Following energy issues over the last 13 years or so, I've learned one critical thing. It's that ideology is not the real enemy. No, the biggest threat comes from corporatists who are ripping off consumers via the Big Green Grift. They are the enablers of the useful idiot green ideologues who unknowingly do the dirty work in promoting the climate-industrial scams. I have written about this corporatism for several years now to the point I'm sure some readers are saying “It's time to move on, Tom. Can't we just get back to trash-talking the half-wit hippy wannabes who bow to the green goddess?”
Well, no. I'm sorry but money really is the root of all evil and Robert Bryce is here to prove it. He has a phenomenally good post on the subject up at his substack. It's titled “Environmentalism in America Is Dead” and I encourage everyone to read it, but let me focus on the corporatist heart of the matter as I see it and Bryce details it:
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 who, for nearly 50 years, has been the leading cheerleader for the “soft” energy path of wind, solar, biofuels, and energy efficiency. (Click here for my 2007 article on Lovins.) Between 2012 and 2022, according to ProPublica, Rocky Mountain Institute’s annual budget skyrocketed, going from $10 million to $117 million.
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. Last year, Wells Fargo, a mega-bank that is among the world’s biggest providers of tax-equity financing for alt-energy projects, gave Rocky Mountain Institute at least $1 million.
On its website, Wells Fargo says it is “one of the most active tax-equity investors in the nation’s renewable energy sector, financing projects in 38 states.” In 2021, the bank bragged that it had surpassed “$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.”
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 “Jamie Dimon’s Climate Corporatism.” I explained:
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. The two outfits have the resources to handle the tax credits that are generated by renewable projects and pair those “tax subsidies” (the term used by Norton Rose Fulbright) with the capital financing needed to get the projects built.
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. In addition, last year, the Rocky Mountain Institute published a report in partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund, which claimed, “the fossil fuel era is over.” The Bezos Earth Fund, of course, gets its cash from Amazon zillionaire Jeff Bezos. Last year, Bezos’s group gave Rocky Mountain Institute at least $1 million. In addition, Amazon, which claims to be “the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy,” is a significant donor and was the sole funder of a report published earlier this year by RMI that promotes increased use of — what else? — solar, wind, and batteries.
RMI also got at least $1 million from two NGOs — ClimateWorks Foundation and the Climate Imperative Foundation — 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, including the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Ford Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation.
However, the group’s tax filings show that it gets most of its funding from individuals, none of whom are disclosed on its Form 990. 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 — or roughly 84% of its funding — from a handful of unnamed oligarchs. Who are they? ClimateWorks doesn’t say, but notes that it has “several funders that [sic] prefer to remain anonymous.”
There you have it; laid out with complete clarity. It's the money, stupid! Don't be fooled. It's always the money. The Big Green Grift is funded by those who hope to empty your wallet to support their green elephant projects. The grifters are tigers and the silly ideologues are like the “Young Lady of Niger,” both immortalized in an 1840 limerick by William Cosmo Monkhouse:
There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
You can't get cozy with a tiger or ride him.
#RobertBryce #Corporatism #FaceoftheTiger #BigGreenGrift #Climatism #WellsFargo #RockyMountainInstitute
Yes-yes, definitely, Thomas and Robert - we have to follow the money. Agreed.
But no-no, money is not the root of all evil, there's nothing inherently wrong with money - it's the LOVE of money that's the root of all evil.
1 Timothy 6:10