(Photo of the climate strike and march in Pittsburgh on September 24, 2021.) Some radical environmental groups have been supported by hostile foreign governments. Credit: Mark Dixon. License: https://bit.ly/3r4ETmc.
By: James Simpson | Capital Research Center
The Greatest Heist in World History
Green Graft
Some environmental groups have also expressed concern that offshore wind farms and construction of windfarms are disrupting marine life and may be responsible for the unusual number of whales dying recently. Amid this growing concern, the Save Right Whales Coalition has produced a report detailing conflicts of interest in that offshore wind companies have made extensive payments to many environmental organizations. These include:
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Net assets of $385.7 million as of 2019. Accepted $500,000 from Orsted Wind around 2018 and has supported offshore wind since.
- New England Aquarium Corporation. Net assets of $55.4 million as of 2019. Received donations from three separate offshore wind companies—Vineyard Wind, Bay State Wind, and Equinor—between 2018 and 2020. Now supports offshore wind.
- Environmental League of Massachusetts. Net assets of $1.5 million as of 2019. Received $5,000–$9,000 from Vineyard Wind in 2020. Has supported offshore wind since 2010.
- National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Net assets of $243.5 million as of 2020. Has received $100,000–$499,999 from Avangrid Renewables and Apex Clean Energy in 2019 and 2020. Apex has promised to donate $1,000 per megawatt of its commercial generating capacity. The foundation is silent on offshore wind.
- National Audubon Society. Net assets: $585.2 million as of 2021. Has received monies indirectly from the Avangrid Foundation, associated with Avangrid Renewables, a large wind and solar firm. Audubon supports wind.
- The World Wildlife Fund. Net assets of $375 million as of 2019. Received undisclosed donations from Orsted in 2019. WWF supports offshore wind.
- Other recipients include The Nature Conservancy, the Wetlands Institute, Blue Planet Strategies, Maryland Coastal Bays, Assateague Coastal Trust and others.
U.S. Wind is building a major wind farm off the coast of Maryland. In late 2021, it announced “partnerships” with three Maryland organizations, to which it pledged $250,000: $100,000 to the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, $100,000 to the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, and $50,000 to the Assateague Coastal Trust Coast Kids program.
Mainstream journalists are also being paid to promote wind and other “green” energy. AP bragged that it had received $8 million from philanthropists to hire over 20 “journalists” specifically to cover “climate” issues. Foundations donating this money included the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quadrivium, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Finally, some radical environmental groups have been supported by hostile foreign governments. The Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the League of Conservation Voters received a total of $23 million indirectly from Russia to fight hydraulic fracking, according to a report by the Environmental Policy Alliance.
Fracking helped make America energy independent for the first time in decades under President Trump. The resulting decline in oil prices hurt the Russian economy, so this is one of the ways they fought back. The money was donated through the Sea Change Foundation, which received the $23 million through Klein Ltd. Klein is a Bermuda-based shell corporation that acted as a passthrough for funds donated by Russian organizations.
The NRDC, which has strong influence on the Biden administration, also has direct ties to the Communist Chinese government. NRDC employees have worked in China since the 1990s, some directly for the Communist government, and Biden’s first Climate Czar. Gina McCarthy, was formerly NRDC president.
Another organization with ties to China is the Rocky Mountain Institute, which was behind Biden’s proposal to ban gas stoves. Rocky Mountain received $750,000 from the Biden administration to develop “charging corridors” for electric vehicles in California. This March, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) called for investigation into foreign influences on U.S. environmental groups, now that the GOP holds the majority in the House.
With the trillions of dollars at stake for these energy companies and their political supporters, it is not surprising that they would enlist the help of environmental groups and attempt to buy off local communities, many of which are now starting to protest these massive, dubious projects. The point to all this is that so-called clean energy is neither clean nor marketable without substantial government subsidies, loan guarantees, and mandates. But the potential windfall to those who support it, including the companies that will temporarily make money (until the subsidies run out), is impossible to resist.
In the next installment, the Obama administration’s $80 billion green energy program was a small-scale trial run of the Biden administration’s green policies.
