{"id":330218,"date":"2024-05-27T12:07:53","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T10:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=330218"},"modified":"2024-05-27T12:07:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T10:07:56","slug":"environmentalism-in-america-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=330218","title":{"rendered":"Environmentalism In America Is Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the Robert Bryce Substack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Bryce<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement birthed by Rachel Carson\u2019s <\/a>Silent Spring<\/a><\/em> in the early 1960s and Earth Day in the 1970s \u2014 a movement that once aimed to protect landscapes, wildlands, whales, and wildlife \u2014 has morphed into the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex<\/a>. Rather than preserve wildlands and wildlife, today\u2019s \u201cgreen\u201d NGOs have devolved into a sprawling network of nonprofit and for-profit groups aligned with big corporations, big banks, and big law firms. In the name of climate change, these NGOs want to pave vast swaths of America\u2019s countryside with oceans of solar panels and forests of 600-foot-high wind turbines. They are also promoting the industrialization of our oceans, a move that could put hundreds of massive offshore wind turbines in the middle of some of our best fisheries and right atop known habitat of the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The simplest way to understand how climatism and renewable energy fetishism have swamped concerns about conservation and wildlife protection is to follow the money. Over the past decade or so, the business of climate activism has become just that \u2014 a business. As I reported last year in \u201cThe Anti-Industry Industry<\/a>,\u201d the top 25 climate nonprofits are spending some $4.5 billion per year. As seen below, the gross receipts of the top 25 climate-focused NGOs now total about $4.7 billion per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These groups \u2014 which are uniformly opposed to both nuclear energy and hydrocarbons \u2014 have budgets that dwarf those of pro-nuclear and pro-hydrocarbon outfits like the Nuclear Energy Institute, which, according to the latest figures from Guidestar, has gross receipts of $194 million, and the American Petroleum Institute which has gross receipts of $254 million. (Unless otherwise noted, the NGO figures are from Guidestar, which defines gross receipts as a \u201cgross figure that does not subtract rental expenses, costs, sales expenses, direct expenses, and costs of goods sold.\u201d Also note that in many cases, Guidestar\u2019s gross receipts figure doesn\u2019t match the revenue that the NGOs are reporting on their Form 990s.)   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand the staggering amount of money being spent by the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex, look at the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Colorado-based group founded by Amory Lovins, the college dropout<\/a> who, for nearly 50 years, has been the leading cheerleader for the \u201csoft\u201d energy path of wind, solar, biofuels, and energy efficiency. (Click here<\/a> for my 2007 article on Lovins.) Between 2012 and 2022, according to ProPublica, Rocky Mountain Institute\u2019s annual budget skyrocketed, going from $10 million to $117 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indeed, the group provides a prime example of how corporate cash and dark money are fueling the growth of the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex.  Among its biggest donors are corporations that are profiting from the alt-energy craze<\/a>. Last year, Wells Fargo, a mega-bank that is among the world\u2019s biggest providers of tax-equity financing for alt-energy projects, gave Rocky Mountain Institute at least $1 million. On its website<\/a>, Wells Fargo says it is \u201cone of the most active tax-equity investors in the nation\u2019s renewable energy sector, financing projects in 38 states.\u201d In 2021, the bank bragged<\/a> that it had surpassed \u201c$10 billion in tax-equity investments in the wind, solar, and fuel cell industries. Wells Fargo has invested in more than 500 projects, helping to finance 12% of all wind and solar energy capacity in the U.S. over the past 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another mega-bank giving big bucks to RMI is J.P.  Morgan Chase, which gave at least $500,000 in 2023. I took a deep dive into alt-energy finance last year in \u201cJamie Dimon\u2019s Climate Corporatism<\/a>.\u201d I explained:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About half of all the tax equity finance deals in the country (worth about $10 billion per year) are being done by just two big banks, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America<\/a>. The two outfits have the resources to handle the tax credits that are generated by renewable projects and pair those \u201ctax subsidies\u201d (the term used by Norton Rose Fulbright)<\/a> with the capital financing needed to get the projects built.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Rocky Mountain Institute got a similar amount from European oil giant Shell PLC, which has been active in both onshore and offshore wind<\/a>. In addition, last year, the Rocky Mountain Institute published a report in  partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund, which claimed, \u201cthe fossil fuel era is over<\/a>.\u201d The Bezos Earth Fund, of course, gets its cash from Amazon zillionaire Jeff Bezos. Last year, Bezos\u2019s group gave Rocky Mountain Institute at least $1 million. In addition, Amazon, which claims to be \u201cthe world\u2019s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy,\u201d is a significant donor and was the sole funder of a report published earlier this year by RMI that promotes increased use of \u2014 what else? \u2014 solar, wind, and batteries<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

RMI also got at least $1 million from two NGOs \u2014 ClimateWorks Foundation and the Climate Imperative Foundation \u2014 which funnel massive amounts of dark money to climate activist groups. San Francisco-based ClimateWorks has gross receipts of $350 million. ClimateWorks lists about two dozen major funders on its website<\/a>, including the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Ford Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. However, the group\u2019s tax filings show that it gets most of its funding from individuals, none of whom are disclosed on its Form 990<\/a>. In 2022, ClimateWorks got $128 million from an unnamed individual, $45 million from another individual, and $24 million from another. In all, ClimateWorks collected about $277 million \u2014 or roughly 84% of its funding \u2014 from a handful of unnamed oligarchs. Who are they? ClimateWorks doesn\u2019t say, but notes that it has \u201cseveral funders that [sic] prefer to remain anonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Imperative, also based in San Francisco, doesn\u2019t reveal the identities of its funders<\/a>, nor does it publish the names of all the activist groups it funds. But it is giving staggering sums of money to climate groups. Climate Imperative\u2019s gross receipts total $289 million. The group\u2019s goals include the \u201crapid scaling of renewable energy, widespread electrification of buildings and transportation, [and] stopping the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elite academics produce studies that provide ammunition to the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex. Last year, in an article published in the left-wing magazine Mother Jones<\/em>, Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, claimed, \u201cWe now have the potential to rebuild a better America<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doing so, he explained, will require a much larger electric grid with \u201cup to 75,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines by 2035.\u201d That\u2019s enough, he noted, to \u201ccircle the Earth three times.\u201d He continued, saying the U.S. will also need utility-scale solar projects covering \u201can area the size of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined, and wind farms that span an area equal to that of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenkins claims we can have a \u201cbetter America\u201d by covering an area the size of eight states with solar panels (most of which are made with Chinese components<\/a>) and endless forests of massive, noisy, bird-and-bat-killing wind turbines. Put another way, the Princeton net-zero plan would require paving some 239,000 square miles (620,000 square kilometers) of land with solar and wind projects, and that doesn\u2019t include the territory needed for all the high-voltage transmission lines that would be needed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On its face, the notion is absurd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the scheme, published in 2020 and known as the Net-Zero America<\/a> study, got positive coverage in major media outlets, including the <\/a>New York Times<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite the cartoonish amount of land and raw materials it would require, the Princeton net-zero plan shows how renewable energy fetishism dominates today\u2019s energy policy discussions. Nearly every large climate-focused NGO in America claims our economy must soon be fueled solely by solar, wind, and batteries, with no hydrocarbons or nuclear allowed. But those claims ignore the raging land-use conflicts happening across America \u2014 and in numerous countries around the world \u2014 as rural communities<\/a> fight back against the encroachment of Big Wind and Big Solar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most striking example of the environmental betrayal now underway is the climate activists\u2019 support for installing hundreds, or even thousands, of offshore wind platforms on the Eastern Seaboard, smack in the middle of the North Atlantic Right Whale\u2019s habitat. Last month, I published this video showing habitat maps and the areas proposed for wind development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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