only in protecting idiots like you!
And your hot air doesn’t?
Your lack of intelligence is showing again!
The “Green Activist” are succeeding in their true pursuit to make themselves wealthier and the poor much poorer. Their true agenda is to gain all the power and wealth all while making the general public dependent upon them.
Atomic Power Plants have been clean and safe from the beginning. The only reason the “environmental” groups were against Atomic/Nuclear Power was because of their ignorance of the truth and the anti-USA information they were being force-fed. Yes, we had Three Mile Island, BUT their was NO radiation released as the fake news would have you believe – Chernobyl was NOT built with the safety features our USA plants have. We are being left behind as the rest of the world builds these plants and the Clintons sell our Nuclear fuel stock to them. Our Nuclear Power Plants are SAFE and CLEAN!
Excellent article telling the TRUTH.
They could start by admitting the Global Warming lie is just that, a lie. They could also tell the TRUTH about jets spraying toxic chemicals in the air every day over our heads that has aluminum particles, ash (yes, ash), including all the other toxic chemicals they are spraying ruining normal weather patterns and killing us by polluting our air, water, food supply, and all animals both on land and in the water. Each time they Spray your nose runs and burns. You have a harder time breathing and everything tastes like ash in your mouth and you can smell the ash in your nose. It also causes your eyes to burn. Just look up and watch the toxic chemicals they spray when jets fly over. You will see that they spray not only on sunny days but before it rains , during rain, and after it rains putting those toxic chemicals into your body and the environment. They will use several jets and spray heavily.
The FANTASY WORLD of saying they can stop the so-called Global Warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius is a Lie. The earth’s weather is controlled by the Sun, magnetic fields, volcano eruptions, moon, Solar Flares, earthquakes, and our orbit in Space. Let’s not forget that Wars have an effect on weather too. The earth is heading towards another mini-ice age as NASA clearly stated on January 17, 2019, I believe was the date. Funny how NASA suddenly changed the TRUTH 2 years later for Dictator Beijing biden’s Global Warming lie or they wouldn’t get funding from the democrat controlled Congress at the time.
Earth’s weather will be cold, warm, or in between and no BS lie from Dictator Beijing biden and the rest of those pushing the lie at American taxpayers expense and Energy Independence will ever change the natural course of Earths weather.
To add that Dictator Beijing biden and Flip-flop Kerry DON’T know what earths temperatures will be in 100 years let alone tomorrow. They base their decisions on speculation and FANTASY WORLD. Just as your local weather channel speculates what the weather will be tomorrow.
I am amazed that the people that actually believe the climate narrative think that man can save the world. Man didn’t create the world and man can’t destroy the world. Only God can. Yes we have a responsibility to care for our planet and not openly destroy that which we have been given but to worship the created instead of the Creator is wrong. These people are part of a cult and seem to think man can do anything we set our minds to. Stop the sun from one day burning out? Good luck with that one. Satan wants man to believe he is above almighty God.
This sentence (paraphrased) “What measurable change in global temperature have we seen after spending a half trillion dollars?” shows the futility of the idea that mankind can effect the global atmosphere. Yes, we can stop outright pollution, we can work to prevent deforestation, etc. We pat ourselves on the back for these accomplishments. Then, as if to poke the middle finger in our faces, a volcano errupts, sending practically unmeasurable amounts of ash, sulfur, carbon into the atmosphere. Drastic floods destroy fertile land under silt and debris. Three steps forward, 2 steps back. The earth will be here eons after we are memories. These environmental radicals will not admit that it is not the earth that they want to save. It is the earthly environment that allows them to live that they wish to save. And if the “leaders” of this movement can enrich themselves at the same time, they see it as a WIN WIN for them and their cohorts. The hell with the rest of us little people.
It was our government that created any man-made global warming when they prohibited the burning of high sulfur coal and high sulfur diesel fuel because sulfur dioxide is a global COOLING gas. Solution = reduce the size, power, and control of governmental agencies.
Somehow, I stumbled upon this, and I thought it was a fantastic post.
But you’re STILL alive!