Green left gets uneasy that Jeff Bezos is giving $10 billion to stop climate change — is that a “conflict of interest”?

By Jo Nova

Finally, the Green-left activists are starting to ask if Big Money is distorting their own environmental efforts

Twenty years too late, a few on the green patsy environmental side are starting to feel “uneasy” about the billions of dollars gifted into their accounts by the nice caring bankers and oligarchs. The money thrown at believers is so obscenely big even they are raising eyebrows.

After smearing skeptics as shills for Big Oil, a few on the left are wondering if funds 300 times larger just from one man might be a bit concentrated. The Bezos Earth Fund has $10,000 million dollars in total to give away but in the last three decades of climate debate the evil Exxon only gave skeptics a grand total of $30 million dollars. Now they worry?

They wonder if Jeff Bezos is controlling too much of the environmental charity funding, and that he really wants to set up carbon offset schemes which greens fear will be “greenwashed” corrupted and a waste of time. This is quite a rare hint that a few in the environmental circles are just starting to be suspicious that they are being used to support other money […]

Progressive Parties are the party of the Rich

The Great Realignment in politics has been coming a long time but it is now starkly lined up as a Class War in most of The Western World, just that quite a lot of voters don’t know it yet, and they are ripe for flipping.

In Australia the tables were turned on a hundred years of history. The poorer half of the country voted for the conservatives, the richer half for the Labor Party, and the Richest of the Rich voted for the Teal-High-Fashion-Parade — the Gucci-Prada of Political Parties — the ones offering the Gold Plated Global Bragging Points!

I have a Platinium Frequent Flyer Card and I’m so Rich I Vote To Save The World!

People in Labor seats earned $8,000 a year more than people in Liberal electorates, but the Green-independents earnt $27,000 more. That’s not something they probably want people to hear.

Reversal of fortune: Labor electorates earn more than Coalition seats

Aaron Patrick Senior correspondent, Australian Financial Review

Households in Labor electorates now earn $8580 more a year than those in Coalition seats – a shift that could have profound effects on politics.

Labor […]

Outgoing UK Environment Minister says green groups are profiteering anti-capitalist agit-prop

Some extraordinary statements from Owen Paterson, the man who was the UK Environment Secretary until a week ago. This is baking hot. Paterson also draws attention to the way big-goverment has fed big-government lobbyists 150 million euros since 2007. Can we get this man to Australia? — Jo

I’m proud of standing up to the green lobby

The Telegraph UK I leave the post with great misgivings about the power and irresponsibility of – to coin a phrase – the Green Blob.

By this I mean the mutually supportive network of environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape. This tangled triangle of unelected busybodies claims to have the interests of the planet and the countryside at heart, but it is increasingly clear that it is focusing on the wrong issues and doing real harm while profiting handsomely.

Local conservationists on the ground do wonderful work to protect and improve wild landscapes, as do farmers, rural businesses and ordinary people. They are a world away from the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with […]

Government burn $70 billion a year subsidizing renewables, and wild claims of “fossil fuel subsidies” debunked

When activists protest about “fossil fuel” subsidies, it is a case of extreme-wordsmithing. Like chinese-whispers, the truth gets turned 180 degrees. It takes a string of half truths stacked in a series to come up with something which is so completely counter to reality it is meaningless.

The reality is that governments around the world are paying billions each year to prop up an industry that is inefficient, uncompetitive and unproductive. It’s money that is desperately needed in health or in real medical and scientific research.

“More than US$70 billion of support is provided by governments to renewable energy production and consumption worldwide.”

[IEA (The International Energy Agency, which promotes “green energy” in it’s header)]

That’s an annual figure. And the plan seems to be even more subsidies. (I thought the plan was to make renewables competitive?)

Source: IEA Key Graphs…

Source: IEA Key Graphs

Could it be $200 billion?

This UN group has an even higher number. I don’t know exactly how they define “green stimulus” spending, perhaps it was a one-off:

[UNCTAD]

“Green government procurement will also be essential in the early stages of a transition to a green economy. In 2009, global green stimulus […]

Big Green Machine – GE makes $21 billion a year on “clean energy”

GE — A clean energy revenue machine

GE is so large that its annual revenue ($150 billion) is greater than New Zealand’s gross domestic product ($140.43 billion). But GE stands to profit in solving man-man global warming, whereas New Zealand will just pay.

In 2011 GE generated $21 billion in “clean energy revenue”. (GE Annual Report 2011, p 3).

GE boast that their “technology helps deliver a quarter of the world’s electricity”. “We are one of the largest clean energy companies in the world” (page 18) “GE wind turbines, among the most widely used in the world, will soon power the largest wind farm in the U.S ”

Not just a whitegoods company any more.

In other words, they are one of the largest companies in the world which makes profits that depend on a climate of fear. How much would their wind turbines be worth if western governments pulled the pins on all the subsidies?

Here’s how much:

“Manufacturers of turbines and other components will shed an estimated 10,000 workers in the U.S. this year in anticipation of a slowdown in orders, says the AWEA. If Congress doesn’t extend the production tax credit, that figure will […]