CO2 and the Ideology of Climate Change: The Forces Behind “Carbon-Centric Environmentalism”

CO2 and the Ideology of Climate Change: The Forces Behind “Carbon-Centric Environmentalism”

By James F. Tracy

Global Research, July 12, 2013

On June 25, 2013 President Obama laid out his long term agenda for reducing US industrial and consumer “greenhouse emissions.” On July 11th the Department of Energy warns that “climate change”-related events will be threatening traditional sources of energy production and causing more energy supply disruptions. All the while, the notion that unusual or extreme weather events are primarily due to an excess of atmospheric CO2 and the consequent “greenhouse effect” is arguably based much more on long term economic and political designs than sound science.

As a response to the urgent pleas accompanying the purportedly thorough and unbiased research from scientists comprising the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that seeks to link climate change to human and industrial activity, an array of programs are being proposed and implemented by fiat in both Europe and the US.

Such programs will drastically change the standard of living of most every individual in the developed world. Indeed, since global temperatures do not readily correlate with the minute rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, there has been a marked shift within the CO2 public relations machine from the “global warming” meme to the more amorphous and catchall term, “climate change.”

The real agenda behind this international agenda and promotion of its almost religious “climate change ideology” is establishing the rationale for a massive regulatory and taxation system to reshape human behavior and lifestyle, in addition to carving out an entirely new area for technology outlays and financial speculation using carbon-related securities and derivatives.

Ostensibly a not-for-profit enterprise, preaching the climate change creed has also become a lucrative endeavor, with immense financial resources provided for its continued proselytization. Indeed, the climate-related tax-exempt 501C3 organizations constitute a multi-billion dollar public relations machine devoted to driving home one central theme: humans are to blame for every weather-related disaster graphically presented in every electronic media outlet. Such phony environmentalism involves vigorous efforts to transform public policy based on dubious science while ignoring genuine environmental threats.

While such 501C3s may be found encouraging donations from the general public, the scale of many such organizations’ annual revenue and assets suggests reliance of very deep-pocketed individuals and institutions with an eye toward selling government officials and the broader public on the notion that almost every aberrant weather event is the result of greenhouse emissions.

The following list of nonprofit organizations devoted to pushing the view of climate change and sustainability—by no means complete—has been gathered from their 990 tax forms for 2010. In that year such 501C3s brought in over 1.7 billion in revenue ($1,742,350,656), with the Nature Conservancy, led by former Goldman Sachs managing director Mark Tercek, accounting for over half that amount. Data in the fourth column demonstrates the extent of such entities’ public presence; some command greater journalistic attention while others operate with almost complete anonymity.

501C3 Name	2010 Income	Net Assets	Mentions in Major World News Publications, July 1 2012-June 30 2013 (LexisNexis)
Sierra Club	$97,757,678	$52,209,573	726
World Wildlife Fund	$267,993,426	$182,067,246	993
Friends of the Earth	$5,495,897	$3,407,984	1,831
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change	NA	NA	697
United Nations Environmental Program	NA	NA	115
United Nations Foundation	$197,737,803	$231,213,165	101
Nature Conservancy Inc.	$997,037,663	$5,180,558,726	242
Greenpeace Inc.	$27,465,948	$824,056	2,879
Climate Works Foundation	$83,026,313	$215,248,816	1
World Resources Institute	$50,079,176	$59,901,847	125
Center for Biological Diversity	$7,181,472	$10,734,072	115
Defenders of Wildlife	$30,229,512	$23,839,354	35
International Institute for Environment and Development	$30,335,978	$5,121,919	1
Natural Resources Defense Council	$97,957,964	$197,413,060	484
National Council for Science and the Environment	$3,526,925	$562,386	8
Global Green USA	$4,633,587	$4,372,965	8
Pew Center on Global Climate Change	$6,424,365	$4,666,874	2
Institute for Sustainable Communities	$15,007,337	$6,207,761	0
Sustainable Markets Foundation	$4,347,579	$1,660,940	0
US Climate Action Network	$2,414,999	$1,067,116	1
350 Org	$3,013,995	$2,250,300	109
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education	$2,362,495	$736,159	0
The Alliance for Climate Protection	$19,150,215	$12,052,979	5
Climate Solutions	$2,642,682	$907,901	29
Alliance for Climate Education	$2,749,291	$369,251	2
Climate Central Inc.	$3,273,478	-$808,414	49
Climate Group Inc.	$2,746,784	$465,685	0

For example, the Al Gore-funded Climate Project was first set up for “educational purposes,” principally to have the message of An Inconvenient Truth carried into US classrooms. Another organization, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, similarly carries out the less prominent work of promoting the green agenda within colleges and universities. Overall, such resources are utilized to emphasize the alleged dangers of greenhouse gas emissions to the very existence of civilization and life itself. The extent of such resources is comparable to what many transnational corporations spends on advertising annually.
While Obama and the array of well-funded environmental organizations campaign on the purported dangers of gaseous emissions, they are wholly silent on what are truly grave threats to the environment and humanity—namely the widescale contamination of the food supply from genetically modified organisms, the array of clandestine weather modification and geoengineering programs, the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, and grave pollution of entire global regions from depleted uranium and Fukushima radiation that will last many lifetimes.

In light of these ongoing catastrophes and the powerful financial interests behind carbon-centric environmental advocacy, Obama’s posturing over anthropogenic climate change and environmentalists’ well-funded overtures may be seen for what they actually are—the visible components of a complex social engineering program far advanced in convincing the public that its return to a pre-feudal-like existence will not only be agreeable, but absolutely imperative for the greater good.