Listen to Greenpeace!

No, I haven't turned. I was, however, challenged to an email debate/ exchange with a young AGW believer (and a Christian) who was pleasant, rational, friendly and accommodating, a welcome relief from the shrill green-left preachers. He probably feels the same way about conservatives.

As a result I decided that, on my personal journey, it was time to face the boogey man of "Big Oil payouts drive Climate Change scepticism". All in the interests of fair play, since I finally met an AGW supporter who can talk without cussing and isn't wearing a hemp shirt.

So, I stopped by Greenpeace's website exxonsecrets.org to see what they say, just in case I'm accused of listening to my own conservative echo-chamber. Good ol' Greenpeace. Fair play to them, they've done a lot of work. It's a site to "document Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change sceptics".

You assume, therefore, that the long list of over 130 institutions, ranging from commerce groups, policy analysts, media watchdogs, thinktanks and science departments, are all recipients of EM's billions. And, naturally, that they are all enviro-trashing, Gore-hating, Poley-Bear murdering Climate denialists.

Indeed, there's a lot of money. I provisionally calculated over $12-15 million in contributions over a minimum 10 year period. That's around 0.00025% of EM's global yearly profit. One could rightly suggest that this figure doesn't exactly betray a sense of urgency on their part, to spread this allegedly corrupt gospel. You'd also have to ignore the fact that Climate Alarmism actually gives them an alibi to raise oil prices. Those poor oil execs, how torn they must be.

But sure, that's a scandallous amount of money. If you also ignore the fact that private enterprise has been funding research or political institutions since time began.

However, there's a couple of real problems. Firstly, half of the listed groups receive no money at all, which makes me wonder why they're on a site dedicated to documenting Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change sceptics.

Also, thanks to the site's detail, you can find several of these groups with nary a smatter of the wicked climate denialism which Greenpeace are so gallantly proclaiming (I suspected this when, amongst the institutions listed, I often spotted the word university).

It seems Greenpeace are flagging some of these naughty institutions for any associated conservative crime which could be linked to the dire transgression of climate scepticism. Among them are media watchdog groups, legal foundation groups dedicated to protection of property rights, a Racial Equality Congress which has, in the past, been "critical of environmental groups", and some medical gang concerned with malaria vaccinations in Africa.

Malaria vaccinations.

In fact, amongst the donations was $100,000 given to an Environmental program "dedicated to researching new options...which have the capability to substantially reduce greenhouse emissions". For some reason I included that in my above approximate. I wonder how many others I perhaps should have excluded but didn't.

But let's just assume the worst, like you do with capitalism, and that it really is around $15 million bucks. Possibly more, if the Greenpeace researchers occasionally had to return to their day jobs and missed something.

So we get it. Climate sceptics are not driven by a genuine desire for truth and transparency, nosiree. They are all greedy money grabbers. The Green Warriors, on the other hand, are as pure as the driven snow which keeps popping up every time Al Gore is in town to tell us how hot we're all going to get.

Which makes this following episode of follow-the-money, as summarised by the Wall Street Journal, a very inconvenient truth:

Firstly, our friend at the centre of the CRU email scandal, alarmist Phil Jones received, between 2000 and 2006, around $19 million in public grants.

The EU Commission's most recent pass-the-hat-around-for-climate change netted almost $3 billion, and that doesn't include the funds donated by EU member states. They were private donations. Yes, private enterprise has funded AGW.

The US Gov is donating almost $2 billion to AGW-friendly NASA (when don't they need funding??) and two other Climate institutes.

The louder you cry doom, whilst flashing your PhD, the more money flows in. Yours and mine, not the profits of some evil oil cabal.

Meanwhile, the HSBC Bank calculates that over $90 billion (that's billion, with a B) has been raised for (for, not by) "green energy" interests. These are the stimulus funds which will make the green energy divestment/ investment brokerage firm Kleiner Perkins, among others, ridiculously rich.

And the CEO of Kleiner Perkins is..? Al Gore. Just sayin', is all.

Then there's the whole spin-off franchise boom; universities, advocacy groups, and lobbyists. Greenpeace, Climate Action Now, Clean Air Cool Planet, Alternative Energy goups, the entire Australian Department of Climate Change...all hanging out for a piece of that multi-billion dollar pool. Some of it was possibly spent on a website telling us how Exxon-Mobil has funded sceptics.

That's what's been spent. Of course, it will all be a drop in the ocean compared to what can be extorted by Cap And Tax / ETS / Copenhagen deals and the rest.

$15 million vs $93 Billion. Mathematics is certainly a more exacting science than Climatology.

Thanks for the info, Greenpeace.

UPDATE: Another take on who's-in-the-pay-of-big-oil by James Delingpole.

How dare they

I heard an interesting theory recently that one of the effects of the Climate Change craze was that children were being turned against their parents. Subliminally, at least, they would be made to look at their parents and say "YOUR industry, your pollution, your cars, did this to MY future".

I genuinely believed that no reasonable person who supports man-made GW would ever consciously do that. I really, really wish I was right. As if we needed any more proof of the delusional, deranged, divisive, humanity-hating intent of the Green Left:

Recently defeated Greens candidate Clive Hamilton, on an ABC website, writes a mock letter to a child who's father works for, well, just about any industry. This disgusting exploitation of childhood naivete and parental disrespect is downright chilling.

Hi there,

There's something you need to know about your father.

Your dad's job is to try to stop the government making laws to reduce Australia's carbon pollution. He is paid a lot of money to do that by big companies who do not want to own up to the fact that their pollution is changing the world's climate in very harmful ways.

...Deep down your dad knows all this, although he probably pretends he doesn't. ...He has to tell himself these things because otherwise he would feel too guilty and could not sleep very well at night.

...So your dad is not really a bad person. He is not deliberately making the world a worse place for you and all the other kids. But he is telling lies to himself so he does not have to face up to the truth about what he does at work.

I am sure it's hard for you to hear these words, but there is something you can do to help. Why not sit your dad down and have a good talk to him.

...Tell him that you know he will feel much happier inside if he is doing something to make Australia and the world a better place, instead of going to work every day to make it a worse one.

Absolutely reprehensible. Inexcusable.

Read it all here.


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Tony, meet Sarah...

The parallels between the US and Australia are remarkable.

In the "elected" corner: We have two leaders who are smooth talking, have more spin than substance, got elected by appearing centrist but are ultimately left, and who think that apologising for what other people have allegedly done somehow constitutes courage on their part.

In the "opposing" corner: We have two figures who are maligned and even sexually vilified by a mass media who throw away their own rulebook on tolerance in the process. They apologise for their own shortcomings rather than others', don't apologise for speaking the truth, and take a stand on issues rather than skirt around them in constant campaign mode.

The rather savvy Lloyd Marcus sums it up at American Thinker:

We the people are so sick of namby pamby "middle of the road speak" focus group-tested candidates. "Don't say this because you will offend this crowd and don't say that because you will offend the other." For crying out loud, just say what you mean and mean what you say. Show us voters who you are. These are the kind of candidates we voters are longing and tea partying for. And this is why Sarah "what you see is what you get" Palin is a rock star.

We The People. I love those words.

When previously dormant voters see someone of true character, in begins to show up in those not-conclusive-but-compelling approval ratings. It's started happening to Obama. Up to now, Rudd has been shielded by the clear absence of a formidable opponent, or more accurately, by an opposition leader who was actually his clone.

I expect to see that change now. Watch those annoying-but-interesting polls.


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