A good friend and loyal reader sent me a link today to an absolutely ridicule-worthy story from Consumer Reports. It is titled “Climate Change Could Cost Each American Born Today $500,000.” The report itself is depicted in this image from the cover and clicking it links to the full version:
The title alone tells anyone with a brain the story is nothing but pure propaganda. Reading it only reinforces that conclusion. But, how is that Consumer Reports is doing this stuff? Here is what it says is its mission (emphasis added):
Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works side by side with consumers for truth, transparency, and fairness in the marketplace.
Really? Well, you need to read the fine print where it says this:
CR remains a trusted source because our rigorous, independent testing and research still creates a marketplace built on credible information, greater transparency, and fairness. Our investigative journalism, advocacy, and digital testing empower consumers, inform people’s purchasing decisions, influence businesses to improve the products and services they deliver, and strengthen norms, laws, and regulations through science, evidence, and data.
Note the word “advocacy.” It's not easy mixing independence with advocacy. The two things are inherently contradictory unless “independence” means something else we've not normally assigned to the word. CR has a separate page dedicated to “advocacy” stating the following:
Consumers help us identify the biggest problems and challenges in the marketplace so that we can put our experts on the case. We think about what a better system would look like and who could make the key changes to get us all there. And, we launch campaigns to raise consumer voices – together with consumers, we get results.
What does CR mean by creating “a better system” than the marketplace? And, what's that talk about finding people who could make the "key changes” to get there? Nothing about that sounds remotely truthful. It sounds a lot like the Obama plan to fundamentally transform America, in fact, which he's doing now through the empty husk known as President Biden.
But, then it gets worse, because CR also has web page another for “sustainability.” It's as bad as it gets:
We have the opportunity to bend the curve of consumption toward a sustainable future.
The nation has failed to put the marketplace on track to avoid catastrophic climate change, which requires limiting warming to 1.5°C and attaining carbon neutrality by 2050—a failure that will cost our country catastrophic loss of human life and as much as $500 billion a year by the middle of the century. Transportation is the leading cause of climate pollution and a top contributor of other air pollutants that result in nearly 100,000 U.S. deaths per year. Companies have few incentives to build for durability or factor in the full environmental cost of production, distribution, use, and disposal, and the online marketplace has amplified these harms. A lack of government leadership on a national and global scale, resulting in part from strong corporate power, is inhibiting political solutions.
The American public now recognizes the real threat of climate change, and it’s the top concern for millennials and Gen Zers. However, consumers struggle to evaluate the sustainability of products and services and the total cost of ownership, even as they face higher household costs (for food, home insurance, healthcare, and utilities). Low-income families and communities of color are disproportionately affected by extreme weather events, exposure to air pollutants, and a lack of cost-effective sustainable choices. Not surprisingly, Latinos and African Americans have a stronger-than-average interest in addressing climate change.
CR will build the partnerships needed to scope, define, and advance a strategy that could focus on any number of issues, from carbon emissions to air and water quality to plastics and other toxic waste. The strategy will leverage CR’s traditional strengths while exploring opportunities to develop new products and services that provide benefits to members while driving impact. We will prioritize markets and industries where durability and total cost of ownership have a nexus with lower emissions, lower waste, and lower cost…
We have a track record of promoting energy and fuel efficiency through ratings and policy, and we are committed to bringing the full power of CR to address climate change and environmental issues more broadly. We have the opportunity to bend the curve of consumption toward a sustainable future and to build a bridge to the young and diverse members who will shape consumer issues in the next half-century.
When was the last time we heard that language about "bending the curve,” if you can remember? If not, it was Barrack Obama talking about bending the curve of health care costs down. These people don't even pretend Joe Biden is in charge of anything. They're recycling Obama staff and slogans. And, they have completely co-opted Consumer Reports, which is no more independent than the nose on your face.
Further proof of this may be found in this statement from yet another CR web page:
Our donors and philanthropic partners play a critical role in creating a fairer, safer, and healthier marketplace, and we are immensely grateful to the many organizations and more than 550,000 people who support our work. CR’s diverse community of philanthropists, foundations, and nonprofits partners includes the Ford Foundation, the Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, all of whom have fueled our efforts on behalf of consumers’ digital privacy. CR’s work towards a clean , safe, and equitable energy and transportation future is supported by Breakthrough Energy, Climate Imperative Foundation and the Energy Foundation.
Who is Breakthrough Energy, the outfit that funded the study we talked about at the outset of this post? Well, this source says the following:
Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) is a venture capital fund founded in 2015 by a group of billionaires including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, and others. The aim of the fund is to invest in companies that are working on breakthrough technologies to attempt to facilitate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change.
Surprise, surprise…a bunch of elitist billionaires who aim to become trillionaires by grifting off green energy scams. And, who funds the Climate Imperative Foundfation? Why the same masters of the universe, of course, who also fund the Energy Foundation along with the help of Nathaniel Simons who has funded every imaginable sort of fractivism. It's a cabal of the NGOs who are ruining Western civilization with their corruption. These are CR's partners. So much for independence.
That's not the only proof, though. Again, read the study and see if you can discern anything that's not blatant propaganda. But, notice who authored it; the ICF consulting firm, which CR tells us is “a global consulting firm that has performed hundreds of climate studies.” Hmm…that's a tipoff, isn't it? Yes, it is and here's why, from the EPA:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently selected global consulting and digital services provider ICF (NASDAQ: ICFI) as an awardee under the new multiple-award Environmental, Analytical, Research, Technical, and Hybrid (EARTH) Support Services blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to provide a broad range of environmental consulting services to the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR).
ICF was awarded one of six prime contracts on the BPA in the large business category. The five-year BPA has a ceiling value of $5.7 billion across all awardees, with $700 million of the award allocated for professional services…
"ICF is one of OAR's longest-standing climate partners with nearly five decades of experience helping them achieve their climate and air quality goals," said Anne Choate, executive vice president for energy, environment and infrastructure. "We look forward to continuing to support OAR in developing programs and policies designed to address climate change and control air pollution and radiation exposure across U.S. communities."
ICF has supported many of EPA's flagship climate programs since their inception…
So, ICF is on the EPA gravy train with a mission of supporting the agency's climate politics and it's also getting money from the Breakthrough Energy gang of billionaire grifters. There's not one honest thing about any of this in my humble opinion. It's one huge stinking pile of pig manure. The corporatism is manifest and the one lesson to be taken away is that no major institution today can be trusted.
#ConsumerReports #ClimateChange #CR #Elitists #Foundations #Elites #EPA
Hang in there with us. Hopefully with a New Federal Government we will again become Energy Independent and natural gas and coal and nuclear will be what is driving America.
A new low point