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THE TYPE OF “GREEN” MANY
ENVIRONMENTALISTS WANT
Commentary by Harold Hough Oct/Nov 2009
The recent resignation of Green Jobs Czar Van Jones from the Obama Administration
highlighted the reality of modern environmentalism. The real leaders of
the new green jobs movement aren't environmentalists at all; they're labor
union officials and inner-city community organizers like those at Color
of Change. Their interest is not protecting the environment as much as
it is hijacking the green movement to agitate for economic justice, airing
ethnic, racial, and other grievances, and grabbing government cash.
Last September many of these groups came together to stage a massive pre-election
rally in cities all over the country called the ‘Green Jobs Now National
Day of Action.” Most of the major environmental organizations were
represented, like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources
Defense Council. But what was interesting were the other groups that attended:
including ACORN, MoveOn, and Codepink. Lesser groups, such as the Hip
Hop Caucus, Art in Action, Voto Latino, and Democracia USA, participated
as well.
So, why were these other groups there? It wasn’t to make the earth
greener. Shortly before the election, the Apollo Alliance (on whose board
Van Jones sat) released a study concluding that five million green jobs
could be created for an investment of $500 billion. Obama had cited the
same jobs target -- five million -- but for less than one-third the cost
($150 billion). The co-director of the Apollo Alliance dismissed the discrepancy
to the Wall Street Journal, saying the number is less significant than
the message. "Honestly," she was quoted saying, "it's just
to inspire people." Wow! $350 Billion! That’s some inspiration.
In many cases, most of the money isn’t going to protect wilderness,
but to buy jobs in urban population centers – where the votes are.
Just look at the websites and documents of these groups and you will learn
that this "green" commitment is less about the earth than about
welfare--for inner-city residents without the skills or knowledge, and
for the professional poverty organizations that collect the money for
government job-training programs. Unfortunately, if the green-jobs movement
truly wanted to help poor minorities, they might start by taking a long,
hard look at the history of government-run job-training programs.
“Go for the Money” Environmentalism isn’t new. Much of
the “Climate Change” movement has been driven by governments
spending money to study global warming. Needless to say, if there is no
climate change problem, there are no more government grants.
Because many of these environmental leaders are more interested in money,
many of their attacks aren’t against pollution per say, but moneyed
interests who can be blackmailed into making payoffs. Take the case of
Canadian environmentalists David Suzuki, who in February attacked the
mining of tarsands in Northern Alberta at the McGill Business Conference
on Sustainability. He said, “We can no longer tolerate what’s
going on in Ottawa and Edmonton…What I would challenge you to do
is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal
way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they are
doing is a criminal act.” Would he have made these charges if it
was a small industry that is losing money? No doubt his rhetoric would
quickly change if oil sands companies paid a multi-million dollar “grant”
to some of these groups.
“Go for the Money” environmentalism isn’t just blatant
hypocrisy. It is also a serious threat to our environment. Taxpayer money
that has been earmarked to solve environmental problems is being funneled
to political supporters’ favorite programs. That means serious problems
are being ignored just to pay off political allies and fat cats.
The fact is that this sort of money oriented environmentalism is also
a threat to the freedoms we enjoy. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who knows
a thing or two about lost freedoms, and how communism was focused on rewarding
friends instead of solving problems. He writes in his book Our Planet
is Blue, Not Green, “The issue is – once again – freedom
and its enemies…Those of us who feel very strongly about it can never
accept the irrationality with which the current world has embraced climate
change as a real danger to the future to mankind, as well as the irrationality
of measures because they will fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity.”
This is a serious threat that we need to recognize. The “Go for
the Money” environmentalist’s mindset means more than smaller
hybrid cars and clean burning coal. It is about taxpayer money and lining
their wallet. If government wants to solve environmental problems, it
can’t use taxpayer money tagged for environmental projects as payoffs
to political supporters. Our earth is too important to trade it for political
payola.
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