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| Back to the past with Friends of the Earth |
It’s such a benign sounding name,
Friends of the Earth. This multi-million dollar international organization is a
network of environmental organizations in 74 countries. If its agenda was
adopted and enacted much of mankind would lose access to the energy sources that
define and enhance modernity or the beneficial chemicals that protect food crops
from insect predators and weeds.
I am on FOE’s mailing list and the
most recent email informed me and the thousands of others who received it that
“the oil lobby and the Republican leadership in Congress are plotting a full
frontal assault on our environmental protections…” I bet you didn’t know that
the Republican Party was an enemy of the environment. That’s curious because it
was a Republican, Richard M. Nixon, who created the Environmental Protection
Agency with an executive order!
FOE was upset by the $1.01 trillion
bill to fund the U.S. government for the coming year through to September.
“What’s more, in a surprise giveaway to the super-rich, the bill raised the
maximum contribution limit from individuals to political parties—opening the
door for billionaires like the Koch Brothers to purchase even more seats in
government.”
The sheer hypocrisy of FOE defies the
imagination. No mention was made of the secretive “billionaires club” that was
revealed in August in a report by Republicans on the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee. It was titled “The Chain of Environmental Command: How
as Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement
and Obama’s EPA.” Didn’t read about it
in the mainstream press? That’s because it was hushed
up.
You may, however, have heard of San
Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer who in February pledged to spend up to $100
million, half his own money and half from other billionaire donors, to get
candidates who promised to pass anti-global warming legislation elected in the
midterm elections. Steyer has been a leading opponent of the Keystone XL
pipeline, but for sheer hypocrisy, Steyer made his fortune by investing in
fossil fuel companies!
As far as FOE is concerned, only
conservative billionaires are evil.
“At Friends of the Earth, we’re
working to protect people and the planet from Big Oil and its profits.”
Translation: We don’t want oil companies to provide the source of energy that
fuels our cars, trucks, and other devices that improve our lives. We don’t like
profits because they are the result of capitalism.”
For
good measure, FOE tells its supporters the “future
would be great for companies like Dow, Syngenta, and Monsanto -- but terrible
for bees, butterflies, and people like us. Take away pesticides and all you have
left are the pest insects that spread disease and harm food
crops.
According to Wikipedia, “Originally
based largely in North America and Europe, its membership is now heavily
weighted toward groups in the developing world.” It’s the developing world that
has been the focus of the United Nations greatest hoax, global warming, now
called climate change, as a means to transfer money from wealthy nations to
those less well governed, often because there is a despot or larcenous group in
charge.
It is little wonder that FOE is upset
by the decision of millions of American voters to elect candidates who want to
rein in the excesses of the Environmental Protection Agency and take steps to
improve the economy. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is denounced
as “a climate denier with close ties to the coal industry.” He has made it clear that getting the
Keystone XL pipeline approved by Congress will be a priority.
FOE’s email even named the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as “a policy group that helps develop
anti-environmental state laws across the country. Right now they’re focused on
plans to erode the President’s Clean Power Plan and EPA’s ability to carry out
its mission.”
What FOE’s email decrying Big Oil and
Republicans doesn’t mention is that, among the elements of the 1,603 pages of
the omnibus appropriations bill, is a reduction in the funding of the
Environmental Protection Agency which received $60 million less than last year.
At $8.1 billion, the EPA is operating on its smallest budget since 1989.
I would like to see the EPA eliminated
as a federal agency and that funding go as grants to the individual state
environmental protection agencies to address problems closer to those
responsible to do so. As it was, the omnibus bill put a variety of limits on EPA
“greenhouse gas” programs, some of which verge on the totally idiotic such as
permits for gas emissions—methane from cows!
The bill also disallowed President
Obama’s promise to give $3 billion to the United Nations Climate Fund, a means
to take our money and give it to nations for “environmental” programs that are
more likely to end up being something else entirely.
With its anti-energy, anti-capitalism
agenda, Friends of the Earth are in fact enemies of mankind. They would happily
return the planet to the Dark Ages. That’s why people like me shine a very
bright light on them so you will not be duped in the way far too many others
are.
© Alan Caruba, 2015
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