Green-smearing from Nicaragua to Bolivia

Tortilla con Sal

September 4, 2019

By Stephen Sefton

 

 

On one level the intensifying deceit of Western media foreign affairs coverage corresponds to the increasing desperation of Western elites confronting their failing global power and influence. But it also signals yet another crisis of capitalist economic growth. After 1945, North America and Western Europe based their genocidal imperialism on a social compact promising prosperity to their peoples at home in exchange for their collusion in imperialist military aggression and neocolonial crimes overseas. That system operated successfully based on the fundamental neocolonial fiction that Western governments and societies promote freedom, justice and democracy around the world, while doing the very opposite.

Now, stagnation and recession in the U.S. and its allied countries demand new dimensions to the endless psychological warfare necessary to sustain the basic neocolonial fiction. Psychological warfare in North America and Europe works to create enduring false beliefs generating, over time, permanent false memories, all serving the purposes of Western elite perception management. That is why the authorities in Sweden, Britain and the U.S. elites have been so vengeful and vindictive towards Julian Assange, among innumerable other less high profile victims. Anyone who effectively exposes the big neocolonial lie is met with the sadistic vindictive revenge of the elites they defied.

A fundamental dimension of contemporary psychological warfare has been dual-purpose corporate co-option of non-governmental organizations. In that psy-warfare dimension, NGOs serve both as disinformation partners with Western news media and too as false interlocutors in international forums and institutions, where they attack governments challenging the U.S. elites and their allies. They actively subvert governments inside countries challenging the West, for example, in Latin America, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. But they also pervert due process in institutions like the UN, posing as civil society but in fact serving Western elite corporate imperatives, for example in international human rights and environmental mechanisms and forums.

Among these NGOs figure high profile human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights and Avaaz along with environmental organizations from 350.org and the World Resource Institute to Global Witness and Greenpeace. An increasing interrelationship has developed between corporate NGO funding and the exploitation of people’s general willingness to volunteer for and support apparently good causes. Symbolic of this is the way World Economic Forum attendees like Kumi Naidoo move readily between top management from one NGO to another, in Naidoo’s case from Greenpeace to Amnesty International. From Libya and Syria to Venezuela and Nicaragua, Amnesty International has played a key role using false reports to demonize governments resisting the U.S. and its allies.

As Cory Morningstar has pointed out, Greenpeace is a key player in promoting the corporate driven New Deal for Nature aimed at financializing what remains of the natural world, especially its biodiversity, as a way of engineering a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Western corporate greed underlies the identical patterns of news media and NGO misrepresentation and outright deceit supporting regime change offensives against Libya and Syria, or Venezuela and Nicaragua. Right now, that very same pattern of media and NGO manipulation is clearly at work preparing for an intervention to prevent Evo Morales being re-elected as President of Bolivia.

Bruno Sgarzini and Wyatt Reed have noted how Western media and NGOs have falsely attacked Evo Morales blaming him for not controlling the fires in Bolivia’s Amazon. This is exactly what happened in Nicaragua immediately prior to the coup attempt in 2018 when the Nicaraguan authorities were fighting a fire in the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve. That episode softened up Nicaraguan public opinion and set in motion social media networks involving thousands of youth activists trained for that purpose beforehand over several years with U.S. and also European government funding. In mid-April 2018, barely a week after the Indio Maiz fire was extinguished; those networks launched a social media blitzkrieg of lies and inventions marking the start of the actual coup attempt. A practically identical process is well under way now in Bolivia, which holds presidential elections next October 20th.

The timing of the fires in Bolivia’s Amazon is extremely propitious from the perspective of the U.S. authorities and their allies. It takes almost two months for the effects to wear off of the initial psy-warfare bitzkrieg of the kind waged against Nicaragua in 2018 and against Brazil’s Worker’s Party as part of Jair Bolsonaro’s successful 2018 election campaign that same year. Bolivia will almost certainly experience the same kind of psy-warfare assault via social media prior to the October elections. The campaign will be timed to optimize the effect of mass false accusations of government wrongdoing and corruption along with false media and NGO claims of security force repression. Opposition activists are likely to exploit peaceful demonstrations on indigenous peoples and environmental issues so as to commit murderous provocations, just as they did in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

All of these tactics are likely be deployed against Bolivia so as to destroy the current prestige and high levels of support for President Evo Morales. In Bolivia, as in Nicaragua and Venezuela, the governing progressive political movement enjoys around 35-40% core electoral support, the right wing opposition have around 25-30% with 30-40% of voters uncommitted. The Western elites know they need to motivate something over half of those uncommitted voters against Evo Morales so as to get the right wing government they so desperately need in Bolivia to try and make good the unmitigated debacle of Mauricio Macri’s right wing government in Argentina.

The intensity of any Western media and NGO campaign against Morales is likely to reach similar levels as their cynical campaigns of lies and defamation against Venezuela and Nicaragua. Should that offensive go ahead, as seems probable, the difference will be that this time Evo Morales and his team are alert and unlikely to be taken by surprise as the Nicaraguan authorities were by the vicious, sudden attack against them in April 2018. A likely variation in Bolivia’s case will be a higher profile of environmentalist NGOs working in tandem with their human rights counterparts feeding misrepresentations and downright lies into Western news media. For the U.S. and European Union elites the regional geopolitical stakes are high enough to make an attack on Bolivia imperative.

 

[Stephen Sefton is a member of the Tortilla con Sal collective based in Nicaragua]

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: They Mean Business [Volume II, Act IV]

September 17, 2019

By Cory Morningstar

 

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent series has been written in two volumes.

[Volume I: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI • Addenda I] [Book form]

[Volume II: An Object Lesson In Spectacle • ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V] [ACTS VI & VII forthcoming]

 

 

We Mean Business

Above: On February 20, 2019, We Mean Business promoted the “It’s Going to Be Tremendous” podcast series via its Twitter account. The podcast series co-hosted by Christiana Figueres features interviews with We Mean Business CEO Nigel Topping, Greta Thunberg and Jane Goodall. Funding for Global Optimism is provided by We Mean Business.

The founding partners of We Mean Business are Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) (full membership and associate members list), CDP, Ceres, The B Team, The Climate Group, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (CLG) [1], and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Together, these organizations represent the most powerful – and ruthless – corporations on the planet, groups salivating to unleash 100 trillion dollars to fuel the fourth industrial revolution.

We Mean Business represents 477 investors with 34 trillion USD in assets. [July 4, 2019]

Above: The We Mean Business co-founders

Nigel Topping is the CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition, a founding member of the We Mean Business board, as well as the former executive director of CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project). CDP is “a global NGO which has brought together 655 of the world’s investors, representing assets under management of over $78 trillion, to engage with over 6000 of the largest public corporations on the business implications of climate change.” [Source] ClimateWorks [Act I] shares the physical address, inclusive of suite, of both the CDP (West, Americas) and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). [235 Montgomery Street, Suite 1300, San Francisco, CA 94104][CPI Website][CDP website]

Topping also serves on the boards of several institutions, including the Science-Based Targets Initiative, the Energy Transitions Commission, the Grantham Institute, the London Pension Funds Authority, and Daimler. [LinkedIn]

In order to support the implementation of its work, We Mean Business collaborates with a number of other organizations. The implementation partners of We Mean Business include the World Resources Institute, WWF, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the United Nations Global Compact, and C40 Cities [2] while network partners include the New Climate Economy, Mission 2020, E3G, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Bank. [Full list]

Sitting on the We Mean Business Board are Peter Bakker, WBCSD president; Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group; Aron Cramer, CEO of BSR; Steve Howard (co-chair), former chief sustainability officer for IKEA; Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres; Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP; Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team; Nigel Topping, CEO of We Mean Business; Eliot Whittington, director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group; and Celine Herweijer (co-chair), partner and global innovation and sustainability leader of PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers).

The We Mean Business Compliance Committee consists of the aforementioned Steve Howard; Bruce Boyd, principal and senior managing director at Arabella Advisors; Elizabeth McKeon, head of strategy at IKEA Foundation; and Michael Northrop, sustainable development program director at Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The We Mean Business Corporate Advisory Group includes representatives from UltraTech Cement, Mahindra, BT (British Telecom), Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Community Energy England, Unilever, Interface, CLP Group (China Light and Power Co), Iberdrola, IKEA, and Yes Bank. [Source]

The We Mean Business Coalition was launched in 2014 by Steve Howard who had previously set up The Climate Group in 2003.

Howard served as chief sustainability officer (CSO) at IKEA Group having served on IKEA’s Executive Group Management from 2011-2017. In addition to co-chairing We Mean Business, Howard sits on the board of SE4ALL (Sustainable Energy For All) and serves as co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Environmental and Natural Resource Security. [Further reading: Fit for whose purpose? Private funding and corporate influence in the United Nations, Sustainable Energy For All, pp. 86-96]

Above: Image from We Mean Business April 2019 edition newsletter

We Mean Business & Purpose Create the Climate Campaign Lab

 

 

 

New Power: “The ability to harness the connected crowd to get what you want”

 

— Jeremy Heimans, co-founder Purpose/Avaaz, B Team expert [Source]

The June 12, 2018 We Mean Business article “Profiles of Paris: Steve Howard on helping business be a force for good” shares the history of those who assisted in the formation of the We Mean Business coalition:

“Hannah and I reached out to others, to leaders at the Climate Group, Ceres, WBCSD, BSR, and CDP, CLG and the B Team. Some of us met at the fringes of Climate Week NYC and then in October 2013, this group of busy people travelled to a small hotel in Wassenaar in the Netherlands to spend a weekend planning something different…”

Howard outlines the assistance in forming We Mean Business provided by three main NGOs: World Resources Institute, Greenpeace, and WWF, as well as two pivotal institutions that assisted, ITUC and the UNFCCC.

“Dominic Waughray [bio] and the WEF team supported us (a lot) at Davos where we met again. (The WEF team through initiatives such as the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders have been hugely effective in promoting business action on climate). We reached out to other business leaders, friends in Unilever, Marks and Spencer, DSM, Swiss Re and others. We talked through our plans with, Andrew Steer at WRI, Kumi Nadoo in Greenpeace, Sam Smith in WWF and Sharan Burrow from ITUC and Christiana Figueres in the UNFCCC. Sam had worked with the Climate seven group of NGOs and was generous with her advice on coalition building. We met as a group with the climate seven. We needed to make sure that if we had a super business coalition on climate change that it was genuinely credible with civil society leaders…”

Howard further discloses that the initial funding for We Mean Business came from IKEA, a founding partner in Macron’s Climate Finance Partnership:

“I spoke at length with Per Heggenes at IKEA Foundation and he could see we had a powerful idea. Per gave me a slot of the limited time at his next board meeting…A few minutes later the board agreed to 20 million Euros…When you have to move fast there is little or no time for mistakes. I asked people I really trusted if they would step up and amongst others Jim Walker bravely agreed to be seconded from the Climate Group as secretariat CEO, and Callum Grieve, who I had worked with on the launch of Climate Week NYC a few years before, stepped in on communications.”

Howard confirms the corporate uptake, not only for Climate Week NYC 2014, but for the People’s Climate March:

“We Mean Business launched at Climate Week NYC 2014. Together with the new IKEA Group CEO Peter Agnefjäll, we joined the Climate March, with other business leaders from Virgin, Unilever, NRG, Patagonia and many others. IKEA colleagues promoted the People’s Climate March on the IKEA home page in twenty countries. We had reached out to business contacts everywhere. Tim Cook from Apple joined us on the Climate Week stage to be interviewed by Christiana Figueres…”

Climate Week NYC 2019 sponsors and partners include, but are not limited to: Salesforce, McKinsey, Bank of America, Unilever, IKEA, ClimateWorks, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Global Citizen (youth and climate activism partner), We Mean Business, and the UN Climate Action Summit. [3] [Source]

Here, Howard’s full disclosure on the relationship with Purpose – the for-profit public relations arm of Avaaz, specializing in behavioural change, “new power” and “ownerless movements” – is striking. Again, we see the theme of corporations and civil society uniting as one under the banner of climate:

“Alongside We Mean Business, Hannah and I had been working with the communications and campaign organisation Purpose to set up a climate campaign lab. We wanted bold breakthrough messages that people would mobilize behind. Purpose were looking at the creation or amplification of ownerless memes and 100% renewable really caught their attention. It got wider traction. And on the final run up to Paris “100% Renewable” got lifted even further and became the call to action for Greenpeace, Avaaz and others. Hundreds of businesses and civil society organisations with the same message so loud and clear you could not miss it.

Howard cites the corporations and monies involved at an early stage, as well as the assistance from Jim Walker, director of partnerships at Sustainable Energy for All. Walker is a co-founder of The Climate Group as well as the founding CEO of We Mean Business. He sits on the advisory board of Energy Unlocked (“Our 2016 EPIC project and platform was supported by ClimateWorks Foundation”), IronOak Energy and Green Collar Foods, and is the executive director of Thirst. In 2014, he established the Climate Mobilization Fund “to assist the IKEA Foundation and others in mobilizing business and civil society action on climate change”:

“At the beginning of 2015, Jim Walker moved to manage the coalition’s funding and Nigel Topping jumped from CDP into the CEO role for the secretariat… As I write this in March 2018, more than 700 companies, with a market capitalisation of over US$15.7 trillion have made more than 1,170 commitments…”

In addition, Walker serves as an advisor to the Purpose Climate Lab. [Source] [Source]

Prior to Paris, the IKEA Foundation doubled its annual funding for the We Mean Business initiative. A press release announcing IKEA’s additional gift of 1 billion EUR “to finance climate action” by 2020 was understood as a means to place “positive pressure” on governments:

“The June before Paris [2015] there was a climate finance meeting of negotiators in Bonn: negotiations were slow. After the decision on We Mean Business, the IKEA Foundation board had just decided to double its annual funding, with an extra 100 million Euros per year going to climate change by 2020. Alongside an IKEA group commitment to a further 600 million Euros into wind and solar energy we had a commitment of 1 billion Euros to finance climate action by 2020. Real, additional money. We announced the 1 billion Euros in Bonn. Yes, the press coverage was good, but we did it for the moment, to put positive pressure on governments.”

In the same way, Greta Thunberg and the climate strikes amplify the “positive pressure” strategy. That is the rationale behind the generous media exposure afforded to the strikes. Rather than the “solutions” appearing top down, they are perceived as being driven by society. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Encouraging the citizenry to bask under the illusion that the ruling elite must answer to the populace, this quickly transforms into a heightened and euphoric feeling of new-found “people power” amongst the populace. It is in this defining moment that the “solutions” waiting in the wings, can finally emerge.

In the following paragraph, Howard is clear that the role of government to accommodate the “new climate economy” is to develop long-term, well-designed policy frameworks which corporations “can plan on and invest in”:

“We went to the Abu Dhabi Ascent: the pre-COP summit in January 2015. The dialogue between ministers and the private sector was a little limited. From memory, I think it was only Paul Polman (who was absolutely relentless on the run up to Paris) from Unilever and myself that spoke in plenary from the business community… For a business leader I made the rare interjection of saying, “you can regulate us, you can price carbon, you can tax us, but make it long, loud and legal.” We needed policy makers to understand, businesses do not like bureaucracy and red tape but they do like long-term well-designed policy frameworks that you can plan on and invest in…

 

By the time of Paris the coalition partners were in lock-step. Ed Cameron from BSR (with great support from the policy folk in CLG, CERES and other partners) was working as policy director for the coalition and had worked across the teams to craft a business brief with 8 common policy asks. Business leaders were supported and the forward-thinking business community had a common message for negotiators… Many, many, business leaders worked either on the stage or behind the scenes… “

Acknowledging that “clear solid funding is a massive enabler” of the We Mean Business coalition, Howard recognizes those most involved. In the second paragraph, Howard expresses his gratitude to those belonging to NGOs and institutions:

“My greatest thanks go to the leaders of the partners, to Mindy Lubber [Ceres], Peter Bakker [President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)], Aron Cramer [President and CEO of BSR], Paul Simpson [CEO, CDP], Raj Joshi [The B Team], Keith Tuffley [Managing Partner & CEO The B Team], Sandrine Dixson-Declève [former Director of the EU Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change], Mark Kenber [CEO of The Climate Group] and Helen Clarkson [CEO of The Climate Group]. They took a risk. They took a more challenging path than going alone. Many others across the partners have played key roles, Leah Seligmann [The B Team] and Jean Oelwang [President and Trustee for Virgin Unite and Senior Partner at the B Team], Anne Kelly, Jill Duggan [Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group], Eliot Whittington [Prince of Wales’s UK Corporate Leaders Group], Damian Ryan, Lance Pierce [President of CDP North America] and Maria Mendiluce [WBCSD].

 

Others deserve our thanks for their partnership and encouragement, Andrew Steer at WRI, Kumi Naidoo, then at Greenpeace, Achim Steiner, Dominic Waughray and the WEF team, Sam Smith and colleagues in WWF, the wider climate seven, Sharan Burrow from ITUC for always building bridges and community and Christiana Figueres and the team at the UNFCCC for creating space.”

Inclusive of Dominic Waughray, who leads Global Public Goods (which “seeks to help shape the existing global governance architecture by adapting to today’s multipolar reality and working to encourage more private-sector capital, entrepreneurship and Fourth Industrial Revolution innovation into public-private cooperation”) all of the institutions recognized by Howard, have been disclosed in the Manufacturing for Consent series as the leading institutions behind the elite-sought fourth industrial revolution as a means to reboot the global economic system, coupled with the coming financialization of nature.

Above: We Mean Business, October 5, 2015, Twitter

 

We Mean Business Co-founder – The B Team

 

The B Team, co-founded by Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz (former CEO of Puma SE), was formed and incubated by Branson’s Virgin Unite and partner organizations in 2013.

Major funders of The B Team include the Ford Foundation, Kering Group, Guilherme Leal, Strive Masiyiwa, Joann McPike, The Tiffany and Co. Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Unilever and Virgin Unite.

Other major financial supporters at inception included billionaire Derek Handley (CEO of B Team upon launch) and One Young World co-founded by David Jones. Jones is the former CEO of Havas Media and co-creator of the 2009 TckTckTck campaign. Jones, “B Team expert”, is also the founder of You & Mr Jones, a holding company that is one-part venture capitalist, one-part consultancy and one-part agency. The consultancy arm is Blood “the world’s first brandtech™ group”. Jones is the author of Who Cares Wins and served on the Facebook Client Council. In 2019, You & Mr Jones purchased a majority stake in Oliver owner Inside Ideas Group for an estimated $200m. Oliver’s biggest client is Unilever. [Source]

Above: TckTckTck Flickr: “The Press Conference of the ‘Beds are Burning’ Launch in Paris was well attended as Kofi Annan, David Jones, Mélanie Laurent, Manu Katché and many other supporters of the campaign made their appearance.”

The B Team Leaders are as follows:

Arianna Huffington: founder of The Huffington Post, founder and CEO of Thrive Global

Christiana Figueres: Convener of Mission 2020, vice chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors, Climate Leader for the World Bank, Distinguished Fellow of Conservation International, board member of Climate Works and the World Resources Institute, member of the Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health

David Crane: investor and strategic advisor

Emmanuel Faber: chairman and chief executive officer of Danone

François-Henri Pinault: CEO and chairman of luxury brand Kering

Guilherme Leal: co-founder of Natura, serves on the boards of WWF Brazil and the United Nations Global Compact

Hamdi Ulukaya: founder, chairman and CEO of Chobani

Isabelle Kocher: CEO of ENGIE, the world’s largest independent power producer

Jochen Zeitz: co-founder and co-chair of The B Team, founder of the Zeitz Foundation, served 18 years as chairman and CEO of PUMA SE

Kathy Calvin: president and CEO of the United Nations Foundation, former president of the AOL Time Warner Foundation, previously served in senior positions at AOL, Hill and Knowlton, and U.S. News & World Report

Marc Benioff: chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce

Mary Robinson: president of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, former President of Ireland from 1990-1997, member of Richard Branson’s The Elders

Mats Granryd: director general of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), commissioner on the World Business & Sustainable Development Commission

Mo Ibrahim: founder and chair of the MoIbrahim Foundation, founder of Mobile Systems International (MSI) and Celtel International, founding chairman of Satya Capital, (a private equity fund focused on Africa), chairman of TPG-Satya

Muhammad Yunus: chairman of Grameen Bank

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: chair of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, former Finance Minister of Nigeria and former managing director of the World Bank

Oliver Bäte: CEO of Allianz SE

Paul Polman: served in senior leadership roles at both Nestlé and Procter & Gamble prior to becoming CEO of Unilever (2009-2018), appointed to the U.N. Secretary General’s High-level Panel responsible for developing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), founding member of the World Business & Sustainable Development Commission, U.N.-appointed SDG Advocate, leading member of Financing Capitalism for the Long-Term (FCLT), the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and the Food and Land Use Coalition (which he chairs), counsellor and chair of the Global Advisory Board of One Young World (co-founded by the aforementioned “B Team expert” David Jones), named an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for services to business in 2018, a non-executive director of Dow since 2010.

Ratan Tata: former chairman of Tata Sons, Tata has been conferred the honorary title of Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, Tata Industries, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Chemicals. During his tenure, the group’s revenues grew manifold, totalling over 100 billion USD in 2011-12. He serves on the board of directors at Alcoa as well as on the international advisory boards of Mitsubishi Corporation, JP Morgan Chase, Rolls-Royce, Temasek Holdings, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Sharan Burrow: general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), commissioner on the World Business & Sustainable Development Commission, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy observer and advisor

Yolanda Kakabadse: president of WWF International from January 2010-December 2017

Zhang Yue: chairman and founder of Broad Air Conditioning

[B Team Leaders] [B Team Experts] [B Team Founder Circle and Programmatic Donors]

Above: On February 23, 2017, The B Team and Safaricom announced plans to create The B Team – Eastern Africa

The B Team experts roster is also extensive. It includes:

Alexander Grashow: a senior advisor and lead moderator for the Clinton Global Initiative

Heather Grady: senior fellow, Global Philanthropy for Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

Mindy S. Lubber: president and a founding board member of Ceres, coordinator of Ceres’ Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), founder of Green Century Capital Management

Jeremy Heimans: co-founder of Avaaz, co-founder and CEO of Purpose, “a home for building 21^st century movements and ventures that use the power of participation to change the world”, advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the ACLU and Google, recipient of the Ford Foundation’s 75^th Anniversary Visionary Award, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader

Hunter Lovins: president of Natural Capitalism Solutions, author of The Way Out: Kickstarting Capitalism to Save Our Economic Ass – a sequel to the international best-seller Natural Capitalism

John Fullerton: founder and president of Capital Institute, active impact investor through his Level 3 Capital Advisors, former managing director of JPMorgan, a director of the New Economy Coalition, full member of the Club of Rome, creator of the “Future of Finance” blog at CapitalInstitute.org, which is syndicated with The Guardian, Huffington Post, CSRWire, and other media outlets

John Elkington: founding partner and executive chairman of Volans, a consultancy and think-tank driving market-based solutions to the future’s greatest challenges, signatory to the XR Business initiative, member of the WWF Council of Ambassadors, member of the Advisory Board of The Climate Group‘s Clean Revolution Campaign, serves on Newsweek’s Green Rankings Advisory Board, Kering’s Technical Advisory Board, and the advisory board of The Social Stock Exchange just launched by the UK Prime Minister. He is also identified as a member of the Guardian Sustainable Business advisory panel.

Above: The B Team website, July 17, 2017: “Earlier this year Virgin Unite shared the news that Christiana Figueres – former UN climate chief and convener of Mission 2020 – had joined Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz (B Team co-founders) as one of the B Team’s newest global leaders.” [Source]

Above: The B Team website, January 30, 2019: Greta Thunberg, Climate Activist, Kringlaskolan Södertälje, Sweden, speaking at the Session “Preparing for Climate Disruption” at the Annual Meeting 2019 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 25, 2019. Congress Centre – Jakobshorn, Copyright by World Economic Forum / Mattias Nutt [The B Team: To B or Not To B in Davos]

Above: The B Team, March 27, 2019 newsletter: “On March 15, an estimated 1.6 million students in 120 countries participated in the Global Student Climate Strike, calling on leaders to act with the urgency the climate crisis needs. Inspired and humbled by their courage, our Leaders shared their support and thanked these students for reminding the world what its leaders are accountable for—their future.”

Above: The B Team Twitter account, March 15, 2019

Above: The “New Power” advocates: January 22, 2014, Kumi Naidoo, Twitter | From left: Richard Branson, Kumi Naidoo, Jeremy Heimans (Avaaz/Purpose)

Working as part of the Natural Capital Coalition, The B Team supported the development of “the first global, standard Natural Capital Protocol” in 2016. The protocol creates “a set of tools for corporations to “measure their impacts and dependencies on nature”. These tools will be used to support the global plan to monetise nature (a “new deal for nature”). Because “what you can’t value what you can’t measure”. The protocol was launched in 2016, following pilots by more than 40 corporations including luxury brand Kering (B Team major funder, Kering CEO a B Team expert) and Dow Chemical (Dow CEO a B Team “leader”).

Above: Natural Capital Protocol partners

Above: The Natural Capital Coalition

Above: Finance For One Planet, CoP Financial Institutions and Natural Capital, 2016 [Source]

The B Team continues to grow and expand its coalition of corporate executives. In 2018, Indra Nooyi, chairman and former CEO of PepsiCo, joined the coalition. More recently, The B Team welcomed Ajay Banga, president and CEO of MasterCard. Another B Team leader is Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of Dow Chemical Company. Liveris also serves as a member of The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America Conservation Council, and the Concordia Leadership Council. [Full bio].

 

Purpose

Purpose, which worked with We Mean Business to set up its climate campaign lab, creates cause-related campaigns for non-profits, foundations, and corporations. Purpose clients and partners include IKEA, Unilever, and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, to name a few (see image below).

One may need reminding that Purpose “movements” are not decrying the more than 300 assassinations of Colombian leaders over the last two years [August 9, 2018, Source], a tragic number which is no doubt higher today. Rather, they are organizing Concordia Summits to facilitate an advancing privatization in Columbia (and the world at large) as they court right-wing politicians and oligarchs. This can best be described as “power in white face”.

If power dominated through hierarchy and coercion – the emergent “new power” model dominates with influence and persuasion. And while this has been achieved for some decades now by the NGOs comprising the non-profit industrial complex, a growing number of corporations, institutions and states, are now applying it to their business models. The main differences are that first, the organizers remain invisible, and second, the populace is manipulated into believing that they control said movements.

At the helm of this new model is Avaaz/Purpose co-founder Jeremy Heimans. Purpose, the PR firm (with many arms) specializes in movement building and behavioural change.

Heiman’s vision is to organize “people not as citizens but as consumers” so as to further empower corporations and brands that he refers to as “the angels”. Among the firm’s partners are some of the world’s most powerful corporations, foundations and institutions, including The Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Unilever,  IKEA, General Electric, Starbucks, TED, Oxfam, SEIU, WHO, UNICEF, ACLU, British Telecom, the Concordia Summit and Nike. Collaborators include We Mean Business and The B Team which is registered to the address of Purpose New York.

Video. Jeremy Heimans & Timms: Kaepernick is New Power’s 6 Billion Dollar Man [Running time: 0:45s]:

With strong ties and loyalties to many elite institutions and oligarchs, such as Purpose partner the United Nations (where Heimans cut his teeth as in intern in 1999), the Omidyar Network, and Virgin’s Richard Branson (founder of The B Team, The Elders, Carbon War Room, etc.), Purpose now has a global presence with seven international offices operating in New York, San Francisco, London, New Delhi, Nairobi, Sao Paulo, and Sydney. This expansion is in line with new behavioural insight teams, which are steadily proliferating in government buildings across the globe.

[Further reading: Purpose Goes to Latin America, Part I, August 8, 2018]

+++

New Power

“Whoever mobilizes is going to win. And if you are understanding new power you can end up on top. Welcome to the new power world.”

The above quote is taken from the marketing video for the book titled New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World–and How to Make It Work for You (released April 3, 2018). The book authored by Jeremy Heimans (Avaaz/Purpose) and Henry Timms (until recently, the CEO of 92nd Street Y, a 143-year-old institution located in New York City) follows their prior publications: New Power: How It’s Changing The 21st Century (2018) and Why You Need To Know and Understanding ‘New Power’ (Harvard Business Review, 2014).

Timms is the creator and co-founder of Giving Tuesday, “a classic new power movement”. [Source] Giving Tuesday is funded by such giants as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Facebook. In February 2019, it was announced that Timms would leave 92Y for the Lincoln Centre for Performing Arts where he now serves as president and CEO. Timms continues as co-chair of 92Y’s Belfer Center for Innovation and Social Impact and in guiding Giving Tuesday.

 

At the 2015 Concordia summit, Heimans and Timms co-moderated a panel. Their session, “Introducing: New Power in a Multi-stakeholder World,” featured an exciting line-up of speakers, each pioneering change in their respective industries in innovative ways.”

This year, on September 22-24, 2019, the Concordia Annual Summit is set to be “the largest and most inclusive nonpartisan forum” held alongside the United Nations General Assembly. [Source]

New Power has been named best book of 2018 by the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Inc. and CNBC, and Heimans has advised institutions such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google and Unilever. A Harvard University grad and McKinsey & Co. alum, Heimans has addressed the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, TED, and the Aspen Institute. [Source]

On September 30, 2019, at this year’s World Leadership Forum dinner, the Foreign Policy Association will honor Heimans. Hosted by the Foreign Policy Association and coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly, the World Leadership Forum is one of the foremost public forums on global affairs. Individual admissions can be purchased for 1,000.00 USD. [Source]

[Further reading: Purpose Goes to Latin America, Part I]

“The future will be a battle over mobilization.”

 

— Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, New Power

Social Good

The creation of the Social Good Summit (launched in 2012) is attributed to Timms, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ericsson, the United Nations Development Programme, and Mashable.

Following the Social Good Summit came the launch of the SocialGood “community”. The founding partners of the SocialGood community include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Case Foundation, Caterpillar, Cisco, Enactus, Mashable, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Foundation, and 92Y. [Source]

This year’s speakers at the Social Good summit include Greta Thunberg, Christiana Figueres, founding partner of Global Optimism and former executive secretary of the UN Climate Convention, [ACT II], and Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of Amnesty International, former president/CEO of both Greenpeace and TckTckTck. Also featured is Achim Steiner, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Steiner is a former advisory board member of TEEB – now the Natural Capital Coalition (the financialization of nature under the guise/branding of a “New Deal for Nature”).

Video: Towards a Global Green New Deal, UN Environment, December 28, 2009 [Running time: 6:20]:

The video above features Achim Steiner promoting the Green New Deal in 2009. Back then, it was promoted as a solution to save the economy; now, it is promoted as a solution to save the climate. In both instances, its sole purpose has been to inject growth into a global economic system on the verge of collapse. The main difference today is that the Green New Deal encompasses the assigning of monetary value to nature. This will transform the global financial system itself, bringing into existence a new financial accounting system which has taken well over a decade to refine. The Green New Deal is essentially a Trojan horse for the ultimate corporate coup of the commons.

“Can investment in green industry technologies and nature-based assets help lift the world out of recession? UNEP and its UN partners are confident it can. According to Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of UNEP its already happening. He says getting out of the recession will be a boost to building a new green economy. Environmentally-focused investment represents an historic opportunity for 21st century prosperity and job generation.”

 

— Towards a Global Green New Deal, UN Environment, December 28, 2009

 

“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.”

 

— Christiana Figueres, UNFCC Executive Secretary, February 3, 2015 Press Conference, Brussels [Source]

The strategy to exploit the ecological crisis, in order to save economic growth, is not new. After an initial and fairly short-lived backlash against the “green economy” (growth under the guise of green, UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio, 2012), the power elite regrouped. By 2014, Avaaz/Purpose founder Jeremy Heimans would disclose the strategy to “kill green” in order to save it. The green economy was repackaged as the “new economy”.

“Chakrabarti had an unexpected disclosure. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Ricketts greeted this startling notion with an attentive poker face. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

 

— AOC’s Chief of Change -Saikat Chakrabarti isn’t just running her office. He’s guiding a movement, Washington Post, July 10, 2019

The Climate Group

Leading up to the September 2019 media sensation in conjunction with the United Nations Climate Action Summit, the Concordia Summit, and the global climate strikes is Climate Week NYC. This annual event is a project of The Climate Group, co-founder of We Mean Business.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects which later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being ‘The Climate Group’, launched in London in 2004. The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, from financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, to media institutions such as Bloomberg to IT conglomerates such as Hewlett Packard. [4]

The Climate Group functions as the secretariat for the Under2 Coalition, an alliance of state and regional governments. As of 2017, the Under2 Coalition brings together over 220 governments from 43 countries, representing 1.3 billion people and 43% of the global economy. The Climate Group’s initiatives “RE100“, “EP100” and “EV100” are run as part of the We Mean Business coalition.

Climate Week NYC was founded in 2009 as a partnership between The Climate Group, the United Nations, TckTckTck, the UN Foundation, the City of New York, the Government of Denmark, and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

Climate Week NYC 2019, taking place September 23-29, is the biggest Climate Week event in the world. This year, there is a predominant focus on youth with Global Citizen as a key partner. Partners of Global Citizen include Citi, P&G, Coca-Cola Africa, Microsoft, Forbes, Havas, and Johnson & Johnson. [Global Citizen Partners]

Above: July 18, 2019: “Climate Week NYC 2019 is partnering with international advocacy organization Global Citizen for its Youth and Climate Activism Program. The program will reflect the global leadership of young people and its influence on climate action and align with the Youth and Public Mobilization theme of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit.” [Source] Global Citizen partners include P&G, National Geographic and Radical Media.

“Today’s youth are leading the charge on protecting both people and planet from catastrophic climate change, and through our partnership with Climate Week NYC, we are excited to equip them with the tools and resources to effect more change through the Youth and Climate Activism Program. 2020 will be a pivotal year to catalyze efforts…”

 

— Michael Sheldrick, Vice President of Global Policy and Government Affairs at Global Citizen

 

“The Youth and Climate Activism Program will bring together a number of events specifically focused on engaging and working with young people seeking to engage in climate action and will be the lead focus for Climate Week NYC 2019.”

 

— Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group

 

“Young leaders are stepping up across the world, calling on everyone to join them on their mission to create a cleaner and healthier planet for future generations. As business leaders, NGOs, and government officials, we must work together and use our influence to step up and help catalyze impactful change.”

 

— Suzanne DiBianca, Chief Impact Officer and EVP of Corporate Relations at Salesforce

Video. Global Citizen Festival 2019, NYC’s Central Park, September 28, 2019 [Running time: 0:30s]:

“Join Queen + Adam Lambert, Pharrell Williams, Alicia Keys, OneRepublic, H.E.R., and Carole King in NYC’s Central Park … Download the Global Citizen app today to start taking action and earn your free tickets.”

Above: The Climate Group welcomes Greta Thunberg – its most successful social experiment to date, Twitter

Above: Teen Vogue climate strike special issue, September 16, 2019

The sober images of Thunberg, as depicted and shared by the Climate Group, and the media at large, are very much intentional as outlined in the orginal document “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement” published by The Climate Mobilization:

“The way we respond to threats — by entering emergency mode or by remaining in normal mode — is highly contagious. Imagine the fire alarm goes off in an office building. How seriously should you take it? How do you know if it is a drill or a real fire? Those questions will be predominantly answered by the actions and communications of the people around you, particularly people designated as leaders. If they are chatting and taking their time exiting the building, you will assume that this is a drill. If people are moving with haste, faces stern and focused, communicating with urgency and gravity, you will assume there is real danger and exit as quickly as possible.” [Section: Both Emergency Mode and Normal Mode Are Contagious] [Emphasis in original]

The American exceptionalism ideology espoused by the Climate Mobilization is shared by many inclusive of the World Business Academy:

“And if you really want to know how much money a green environment is going to create, I would urge you to look at the economy the United States of America in 1939 in compared to the economy of the United States of America in 1947… it turns out we got really rich by doing the right thing. We mobilized. We saved democracy for the free world and in the process we built the Western democracy that’s been running the world for them ever since. The same or better awaits us if Margaret Klein Solomon is successful and I believe she will be with her efforts at Climate mobilization.”

 

— Rinaldo Brutoco, World Business Academy, introduction for The Climate Mobilization founder, Margaret Klein Salamon, Event: “2019: The Year of Climate Mobilization”, February 2019, [Source]

 

Climate Week 2017 Sponsors

Business For Nature

“…our natural world provides environmental services to our economy worth over $125 trillion annually.”

 

— Business For Nature website

 

“Business for Nature calls on governments to adopt a new deal for nature and people in 2020.”

 

“How can business deliver for Nature?… promoting policy changes to governments to establish the policy frameworks needed to drive economic changes at scale.”

 

“THE OCEAN ECONOMY ESTIMATED TO BE WORTH $2.5 TRILLION PER ANNUM”

New coalitions are forming to assist in the implementation of the financialization of nature. That is, the privatization of nature, global in scale, ushered in under the guise of protecting biodiversity. WWF leads the public charge with the “New Deal For Nature” and “Voice for the Planet” campaigns, while the Natural Capital Coalition, with institutions and NGOs such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES – a Natural Capital Coalition partner), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International work in united servitude to corporate power to advance the total capture of nature’s “services”.

One recently formed coalition is Business For Nature. Launched on July 2, 2019, the coalition founders are We Mean Business, the World Economic Forum, The Nature Conservancy, WWF, the Natural Capital Coalition, the World Resources Institute, the IUCN, The Food and Land Use Coalition, Confederation of Indian Industry, Entreprises pour l’Environnement (EpE), Tropical Forest Alliance, and the International Chamber of Commerce.

“2020 is a unique opportunity for businesses to call on governments to adopt policies to level the playing field to incentivise the wider business community to act and enable a global transformation.”

 

— Business For Nature website

The financialization of nature is coming. And while the media and NGOs work overtime to ensure that the citizenry remains focused on Extinction Rebellion antics, the global climate strikes, and the spectacle at large, the “New Deal for Nature” continues to accelerate forward with zero dissent. There is not a single word of opposition, or even reference to its existence from climate “movements” such as Extinction Rebellion or 350.org. Nor is there a single word of dissent from young Thunberg, who is enclosed by those working toward the “New Deal For Nature” campaign that holistically masks the full commodification of the planet’s “ecosystem services” at scale (i.e. new markets).

Above: John Elkington, founder of Volans, B Team “expert”, and Extinction Rebellion Business signatory

Momentum is needed. Get your marching boots on. Demand your politicians and governments align with the Paris Agreement – a politically correct suicide pact.

“Business for Nature calls on governments to adopt a new deal for nature and people in 2020 and to adopt policies to change the rules of the economic game to ensure a future in which people and nature thrive together.”

 

“2020 is a unique opportunity for businesses to call on governments to adopt policies to level the playing field to incentivise the wider business community to act and enable a global transformation.”

 

“The risks create ‘significant opportunities’ … $22.6 trillion opportunity for water infrastructure by 2050″

The Business for Nature website features the WWF video presentation “Sustainability: The Only Business Plan For Our Planet” (published on May 16, 2019). This video is the condensed version for the longer WWF video presentation “Our Planet: Our Business” (published on June 27, 2019).

WWF – “Our Planet: Our Business”

“The global business community can be a powerful force to drive action for nature – find out why we are confident that change is possible. Our Planet: Our Business, a new film for business inspired by the Netflix series Our Planet, is available to watch now.” [Source]

The Our Planet series launched on Netflix in April 2019. The series – a collaboration between WWF, Netflix and Silverback Films – it  showcases the world’s “rich natural wonders, iconic species and wildlife spectacles that still remain”. Within the first month of its release, the film was watched in over 25 million homes around the world, making it the most successful documentary series ever produced by Netflix. “It was the first series of its kind to carry an important conservation message at its heart.” [Source: WWF].

But this is not the whole truth.

A partial truth is disclosed in the April 5, 2019 article “Landmark documentary series Our Planet highlights need for global action to protect nature, says WWF”:

“WWF is calling on the public to stand up for the planet and is asking global leaders to address our nature emergency by working together to develop a global plan of action, a New Deal for Nature and People… In 2020 we have the chance to put the world on the path to a better future, due to a historic coming together of key international decisions on environment, climate and sustainable development that have the potential to put our planet at the heart of our economic, political and financial systems.”

The purpose of the series was to carry an important conservation message – with behavioural economics at its heart. That is, to slowly build acquiescence for, and acceptance of, the coming financialization of nature. That is, the grotesque commodification of nature, shrouded behind stunningly beautiful and heart-wrenching emotive images which provoke angst, empathy and urgency while the new financial instruments which will assign monetary value to nature are never spoken of. Senior influencer “Sir” David Attenborough plays a pivotal role for the coming “New Deal For Nature” in servitude to the ruling classes.

Above: David Phillips, We Don’t Have Time Board of Advisors

Featured in the WWF promotional video, “Our Planet: Our Business” include Christiana Figueres, Attenborough (face for the New Deal For Nature) and “crude capitalist” Anand Mahindra:

“My main task as a crude capitalist is to dismiss two myths. The first myth is that there is a trade-off between choosing to do something to improve the climate.”

 

— Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group speaking to Al Gore & company, We Mean Business, January 25, 2018

In the WWF “new film for business”, we have the long-awaited for introduction of monetizing the natural world, cautiously being introduced to the public:

“It’s only as we have started to lose things that we have begun to realise the true value of nature. As Earth’s biodiversity drops, things we have taken for granted start to disappear. Clean air and water, the food we eat, the soil it grows in. A benign climate, productive seas. A healthy world provides us and our businesses with all of these for free. But if we were to place a value on them? The services that biodiversity provides for us are estimated to be worth twice as much as the entire globe’s GDP.”

 

This is not about saving our planet, this is about saving ourselves. We are the chief beneficiaries of our biodiverse, stable home. Our civilisation won’t work without it. To change this situation will require action on an industrial scale, and at an unparalleled speed. We have just ten years to drastically alter our path.”

To sell the 21^st century fairytale that capitalism will be magically reinvented, transformed to be both ethical and sustainable, the hegemonic forces at the helm of the current global economy will require two things: first, segments of the population that have been thoroughly conditioned to swallow assurances defying all logic and physical realities, and second, “narrative[s] around how your products are sustainable and healthy”, with impact stories as well:

“If you ask any other generation, “What is the purpose of business?” they will say, “What colour is the sky? The purpose of business is to make money.” If you ask millennials that question, forty-seven percent said some version of the purpose of business is to improve society and protect the environment. This is a fundamental sea-change in the way an entire generation thinks about business. It’s going to mean that if you want to attract the top talent and retain them, if you want to win over millennial customers and attract the thirty trillion dollars of capital that’s currently being given to millennials by the baby boomer generation, you’re going to have to have a narrative around how your products are sustainable and healthy. You’re going to have to have an impact story as well.”

 

— Seth Bannon, founding partner of the venture capital firm Fifty Years

Bannon (quoted above), the WWF chosen conduit to the millennial demographic so desired by the corporate ruling class, explains how capitalism and greed can co-exist to create a better world. There is no need for sacrifice:

“We’re actually trying to prove that you don’t have to concede on anything. We want to convince the purely greedy capitalists that if all they want to do is make more money, they should still invest in these companies that are solving these big problems.”

 

— Seth Bannon, founding partner of the venture capital firm Fifty Years

And what is this concession-free solution that will alter the global capitalist economic system – in which violence and exploitation prove necessary in order for the system to maintain and extend its hegemony– to a magically transformed ethical, gentler capitalism? Bannon describes the transformation as a “new conception”:

“We believe that business as usual, this business that’s meant about purely chasing profits, is on the way out. And there’s a new conception of business that’s going to take its place. That’s about not only generating profit, but actually solving social or environmental issues.”

 

— Seth Bannon, founding partner of the venture capital firm Fifty Years

In this “new conception of business”, there are no limitations placed upon the industrial economic system:

“The broad strategy for this new business as usual is clear. We just have to make sure that everything we do, we can do forever.”

Here, WWF acknowledged the growth imperative within the capitalist economic system – without mentioning the actual capitalist economic system itself. How will the growth issue be resolved while maintaining the very economic system that is absolutely dependent upon it? The answer is revealed in WWF’s point 5 – “reimagine success”:

“The most damaging element of today’s society is its quest for perpetual growth. ‘We’ve got an economic system that depends upon growing forever. How does that reconcile itself with a thriving planet?’ Growth for growth’s sake will have to lose its attraction. ‘We cannot think of economic success if we’re deteriorating the environment, and I think that has to be in the essence of each person that wants to lead a country, to lead a company.’ The new sustainable economy will readdress this. ‘We need to create economies that allow us to thrive, whether or not they grow. But something can thrive without getting bigger. It’s just thrumming, alive, creating, regenerating, doing well, and it looks great to us and we feel the energy in that.’ Our reinvented model for Business As Usual will ultimately begin to mimic nature. Adapting to thrive within the finite world about it. Indeed, there is no alternative.”

This poor explanation resembling a new age mantra, is worse than wrong – it is nonsense. Reimagining success will not stop the growth imperative inherently built into the capitalist economic system. There will be no “reinvented model for business as usual” within the capitalist economic system that does not collapse without growth. “The new sustainable economy will readdress this” means, in real terms, “we really have no fucking clue”.

The last sentence “[i]ndeed, there is no alternative”, as highlighted above, is the lie they want you to believe. Consider that collectively, the populace appears to believe that not only is it possible to colonize another planet, but that we will do so in the not-so-distant future. This is incredible considering the massive odds of and colossal barriers to such an endeavour succeeding. Thus, it is alarming, that this same populace appears not to believe it is not possible to create new societies where necessity is detached from want (superfluous consumer goods). This begs the question – have we been fully conditioned to believe only those that represent hegemonic interests? It is a sound question considering the billionaires of the world are currently petrified of the capitalist system collapsing – while those oppressed by the capitalist system believe it cannot be dismantled. Yet we can dismantle institutions. We can dismantle the capitalist economic system devouring what remains of the natural world – but not if we identify with our oppressors and the very system that enslaves us. It is our natural world and her living natural communities that sustain us. Not industrial civilization – not technology.

The following film segment leads to an introduction to Greta Thunberg:

“We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not.”

Thunberg’s pivotal role in the global campaign to save global growth is found within this dialogue: “So the vital thing the business community needs to do is come together to encourage politicians to set the global frameworks that will accelerate progress to a sustainable world.”

Featured in the film is Ellen MacArthur. MacArthur is assisting in the building of momentum toward a said “circular economy” having founded the New Plastics Economy initiative unveiled in January 2019 at Davos. The Coca-Cola Company, Danone, MARS, Novamont, L’Oréal, PepsiCo, Unilever, Amcor, and Veolia are the initiative’s Core Partners. Other partners include Evian, Google, H&M, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Nike. New Plastics Economy “Knowledge Partners” include Arup, IDEO, McKinsey, and SYSTEMIQ.

Above: Sarkozy awards Ellen MacArthur the Légion d’Honneur, 2008 [Yachting World]

Above from left: Ellen MacArthur, Evian’s global brand director, Patricia Oliva, Christiana Figueres, and Stella McCartney, WEF Arctic Basecamp, Davos, 2019 – Stella McCartney is a luxury lifestyle brand that was launched under the designer’s name in a partnership with Kering. A 2017 report found that “the equivalent of one dustbin truck-worth of textiles is landfilled every second.”

In the WWF feature, MacArthur assures the viewer there is no such thing as waste: “Waste is just a resource in the wrong place.” Consider this phrase the new mantra for the world’s most powerful yet reformed capitalists intent on business-as-usual rebranded under the guise of sustainability saviours. Here’s hoping we can store all the world’s nuclear waste (i.e. resource in the wrong place) in the front yard of one of MacArthur’s residences.

While Mahindra of the Mahindra Group highlights his commitment (on behalf of his two hundred and twenty-five thousand colleagues) that “by the year 2040, the entire Mahindra Group of companies would be carbon neutral” (think offsets), Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco explains the corporation’s commitment to recyclable plastics:

“WWF narrator: “Even the most complex, global business communities will work to eliminate waste.”

 

Lewis: “We asked all of our suppliers to tell us exactly which material was in their packaging. And we said, By the end of 2019, we want to take no material into our business that’s not recyclable. Can you manage that? If we do set a standard, most of our suppliers will want to come with us. We can do that. As a responsible business, why wouldn’t we?” (dramatic theme music plays in background)

There is no plan to largely eliminate plastics.

Lewis further assures us:

“For both palm oil and soy, we have sustainable sources for one hundred percent of what we sell within the UK and in Central Europe, and about forty percent in our Asia business. So we have a commitment to get to one hundred percent in total.”

As discussed within this series, there is no such thing as sustainable palm or soy, produced at industrial scale. There are only billion dollar certification schemes conceptualized by WWF et al. which excel in the art of greenwashing in order to protect and maintain guilt-free consumption in the Global North. Displacement, landgrabbing, and bulldozing biodiversity/death of sentient life are the price those in the Global South must pay for those in the Global North to spread Nutella on their morning toast and other irrelevant things we consume in exchange of our natural world. In the face of a climate emergency with twelve said years to stave off collapse, one cannot be expected to give up Nutella*, Unilever Dove “beauty bars”, and other “essentials” the Global North cannot be expected to go without. [*Ferrero who manufactures Nutella, purchased Nestlé’s U.S. confectionary business in 2018. Halloween in the Global North is a palm oil bloodbath that literally continues unabated.]

In regard to the decimation of the Earth’s remaining forests (many lost to palm and soy monoculture), the President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvadaro assures us:

“Now we have shown that it’s possible to reverse deforestation. We’ve done that in the last decades. We reached twenty percent of our coverage with forests, and we managed to increase that to fifty percent, currently.”

Yet, the September 26, 2018 scientific paper The ephemerality of secondary forests in southern Costa Rica demonstrates that half of Costa Rica’s regrown forests are gone within two decades: “Secondary forests are vital parts of the ecosystem, but in Costa Rica many of them are re-cleared before achieving old-growth levels of biodiversity.” [Source] What is equally grotesque is the fact that no one questions what has happened to the living sentient animals that must have existed in these cleared swathes of forests. In the spectacle, stunning animals and wildlife who many humans empathize with are exploited via (stunning) visuals as a means to create acquiescence and even desire for a global “New Deal For Nature”.

In real life, utilizing language and framing – the single reference of “biodiversity” creates a collective acceptance of “afforestation”, land acquisitions and theft via “conservation”, and carbon markets (inclusive of REDD+). With the application of a single word, coupled with a false market solution, all conjured images of sentient animals facing ominous peril are instantly saved then filed away. Out of sight, out of mind, out of existence. As Western societies become more and more disconnected from the natural world, it becomes much easier to sell “solutions” that accept the death and subsequent loss of diverse tree communities, insects, amphibians, flora and fauna. This can be witnessed today for climate mobilizations that first and foremost demand “green” energy technologies, technologies which promise the further annihilation of life in the natural world.

There is certainly more to be deconstructed in the WWF business feature film, but let us digress. One only has to follow the work of Stephen Corry to observe the torture, rape, murder and displacement of Tribal Peoples carried out under the WWF banner of “conservation”. It is well documented and horrific. However, having conditioned society to no longer read beyond 140 characters or so, it is an easy feat to sell the “New Deal For Nature” when your advertising content contains the most beautiful images found in our human existence – the physical planet and all of her life forms.

Climate change is a direct product of capitalism and will not be mitigated by more capitalism. Ecological devastation, resource depletion, and collapsing ecosystems are all a direct result of capitalism. This destruction of our natural world will not and cannot be halted by more capitalism – regardless of what colour or adjective is placed in front of it.

 

 

End Notes

[1] The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (CLG), a group hosted by the University of Cambridge’s Programme for Industry, describes itself as comprising “business leaders from major UK, EU and international companies who believe that there is an urgent need to develop new and longer-term policies for tackling climate change.” In September 2008 18 corporate executives signed a letter from the UK CLG to the leaders of the three largest UK political parties — supporting the UK Climate Bill before the parliament and support for the European Union adopting a target of a 30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. In the letter, the UK CLG stated that, in the context of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, it supported including unspecified “existing technologies must be deployed rapidly and a range of new technologies must be brought to market” (E.ON, one of the signatories to the letter, was touting a raft of new power stations it was proposing across Europe as being “CCS-ready”).

The inclusion of the CEOs of E.ON UK and BAA as signatories to the letter drew a scathing response from Ben Stewart, the Greenpeace communications director. “This is hypocrisy of the purest strain. It’s astounding that E.ON would call for action on climate change when they’re agitating to build Britain’s first coal-fired power stations in decades. It makes an environmentalist’s jaw drop to see the BAA logo on this letter when they’re trying to expand airports across the nation,” he told the Guardian. “This is like Howard Marks [a convicted drug smuggler] calling for a crackdown on pot. If the executives of these companies want action on climate change they should immediately lock themselves in their boardrooms and not come out until Kingsnorth and Heathrow expansion have been dropped.” [Source: Sourcewatch]

In 2010, The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change was identified as a partner in the TckTckTck campaign, co-founded by Greenpeace. [Source]

[2] “C40 Cities connects 96 of the world’s greatest cities to take bold climate action, leading the way towards a healthier and more sustainable future. Representing 700+ million citizens and one quarter of the global economy, mayors of the C40 cities are committed to delivering on the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement at the local level, as well as to cleaning the air we breathe. The current chair of C40 is Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo; and three-term Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg serves as President of the Board. C40’s work is made possible by our three strategic funders: Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and Realdania.” [Source] In 2011 a formal merger transpired between C40 and CCI’s Cities Program, forged by President Clinton and then Mayor of New York City and C40 Chair, Michael R. Bloomberg. [Source]

[3] Full list: Climate Week NYC 2019 sponsors and partners include Salesforce, McKinsey, Bank of America, Engie Impact, Unilever, AT & T, Estee Lauder, International Copper Association, Orsted, Exelon, PWC, IKEA, BT, National Grid, TCI Co., ABInBev, Trane, Morrison Foerster, Natixis, ClimateWorks, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, NYC Official Guide, Global Citizen (youth and climate activism partner), We Mean Business, Kigali, Raw, Alchemy Mill, 3Degrees, The New Republic, Nationale Postcode Loteri, UN Climate Action Summit.  [Source]

[4] The Climate Group: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects that later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being ‘The Climate Group’, launched in London in 2004. The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, including big polluters such as energy giants BP and Duke Energy, as well as several partner organizations, one being that of the big NGO Avaaz. The Climate Group are advocates of unproven carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), nuclear power and biomass as crucial technologies for a low-carbon economy. The Climate Group works closely with other business lobby groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). The IETA has worked consistently to sabotage climate action. The Climate Group also works on other initiatives, one being that of the ‘Voluntary Carbon Standard’, a global standard for voluntary offset projects. One marketing strategist company labeled the Climate Group’s campaign ‘Together’ as “the best inoculation against greenwash”. The Climate Group has operations in Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America. It was a partner to the ‘Copenhagen Climate Council’.

 

 

 

 

Extinction Rebellion Training, or How to Control Radical Resistance from the ‘Obstructive Left’

May 6, 2019

By Cory Morningstar

 

 

“New Power” – “The ability to harness the connected crowd to get what you want”

– Jeremy Heimans, co-founder Purpose/Avaaz, B Team Expert

 

Above: XR local coordinator training document. Diagram: The “US” circle on the top signifies Extinction Rebellion. The middle circle identifies “mostly obstructive” political activists (“hard left”) that must be bypassed in order to reach the bottom circle. The bottom circle represents the non-political citizens, the target audience of XR.

Background

Extinction Rebellion (XR) officially launched on October 31, 2018. On November 2, 2018, a video was uploaded to the Extinction Rebellion YouTube account. The video documents the training session held by XR co-founder Roger Hallam: “This was filmed at the Extinction Rebellion Local Coordinator training in Bristol. Roger Hallam explains some the key dynamics of building a mass movement from the level of personal resilience to creating system change.”

Here, it is critical to remind oneself, that this is the XR mass organizing model for the mobilization of a global citizenry. Consider between the official launch on October 31, 2018, in the UK, to December 6, 2018, it grew to over 130 groups, across 22 countries. By January 29, 2019, the Extinction Rebellion groups spanned across 50 countries. On April 27, 2019 XR reported they were nearing 400 branches globally.

The global expansion is being led by Margaret Klein Salamon [Source], founder of The Climate Mobilization, who launched the Extinction Rebellion US Twitter account on October 31, 2018 – the same day as the launch of Extinction Rebellion in the UK. The Extinction Rebellion demands are not only complementary to The Climate Mobilization’s emergency strategy now in motion; they are a mirror image of it with the slogan, “Tell the Truth”. [Further reading: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The House is On Fire! & the 100 Trillion Dollar Rescue, ACT IV]

Training the XR Local Coordinators

Above: Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam

During the training session, Hallam draws a chart with three circles. The small circle on the top signifies Extinction Rebellion – people that want to get things done. The middle circle is quickly identified as the contentious one. This circle identifies the “mostly obstructive”, highly political, a “hard left”, which must be bypassed in order to reach the bottom circle. The bottom circle, the largest in size, represents the non-political citizens, the target audience of XR: “The people who’re shitting themselves and want something to be done but aren’t highly political.” [Source: XR Local Coordinator Training]

Hallam:

“I’m just going to finish on something that’s a bit of a taboo subject, okay? But it’s another major issue you’re going to find when you organize, which is difficult, political people.

 

Okay, so I’m going to do a little chart here.

 

You usually find, like most of us people in this room, that are really political, but we’re really practical because we want to get some things done. Okay?

 

And then below us, in inverted commas, there’s another group of people that are really political and don’t want to get things done, because they’re so political. (lots of laughter). I will separate those people out in a minute.

 

And then below that, this is like a thousand times bigger, they really want to do something well there actually not political, you see what I mean.

 

These people really want to get things done. Then they go down here and try to involve these people, and these people basically grind it to death.”

Hallam speaks of the dangers posed by the “extreme hard left” viewpoints, “extreme intersectionalism” (“we need to be all perfect and that sort of stuff”), extreme desire for diversity, “extreme veganism”, etc. His examples are deliberately misleading and ridiculous. His mention of anarchism provokes more laughter.

Hallam concedes “and often they’re right” yet has zero interest in empowering this group to further empower the bottom “non-political” masses targeted by XR. Rather, his aim is to recruit the ones that can be persuaded into adopting pragmatism, while silencing those that refuse to conform.

In the Rebellion business, ethics isn’t a driving force, rather it is a detriment:

“Look, all the most effective movements have a central concept and that concept is balance. Balance the pragmatic need and the ethical imperative to change society versus the need to be eternally ethical.”

The message is clear – target the practical and pragmatic. Distance yourself from the self-centered “purists”.

“They’re [the 20%) not actually interested in political effectiveness. They’re interested in a political approach that makes them feel good.”

Although XR claims, “We are working to build a movement that is participatory, decentralised, and inclusive” – this runs in stark contrast to XR’s own conduct:

“The name of the game is to bypass these people, or at least recruit the little bit of them that get it … and go down here. And that’s how we’ve managed to mobilize thousands of people in three months. By having a public meeting. And if the public meeting is constructed around participative principles, you won’t have the SWP [Socialist Workers Party] guy standing up at the end. Everyone’s feeling good and he does a rant about how it has to be socialist, otherwise it’s rubbish. Which brings everybody down. It happens over and over again. And how we do that, we don’t have a Q & A. Q&A’s encourage nerdy people and absolutists, (laughter), we all know this, right? I mean you can have a Q&A if you’re super confident and you’re in a group of people that are generally like, in the real world, but if you have a public meeting 8o% of the people will be normal people, who are basically interested in the issue, and 20% of the people will be political absolutists. And they will there to appropriate your energy.”

And this ideology upheld by Hallam is the very foundational ideology being taught, encouraged and nurtured by Extinction Rebellion. Hallam: “This is how you mobilize lots of people.”

This , in essence, forms the key strategy of Extinction Rebellion. To isolate radical voices and to dominate the narrative. While targeting the non-practical and pragmatic. A narrative and an orchestrated campaign that serves the ruling class. To give a faux sense of inclusion, while mocking those who have, first and foremost, an allegiance to the Earth. Framing those who recognize that the very capitalist system destroying all life on our finite planet, will not and cannot be magically reformed to save us, as “political absolutists”. As Hallam effectively frames those identified in the middle circle as not “normal”, he seeks assurances from his students by ending sentences with a pleasant “yeah?” and “okay?”, at which point – largely due to the power of conformity in a group setting – they agree. Laughter ensues. There is no challenge to Hallam’s diatribe. The deliberate framing of those that do not conform as “obstructive” is effective social engineering.

Although Extinction Rebellion takes no position against capitalism, Hallam has no issue with taking a swipe at socialism. Using the Mondragon experiment in Spain as an example, Hallam explains that the central concept must be balance, “not socialism or anything”.

These are the main points captured by/for the XR Local Coordinators:

“They’re [the middle group] not interested in political effectiveness, they’re interested in things being perfect and good. This is not a personal judgment, but it won’t help.”

 

The majority, to be herded like cats (GCCA/TckTckTck – Global Call for Climate Action) are “[T]he people who’re shitting themselves and want something to be done but aren’t highly political.”

 

“Don’t have a Q & A. This allows the extreme people who want it to be one way to bring everyone else down.”

 

“80% are normal people [and] 20% political absolutists. There to appropriate your energy.”

 

“It’s not about climate change information, it’s about the emotional way that we say it – needs to create that emotional response, personal reactions are incredibly powerful.”

For XR leadership, the enemy of Rebellion is not corporate dominance such as Unilever or Volans (as recently confirmed by XR Business). The enemy of Rebellion is not the capitalist economic system devouring everything in its path. The enemy of the Rebellion is the radical activist, prepared to defend the Earth “by any means necessary”.

 

Pacifism as Pathology

“In certain situations, preaching nonviolence can be a kind of violence. Also, it is the kind of terminology that dovetails beautifully with the ‘human rights’ discourse in which, from an exalted position of faux neutrality, politics, morality, and justice can be airbrushed out of the picture, all parties can be declared human rights offenders, and the status quo can be maintained.” —  Arundhati Roy, How to Think About Empire

Hallam recommends to his students that they study: “The Psychology of Persuasion“, “The Radical Think Tank” (“How to Win“), and “This is an Uprising” by Mark Engler (with glowing forewords by 350.org’s Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein).

Here, is another orchestrated and ongoing effort to further pacify the working class in servitude to the state. One would be wise to toss “This is an Uprising” and instead read “Bloodless Lies: Book Review of This is an Uprising” (November 7, 2016). This is an excellent example of what those enmeshed in the non-profit industrial complex do not want you to read.

Rather than educating citizens why it is paramount that we become revolutionaries in order to protect the last vestiges of the natural world, Hallam encourages his newly-minted coordinators to embrace the role of “generalists”. [XR Generalists: “run meetings, be good with people, know how society changes, etc.; Revolutionary theorists – hard work is already done!; Books to read – This is an Uprising (Mark Engler)”] [Source]

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The Elites in Service to Capital

As touched upon in the conclusion of the Manufacturing Greta Thunberg for Consent series, ACT VI, Extinction Rebellion ties to some of the world’s most powerful NGOs at the helm of the non-profit industrial complex (Avaaz, 350.org, Greenpeace et al.). A largely white-led movement serving white power.

XR co-founder Gail Bradbrook, is also highly influential with decade-long ties to the tech industry. In his workshop, Hallam chuckles when he laments, “Like Gail, she’s got these connections with the elites. She’s on the phone with George [Monbiot]”. Bradbrook’s “connections with the elites” is no exaggeration. Featured in “The Financial Times”, the prestigious publication writes of Bradbrook: “Clad in a crimson coat and matching hat as she dashes between fundraising discussions with a London hedge-fund owner and meetings to rally Extinction Rebellion volunteers…” Indeed, “activism” has never been so en vogue, and a £50,000 donation by a hedge-fund owner to Extinction Rebellion [Source], raises no eyebrows whatsoever. It is safe to say that the hallowed out remnants of Western environmentalism have reached a new stage of commodification and normalization of such. This is not rebellion. This is business. Of course Bradbrook is not the only elite at the helm.

Above: Farhana Yamin at the prestigious Extinction Rebellion headquarters [Photo: Vice]

Farhana Yamin is “one of the movement’s leading voices” in Extinction Rebellion (Financial Times). Yamin who “spent 27 years in UN climate negotiations” and “helped midwife the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions” serves as a board member/trustee to Greenpeace. [Source: The rise of Extinction Rebellion, The Financial Times, April 12, 2019]

“Yamin, the international lawyer, who is also a trustee of Greenpeace UK and will soon take up an advisory role at the World Wildlife Fund, wants to build a bridge with existing organisations to forge a much bigger “movement of movements”. “We need to tap into the new form of leadership that’s being asked of us now,” she says. [Source: “Extinction Rebellion, inside the new climate resistance”, The Financial Times, April 10, 2019]

Former Vogue “climate warrior” (2015), Yamin is the founder and CEO of Track 0: “Track 0 is an independent, not-for-profit organization serving as a hub to support all those transitioning to a clean, fair and bright future for future generations around the world compatible with the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. We convene leaders and provide strategic research, training, advice, communications and networking support to governments, businesses, investors, philanthropies, communities and campaigns run by civil society.”

Partners of Track 0 include GCCA (TckTckTck), CAN (Climate Action Network), Avaaz, ClimateWorks (The Climate Group, We Mean Business), The Rockefeller Foundation, E3G (founder of GCCA), The Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group, European Climate Foundation and Chatham House. [Full list]

Advisory members of Track 0 include Sharon Johnson, “CEO Havas Media Re:Purpose”. This is incredible yet not surprising as Havas created the 2009 TckTckTck campaign a decade ago. Other advisory members include Betsy Taylor (served on boards of One Sky which merged with 350.org, Ceres, The Climate Mobilization, etc.), and Bernice Lee, Director, Climate Change at World Economic Forum.

One can glance through the Track 0 “Individuals & Organizations on Track” section to understand who is considered “on track” for “net zero” by Yamin et al. Certainly not those obstructionists found in Hallam’s middle circle.

In addition to founding Track 0, Yamin is an associate fellow at Chatham House and a member of the Global Agenda Council on Climate Change at the World Economic Forum.

 

Above: Track 0, Twitter

Yamin served as an adviser to the European Commission on the emissions trading directive from 1998-2002, later serving as special adviser to Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action. “She is lead author of three assessment reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on adaptation and mitigation issues. She continues to provide legal, strategy and policy advice to NGOs, foundations and developing nations on international climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC.” [Source]

As discussed in “A Decade of Strategic and Methodical Social Engineering”, while the International Policies and Politics Initiative and GCCA controlled the “movement” at COP15,  the same forces also controlled the message via the Carbon Briefing Service (CBS). The news service was launched by Jennifer Morgan (WWF, WRI, Greenpeace,etc.) and Liz Gallagher (E3G) in late 2014 with additional funding by the ClimateWorks Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Villum Foundation and Avaaz. [Source] Yamin was a participant of the invitation only group. [Source]

In 2015 Yamin attended a week-long retreat hosted by Avaaz. [Source]

Those who have read my past work as well as the Greta series, will know Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund are both founders of GCCA (TckTckTck) – and are both at the helm of this faux movement. These NGOs and others at the helm of the non-profit industrial complex are tasked with creating another “Paris moment” momentum needed for the coming financialization of nature to be implemented in 2020 (#NewDealForNature) – as well as the unlocking of monies needed for the fourth industrial revolution (to save capitalism itself).

Above: Track 0, Twitter

Above: Avaaz endorsement by Christiana Figueres [Source: Avaaz website]

Above: Track 0 highlights, September 24, 2014

Here we witness the social-organizational psychology experts grooming tomorrows “new champions“, “global shapers” and “new power” “thought-leaders” as determined and ultimately dictated by the world’s most powerful elites. In the 21^st century, psychology is not only an extremely important tool in influencing public opinion, it is now considered to be perhaps the single and most important tool. The necessity to comprehend the mental processes, desires and social patterns of the populace at large cannot be understated. Working in lock-step with controlled media and the best marketing executives foundation money can buy, today’s faux activists, thought-leaders and media lapdogs are the very mechanisms of modern-day perception.  – The Pygmalion Virus in Three Acts [2017 AVAAZ SERIES | PART II]

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[Further reading: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – A Decade of Social Manipulation for the Corporate Capture of Nature, ACT VI – Crescendo]

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In 1966, Stokely Carmichael stated: “And that’s the real question facing the white activists today. Can they tear down the institutions that have put us all in the trick bag we’ve been into for the last hundreds of years?”

This is the real question facing legitimate activists today. Are we tearing down the institutions, or keeping them propped up? Extinction Rebellion has been tasked with the propping up of the very institutions we must dismantle. There is a reason manufactured “environmentalists” and celebrities are recognized as key influencers. It is a deliberate undertaking that Hallam recommends “Rules for Revolutionaries” (based on US Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential run), rather than highlighting true revolutionaries such as Marilyn Buck, Malcolm X, or the land defenders on the frontlines today. The ones who often receive no press (until they are murdered). The ones that would belong to Hallam’s middle circle. It is a burying of radical political resistance. A reframing of resistance – into an obedient compliance. Note that Rules for Revolutionaries is written by Zach Exley, current advisor to US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is notable that praise for the book, from a bevy of authors includes Robert B. Reich, author of Saving Capitalism.

The influencers for the ruling classes are worth their weight in gold.

We Mean Business – Top Ten Climate Change Influencers, Twitter

British actress/celebrity Emma Thompson, Extinction Rebellion festivities, April 19, 2019

Emma Thompson for Global Optimist. The Climate Optimist campaign was launched in 2017 by The Climate Group in partnership with Futerra

Emotion – Not Information

Another critical imperative Hallam highlights for mass mobilization is “emotion – not information”. Hallam laments that the people who will lead the “rebellion” will be young people:

“The last thing to reiterate is the emotion – not the information … so the people that are going to lead this rebellion are going to be young people, 14 & 15 year olds …omg – a 14 year-old is in tears, right?, on television, about what’s happening…”

Thus, a key strategy for XR was (and continues to be) “How to engage with younger people – youth mobilisation, talks in schools/colleges, figuring out how to engage on ‘youth’ social media.” [Source]

We Mean Business is ecstatic over the climate strikes. As is Christiana Figueres.

Figueres, an anthropologist, economist and analyst having studied at London School of Economics and Georgetown University presided over the negotiations that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been recognized as “forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy”. With almost four decades of experience in multilateral negotiations, high-level national and international policy, coupled with extensive involvement in the corporate/private sector, in 2016, TIME magazine named Figueres one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Today, Figueres serves as vice-chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy; member of the board of directors of ClimateWorks; World Bank Climate Leader; B Team leader, leader of Mission2020 (“exponential transformation” focusing on six sectors that will play a key role in municipal governments and “Green New Deals”); and board member of the World Resources Institute.

Christiana Figueres (top right corner) podcast series: It’s Going To Be Tremendous

When the oppressor and the oppressed find themselves cheering as one, this is indeed “tremendous” for the elites. Yet, as the designs of the ruling elites take hold, which is already well under way, we will soon recognize that the citizenry themselves were grossly manipulated to usher in a nightmare that would only further their own demise.

[Further reading: So who exactly is Christiana Figueres?]

Above: The We Mean Business newsletter, April 30, 2019

April 30, 2019: “Welcome to the April edition of the We Mean Business coalition newsletter…Amid fresh waves of protests demanding accelerated climate action, more and more businesses and policy makers are stepping up and delivering the level of systemic change required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

We Mean Business – “a coalition of organizations working with thousands of the world’s most influential businesses and investors.” The founding partners of We Mean Business are: Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) (full membership and associate members list), CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), Ceres, The B Team, The Climate Group, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (CLG) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

The Climate Group was incubated by Rockefeller Brothers Fund as an in-house project that later evolved into a free-standing institution.

Together, these groups represent the most powerful – and ruthless – corporations on the planet, salivating to unleash trillions of dollars for the fourth industrial revolution. This, coupled with the financialization of nature, will create new markets, reboot global economic growth, and most importantly, rescue the global economic capitalist system that is destroying our biosphere.

We Mean Business, February 20, 2019: “People are desperate for something to happen.” Twitter

Christiana Figueres, B Team Leader [Source]. The B Team is a founder of We Mean Business

Emotion To Mask Information: BioEnergy Carbon Capture Storage

“The Institute has a unique and unrivalled membership including governments, global corporations, private industry and academia. Amongst its representation, are the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Japan and Australia, and multinationals such as Shell, ExxonMobil, Toshiba, Kawasaki and BHP.” — The Global CCS Institute, website

In the May 3, 2019 Extinction Rebellion newsletter (#20), the subject line reads “Parliament meets our first demand!” In the body of text: “There’s plenty of more obvious good news, though – most prominently Parliament’s declaration of climate and environment emergency.” What XR does not share with the public is that the UK CCC climate legislation was a victory for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry. In similar fashion to the financialization of nature, carbon capture legislation and projects are making huge strides behind closed doors – with zero opposition.

Global CCS Institute, May 2, 2019, Twitter:

“The Institute welcomes @theCCCuk report, which recommends that the UK commits to cutting its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net-zero by 2050 and highlights the crucial role #carboncapture and storage needs to play to achieve this goal.  #NetZeroUK #climateaction”

A zero emissions industrial civilization is not possible. For the continuance of industrial civilization, CCS is a necessity.  This is the promise of unabated business as usual. The future of energy will be dominated by the burning of our remaining forests, coupled with CCS. Akin to the depleted uranium left for future generations to contend with, CCS will inject the increasing CO2 into the ravaged Earth. This is the gift to be left to Greta Thunberg and the youth she inspires.  A gift to span generations.

More than this, “net zero” does not mean zero emissions. And it never did. Yet another inconvenient truth is that ‘The terms ‘net zero emissions’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ are interchangeable. This is the beauty of language and framing.

“Carbon Neutral is a term used to describe the state of an entity (such as a company, service, product or event), where the carbon emissions caused by them have been balanced out by funding an equivalent amount of carbon savings elsewhere in the world.” Carbon neutrality is most often sought/achieved through carbon offsetting (purchasing offsets, trading and projects).

Question by Richard Branson’s The Elders NGO to Farhana Yamin (2014): How is carbon neutrality different to ‘net zero emissions’?

Answer by Yamin: “The terms ‘net zero emissions’ and ‘carbon neutrality’ are interchangeable.”

Q: Global News, Dec 3, 2018: What is net-zero emissions?

A: Catherine Abreau, executive director of the Climate Action Network: “In short, it means the amount of emissions being put into the atmosphere is equal to the amount being captured.”

Militarism – as one of the key drivers of climate change, ecological devastation, and death of millions, remains a non-issue. The global “green new deals” guarantee further imperialism and an escalation in wars. These realities have been deliberately and successfully removed from the conversation. They are buried in the 20% circle with the purists.

“The evidence makes it clear. CO₂ needs to be removed from the atmosphere, known as carbon dioxide removal (CDR), using negative emissions technologies (NETs) to meet global warming targets. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is emerging as the best solution to decarbonise emission-intensive industries and sectors and enable negative emissions.” — March 14, 2019, Bioenergy and Carbon Capture and Storage, The Global CCS Institute

 

“[F]or BECCS technology to be truly effective in reducing CO2 emissions, massive tracts of arable land need to be cultivated and these are not always available, or easily utilised.” — The Global CCS Institute

Emotion to Mask Information: The Financialization of Nature

 

The next phase for the implementation of the financialization of nature commenced April 29, 2019 with the IPBES Global Assessment gathering (the IPCC for Biodiversity).

The “first global biodiversity assessment in 14 years”, will be released on May 6, 2019, with the expected “summary for policymakers” section. We can expect a top “scientific endorsement” for a full package of financialization of nature policy tools, including global metrics for valuation, commodification and offset schemes.

The five-day gathering was held last week at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, ending on May 4, 2019.

There were no protests.

Above: John Elkington: Co-founder of Volans, B Team expert (founded by Richard Branson, The B Team is a co-founder of We Mean Business), member of the WWF Council of Ambassadors, and Extinction Rebellion Business signatory (along with Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion)

Together, these deals read like the biggest land grab since Britannia ruled the waves. This is the big deployment of measurement and financial instruments that the corporate sector, finance and ruling classes have developed. Every little bit of sequestration will be used to further satisfy natural capital ambitions under the guise of climate protection.

The public face of this grotesque undertaking are the campaigns “New Deal For Nature” and “Voice For The Planet”. These are being led by WWF – co-founder of GCCA. The NGOs comprising the GCCA have played the lead role in orchestrating the global mobilizations for climate change over the past decade, in full servitude to their funders.

The “Voice For the Planet” is especially egregious, as it is presented by the World Economic Forum “Global Shapers” youth group.

The gross exploitation of youth for capital expansion rivals only the gross exploitation of Indigenous peoples. The appropriation and utilization of Indigenous imagery to promote market solutions is long documented.

The world’s most powerful corporations and NGO partners appropriate Indigenous culture imagery for emotive branding as they unleash and uphold market “solutions” which further displace Indigenous peoples. They undermined the 2010 Indigenous led People’s Agreement and then buried it. They speak of Indigenous protection – while they actively promote “green” marketing schemes and “green new deals” that will further displace Indigenous peoples. That will further accelerate the ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples.

Promotional illustrations/video for Green New Deal by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis for support of the New Green Deal

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They exploit the global youth to steal the natural world the beneath their feet.

They exploit the love for nature – to further enslave nature.

As GCCA co-founder WWF aids and abets Indigenous displacement, beatings and deaths, under the guise of conservation, GCCA partners are silent. This is the normalizing of a continued colonization repackaged under the guise of conservation and “green”.

Industrial civilization – is the enemy of the natural world. We defend industrial civilization – or we defend the planet. This is the choice. The question is, which side are we on?

And the answer to that question is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all.

“No One Believed in Capitalist Schemes and Promises Any More” part of the new “Scenes from the Revolution” series. Acrylic on canvas, 30″x30″, Artist: Stephanie McMillan

 

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

 

Further resources:

“Trees don’t grow on money – or why you don’t get to rebel against extinction”, by Tim Hayward

Climate Capitalists, by Winter Oak Press

“This Changes Nothing, The Paris Agreement to Ignore Reality”, by Clive Spash

Video: Selling Extinction, by Prolekult

Between the Devil and the Green New Deal

“New Power” – “The ability to harness the connected crowd to get what you want” – Jeremy Heimans, co-founder Purpose/Avaaz, B Team Expert

WATCH: Selling Extinction

Prolekult Films

Published April 26, 2019

“Selling Extinction is a short introduction to the capitalist notion of a “Green New Deal”, the NGOs that support it and the recent Extinction Rebellion protests in London.” [Running time: 23:43]

 

[Prolekult is a Marxist film, writing and culture platform based in Birmingham, England. The project is presently run by James Bell (writing and narration) and Alex Bushell (editing and filming). The purpose of the project is to provide high-quality film content looking at world politics, culture and economics from a Marxist perspective. You can support them on Patreon and follow them on Twitter.]

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – A Decade of Social Manipulation for the Corporate Capture of Nature [ACT VI – Crescendo]

February 24, 2019

By Cory Morningstar

 

This is ACT VI of the six-part series: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

 

The final act of this series is dedicated to Greta Thunberg and the youth she has inspired across our fragile planet. The upper echelons of power have every intention to capture and channel this energy – and use it to maintain the current power structures. They are already in the process.

We have reached the Brave New Moment where there is no longer a distinction between our “movements” and the corporate forces that have been created to further our oppression and servitude – all in compliance to economic growth and capitalism for the world’s ruling class. All of this to be achieved on the backs of the most vulnerable – our youth. Hegemonic forces are salivating over the global waves of youth mobilization demanding action on climate change.

The paradox is this – the youth are their vehicle. Their resistance sequestered and redirected directly back into the very system that will destroy the same future they march to save. When children from even the wealthiest of families (monetary wealth being the epitome of “success” in the West) are part and parcel of an epidemic of depression in our society – we need to question why we would do anything that would prop-up a failing system that benefits so few – at the expense of so much.

Let this knowledge serve as a weapon for resistance.

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The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent series has been written in two volumes.

[Volume I: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI] [Addenda: I]

[Volume II: An Object Lesson In Spectacle • ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V] [ACTS VI & VII forthcoming]

Volume I:

In ACT I, I disclosed that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and face of the youth movement to combat climate change, served as special youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, “We Don’t Have Time”. I then explored the ambitions behind the tech company We Don’t Have Time.

In ACT II, I illustrated how today’s youth are the sacrificial lambs for the ruling elite. Also in this act I introduced the board members and advisors to “We Don’t Have Time.” I explored the leadership in the nascent We Don’t Have Time and the partnerships between the well established corporate environmental entities: Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, 350.org, Avaaz, Global Utmaning (Global Challenge), the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In ACT III, I deconstructed how Al Gore and the Planet’s most powerful capitalists are behind today’s manufactured youth movements and why. I explored the We Don’t Have Time/Thunberg connections to Our Revolution, the Sanders Institute, This Is Zero Hour, the Sunrise Movement and the Green New Deal. I also touched upon Thunberg’s famous family. In particular, Thunberg’s celebrity mother, Malena Ernman (WWF Environmental Hero of the Year 2017), and her August 2018 book launch. I then explored the generous media attention afforded to Thunberg in both May and April of 2018 by SvD, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers.

In ACT IV, I examined the current campaign, now unfolding, in “leading the public into emergency mode”. More importantly, I summarized who and what this mode is to serve.

In ACT V, I took a closer look at the Green New Deal. I explored Data for Progress and the targeting of female youth as a key “femographic”. I connected the primary architect and authors of the “Green New Deal” data to the World Resources Institute. From there, I walked you through the interlocking Business & Sustainable Development Commission, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, and the New Climate Economy – a project of the World Resources Institute. I disclosed the common thread between these groups and the assignment of money to nature, represented by the Natural Capital Coalition and the non-profit industrial complex as an entity. Finally, I revealed how this has culminated in the implementation of payments for ecosystem services (the financialization and privatization of nature, global in scale) which is “expected to be adopted during the fifteenth meeting in Beijing in 2020.”

In the final act, ACT VI [Crescendo], I wrap up the series by divulging that the very foundations which have financed the climate “movement” over the past decade are the same foundations now partnered with the Climate Finance Partnership looking to unlock 100 trillion dollars from pension funds. I reveal the identities of individuals and groups at the helm of this interlocking matrix, controlling both the medium and the message. I take a step back in time to briefly demonstrate the ten years of strategic social engineering that have brought us to this very precipice. I look at the relationship between WWF, Stockholm Institute and World Resources Institute as key instruments in the creation of the financialization of nature. I also take a look at what the first public campaigns for the financialization of nature (“natural capital”) that are slowly being brought into the public realm by WWF. I reflect upon how mainstream NGOs are attempting to safeguard their influence and further manipulate the populace by going underground through Extinction Rebellion groups being organized in the US and across the world.

With the smoke now cleared, the weak and essentially non-existent demands reminiscent of the 2009 TckTckTck “demands” can now be fully understood.

Some of these topics, in addition to others, will be released and discussed in further detail as addenda built on the large volume of research. This includes stepping through the looking glass, with an exploration of what the real “Green New Deal” under the Fourth Industrial Revolution will look like. Also forthcoming is a look at the power of celebrity – and how it has become a key tool for both capital and conformity.

 

 

 

A C T   V I

 

 

March 10, 2014:

“… the divestment campaign will result (succeed) in a colossal injection of money shifting over to the very portfolios heavily invested in, thus dependent upon, the intense commodification and privatization of Earth’s last remaining forests, (via REDD, environmental “markets”  and the like). This tour de force will be executed with cunning precision under the guise of environmental stewardship and “internalizing negative externalities through appropriate pricing.” Thus, ironically (if in appearances only), the greatest surge in the ultimate corporate capture of Earth’s final remaining resources is being led, and will be accomplished, by the very environmentalists and environmental groups that claim to oppose such corporate domination and capture.” — McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part II of an Investigative Report, The “Climate Wealth” Opportunists]

 

The Chaperone

chap·er·one Dictionary result for chaperone: 1. a person who accompanies and looks after another person or group of people. Synonyms: companion, duenna, protectress, escort, governess, nursemaid, carer, keeper, protector, bodyguard, minder.

For the final segment of this series, let’s circle back to where we began. With Greta Thunberg.

During the January 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Thunberg’s celebrity was fully utilized to give those in the public realm an  illusion of a newfound “compassionate capitalism”. This was especially true for the WEF Ocean Day Programme in which Thunberg was featured on the panel “What Will a Changing Ocean Mean to Us, Our Jobs and Markets?” While those on the panel (including Angel Gurría, Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) spoke of the ocean as a market at risk (“if we don’t save the oceans that is a 24 trillion dollar loss”), Thunberg’s innocence created a veneer of legitimacy over the grotesque objectification of nature. Meanwhile, Al Gore, sat on the “Taking Action for The Ocean” panel (“the ‘ocean economy’ is estimated to account for 3%-5% of global GDP, with assets worth $24 trillion. How can the world tap into the ocean economy while protecting it from environmental collapse?”) discussing the global climate strikes (as a pivotal sign of change – approx. 30m:10s in) and the necessity to assign monetary value to nature. Of course, the key pivotal moment for the exploitation of Thunberg (and the very purpose of her global construct) came at the moment she spoke her much-publicized words “Our house is on fire. I’m here to say, our house is on fire.” These words  echoed the outlined text in the strategy paper entitled, “Leading the Public Into Emergency Mode” almost verbatim. The strategy, authored by the Climate Mobilization Project, outlines a “wartime-style mobilization, akin to the American home front effort during World War II”. [ACT IV]

The Climate Mobilization Project: “Al Gore calls for WWII-scale climate mobilization” [0m:53s]

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Above: World Economic Forum panel: “What will a changing Ocean mean to us, our jobs and markets?”  From left to right: Haley Edwards, moderator, correspondent, TIME Magazine, Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation, Katherine Garrett-Cox, Gulf International Bank, and Greta Thunberg

Above: January 25, 2019, Twitter

The above photograph of Thunberg on her way home from Davos, was shared on social media on January 25, 2019.  The woman accompanying Thunberg in the photo, as well as the person who shared the photograph, is not Thunberg’s mother nor her grandmother. Rather, she is Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International. And this is where all the pieces of our elaborate puzzle finally fit into place.

Above: January 25, 2019, twitter

Above: January 22, 2019, Twitter, tagged users: Al Gore, World Economic Forum, Sharan Burrow,  Greenpeace International

During the gathering, while Thunberg’s presence was being exploited in multiple ways, one being an attempt to add both legitimacy and diplomacy to the Oceans conference, Morgan was present at far more intimate discussions – those that focused on the “New Deal for Nature”.

Above: World Economic Forum YouTube Channel: “Davos 2019 – A New Deal for Nature”, published February 9, 2019

Above: January 24, 2019, Twitter, New Deal For Nature, Global Shapers, World Economic Forum, Davos

Above: “22-25 January 2019. We’re rallying world leaders to act for the planet, our one home. Add your voice to demand for a sustainable future for all. – WWF AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM – ADD YOUR VOICE” [Source]

One not familiar with the inner workings and functions of the non-profit industrial complex might wonder why the executive director of Greenpeace International be invited to attend a discussion regarding the implementation of “payments for ecosystem services” (PES), global in scale. That is, monetary value being assigned to all nature, under the guise of environmental protection. That is, the financialization and privatization of all nature – on the entire Earth.

And here we must pay attention.

Morgan is the former global climate change director of Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G). Prior to E3G she led the Global Climate Change Program for the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). Morgan has worked for the US Climate Action Network (USCAN), the European Business Council for a Sustainable Energy Future and for the Federal Ministry of Environment. She served as senior advisor to the German Chancellor’s chief advisor, advised former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and currently serves on Germany’s Council for Sustainable Development.

Above: 1998: “Jennifer Morgan, Climate Policy Officer, WWF, seated with Andrew Kerr, WWF, who presented the WWF report on Climate Change and Human Health” UNFCCC COP-4, THE FOURTH MEETING OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES TO THE UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, 2 – 13  November, 1998 [Source]

But more importantly than all the above job titles, is Morgan’s role in relationship to the upper echelons of power: her prior position as the global director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute. [Bio][Source]

The 2019 World Economic Forum (which features Morgan’s publications and blog posts on its website) was not the first instance of Morgan’s involvement in the coming “New Deal For Nature”. During the closing remarks of the Global Landscapes Forum on December 9, 2018, at COP24, Morgan stressed that in addition to shifting global focus from the oil and transportation sectors to land and forests, additional cooperation was required to reach consensus on the New Deal for Nature:

“We also need much improved cooperation for a new deal for nature to be agreed on at the next CBD cop in 2020 setting decisive biodiversity guidelines for climate action.” — Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International – Closing remarks, Global Landscapes Forum, COP24, Dec 9, 2018

The truth is that Morgan’s career as a darling and confidante of the elite establishment has been long established. Her perseverance and sound navigation within the interlocking directorate of the non-profit industrial complex has brought her to this very moment.

Above: May 14, 2013, Jennifer Morgan, Rainer Baake, Lutz Weischer, Carol Browner, World Resources Institute, Flickr

Above: January 25, 2019, World Economic Forum, Davos, Greta Thunberg

Above: Former Vice President of the USA, Al Gore (The Climate Reality Project and Generation Investment) and Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan. ClimateHub, COP24, Katowice, Poland [Source]

Above: Al Gore, New Deal for Nature via the UN Sustainable Development Goals, WEF, Davos, 2019

Above: November 28, 2018, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Facebook [Source]

Above: January 23, 2019, Green New Deal

Above: November 3, 2015, Jennifer Morgan (@ClimateMorgan), World Resources Institute, The Climate Group, The Climate Reality Project

Here it is critical to recognize that the World Resources Institute is a founding partner of Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), and that the New Climate Economy – a project of Global Commission on the Economy and Climate launched in 2013 – is also founded by the World Resources Institute.

What the New Climate Economy is expressing when it states that, “the shift to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy is only one – potentially small – part of a much broader economic transition that is under way” is this: the transformation of global finance via the economic valuation and payment for environmental services.

“The failure to price our natural capital, on which our wealth and well-being depends, is a serious failure in the global capital market. Worth many trillions of dollars in financial assets, the global capital market shapes the world we live in, and which our children will inherit.” — Kitty van der Heijden, Director, World Resources Institute Europe and Africa, Finance for One Planet, 2016

Birds of a Feather: World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund  & Stockholm Environment Institute

“Unfortunately, many environmental non-governmental organisations have bought into this illogical reasoning and justify their support as being pragmatic. Neoliberal language is rife across their reports and policy recommendations and their adoption of natural capital, ecosystems services, offsetting and market trading. These new environmental pragmatists believe, without justification, that the financialisation of Nature will help prevent its destruction.” — from the paper This Changes Nothing: The Paris Agreement to Ignore Reality authored by Clive L. Spash, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

 

Above: November 14, 2017, “Stronger Together for Climate Action”: L-R: Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever, Pascal Canfin, CEO, WWF France, Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, Ramiro Fernández, Avina, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Global Leader, WWF Climate and Energy Practice, and Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr., Governor of California. Photo: IISD/ENB, Herman Njoroge Chege [Source]

Old generation decision makers are leaving a terrible legacy to the upcoming generation.

And they don’t like it!

The marches in Brussels are just the beginning.

We need stronger action on #climatechange and a #NewDealforNature

pic.twitter.com/K7MJOwPzzf

— Marco Lambertini (@WWF_DG) February 15, 2019

“We need the CBD [Climate Change and Biodiversity] to attain the highest political relevance and develop a far higher shared vision if we are to reach a New Deal for Nature and create a Paris-style moment for biodiversity in 2020.” — November 15, 2018, media release,  WWF Rallies Behind the Call for a New Deal for Nature and People [Emphasis added]

As discussed in ACT V of this series, the board of directors overseeing the World Resources Institute represent the very upper tiers of the ruling class.

Also disclosed was that Helen Mountford is the program director for the New Climate Economy project and director of economics at World Resources Institute. Prior to this appointment, Mountford served as deputy director of environment for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Beyond its formal research partnerships, the New Climate Economy is aligned with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, International Energy Agency, regional development banks, UN agencies and the OECD.

World Resources Institute is a key co-founder in the social engineering apparatus, GCCA (TckTckTck), which officially launched in 2008. Long before the elite forces declaration of a climate emergency that we witness unfolding today, scientists and academia had already recognized that the industrial scale of our collective objectification and destruction of nature had proceeded to such scale, it threatened the collapse of industrial civilization (exploiting and enslaving most – for the benefit of few). Of course, long before this, the Indigenous could see the writing on the wall as the European pursued his conquering of nature in blind earnest.

Markets have finally conquered the Western world. Our society is now maxed out on debt and economic growth has not only stagnated, it is on a downward spiral. Today, we find ourselves in a culture so disconnected from reality that it considers economic growth far more valuable than the planetary ecosystems that sustain all life.

As this series has and will further demonstrate in this closing segment, the GCCA coalition was designed, financed and orchestrated by the same entities now set to unlock 100 trillion USD and simultaneously implement the privatization/financialization of nature via the New Deal For Nature (payments for ecosystem services) to be agreed upon by 2020. As demonstrated in ACT IV – the urgency we bear witness to today, is due to a fear far greater than the collapse of the planetary biosphere, that is – the collapse of the capitalist economic system.

[Background reading on both the World Resources Institute and the New Climate Economy: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The New Green Deal is the Trojan Horse for the Financialization of Nature, February 13, 2019]

World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund, and the New Climate Economy are at the helm of the financialization of nature. Also at the helm is the Natural Capital Coalition (collaborating with both World Resources Institute and World Wildlife Fund), which represents over 300 of the world’s most powerful and egregious corporations while engaging “many thousands more“.

The New Climate Economy research partner, the Stockholm Environment Institute has a well-oiled revolving door between itself and the World Wildlife Fund. The institute has generous funding to the tune of 260 million SEK in 2017 (approx. 28 million USD) including almost ten million SEK from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a side note, we can add that the Stockholm Environment Institute gave a presentation at a climate function on May 4, 2018 (“Welcome to the Power of Capital“) with both Ingmar Rentzhog, CEO of We Don’t Have Time and Malena Ernman (WWF Environmental Hero Award, 2017, and Thunberg’s mother.]

On November 21, 2017, it was announced that Pavan Sukhdev was appointed as president of WWF International: “Pavan Sukhdev, former director of the UN Environment Initiative for a Green Economy, has been appointed President of WWF International.” Sukhdev, former managing director of the Markets Division of Deutsche Bank, would launch the findings of the TEEB study in 2010, the acronym standing for ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity,’ an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Natural Capital Coalition was formerly the TEEB for Business Coalition.

“Stockholm is home to two institutions, the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Stockholm Environment Institute, which have done a great deal of research to better understand and apply the concepts of Natural Capital to the way we manage ecosystems and the economy.  Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and a group of 28 academics proposed a new Earth system framework in 2011 for government and management agencies to use as a tool to support sustainable development.” — Stockholm: Natural Capital of the World, September 23, 2019

On February 13, 2019, The Guardian published the article, School Climate Strike Children’s Brave Stand Has Our Support – “We are inspired that our children, spurred on by the noble actions of Greta Thunberg and other striking students, are making their voices heard, say 224 academics”. Those endorsing the letter included Annemarieke de Bruin, researcher, Stockholm Environment Institute, Dr Alison Dyke, Stockholm Environment Institute, Dr Jean McKendree, Stockholm Environment Institute and Corrado Topi, ecological economist, Stockholm Environment Institute.

 

A Decade of Strategic and Methodical Social Engineering

“Citizen protests and legal actions against companies, governments and individuals will undoubtedly become an increasing leverage opportunity in support of this emergency approach and have already begun.” — Club Of Rome The Climate Emergency Plan, launched with We Don’t Have Time and Global Utmaning, December, 2018

Above: TckTckTck Flickr: “The Press Conference of the ‘Beds are Burning’ Launch in Paris was well attended as Kofi Annan, David Jones, Mélanie Laurent, Manu Katché and many other supporters of the campaign made their appearance.”

“The objective was to make it become a movement that consumers, advertisers and the media would use and exploit.” — TckTckTck Havas Pager

GCCA (TckTckTck) was founded by a small group of NGOs, including World Resources Institute (WRI), 350.org, Greenpeace, Avaaz and World Wildlife Fund. It is partnered with over 470 members, including: ClimateWorks (founded in 2008 by the Hewlett, Packard and McKnight foundations), which is discussed further on in this segment. Climate Week NYC 2014 (September 22-26), an annual initiative of the Climate Group, was marketed in conjunction with the People’s Climate March that took place on September 21, 2014. Climate Week NYC was founded in 2009 as a partnership between The Climate Group, the United Nations, the UN Foundation, GCCA/TckTckTck, the Carbon Disclosure Project, the Government of Denmark and the City of New York.

The march was organized by GCCA/TckTckTck, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Climate Nexus (a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors), 350.org (incubated by the Rockefeller Foundation), the Rasmussen Foundation and USCAN.

The Climate Group business campaigns “are brought to you as part of the We Mean Business coalition.” [Source]

Video: We Mean Business Momentum – Catalyst for the 2014 “People’s Climate March” [Running time: 1m:39s]:

 

“The Strategic Plan 2018-2022 lays out WRI’s approach and priorities for the next five years. WRI’s approach is to help catalyze and advance non-incremental shifts in policy and behavior, unusual political, social and corporate partnerships, to be understood in the context of “movements” rather than policy shifts.” — Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Concept Note, Support to World Resources Institute, Implementation of the Strategic Plan 2018-2022

Through the GCCA/TckTckTck coalition a decade of social engineering went unnoticed. The September 21, 2014 People’s Climate March and the global marches that would follow, such as Rise Up mobilizations, “Work Parties”, Power Shift gatherings, etc. etc. had multiple purposes with multiple desired effects which were incredibly successful for those at the helm. To “Change Everything We Need Everyone” was a signal. A behavioural engineering cue that would coalesce a camaraderie between the citizenry and corporate power to become “stronger as one”. All focus would be kept far away from the key drivers of climate change (militarism, the capitalist economic system dependent on infinite growth and exploitation, industrial agriculture/*livestock, etc.) which could be made to be, like the Indigenous led 2010 People’s Agreement of Cochabamba, invisible. Instead, this energy would be  directed to the discourse of “clean energies” as the singular most important solution for our multiple ecological crises. The belief in two objects was sufficient for an entire populace to be reassured that there would be zero sacrifice. The Western lifestyle could continue unabated. The solar panel and wind turbine directive took centre stage. The crowd roared in applause. The singular focus of “renewable energy” became an eco-fetish of the Western populace, the targeted demographic. [*sentient beings, formerly recognized as animals.]

The ten-year social engineering effort also led to a transition from environmentalism into full-blown yet undetected anthropocentrism. Over a ten year span, “environmentalism” moved from that of protecting nature, to demanding a roll-out of green technology, industrial in scale, that would further plunder nature. The natural world became irrelevant as the desire for green technology superceded environmental protection. Wind turbines and solar panels replaced images of trees and insects as the new symbols of our natural world. Saving the industrial civilization that is killing off all life became paramount to saving the ecosystems that all life depends on. These ideologies slowly took hold until “movements” become nothing more than lobby groups for green energy. Volunteers marching for capital, global in scale. To suggest that Edward Bernays would be impressed would be an understatement. Such is the beauty of social engineering and behavioural change.

Yet, to fully understand how we arrived at today’s dismal precipice, we must first revisit the past.

In 2009, over a span of five months GCCA/TckTckTck and affiliated partners registered 15.5 million names worldwide on its online petition for a ” fair, ambitious and binding climate change agreement.” Many marketing firms outside of Havas helped achieve this, including the corporate communications and public affairs agency Hoggan & Associates of which DeSmogBlog co-founder Jim Hoggan is president and founder. Hoggan’s client list includes corporate creation TckTckTck, Canadian Pacific Railway, Shell and ALCOA. DeSmogBlog may “expose” Shell on occasion, yet Hoggan & Associates has no problem raking in Shell cash to, in their own words, “…help clients identify the optimum frame and establish it in the public mind. [Source]

“THE MOST PRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM WE FACE TODAY IS NOT CLIMATE CHANGE. It is pollution in the public square, where a smog of adversarial rhetoric, propaganda and polarization stifles discussion and debate, creating resistance to change and thwarting our ability to solve our collective problems.” — Jim Hoggan, co-founder of DeSmogBlog [Source: Hoggan & Associates]

[Further reading: EYES WIDE SHUT | TckTckTck exposé, January 6, 2010]

 

 

In 2014, Kelly Rigg, executive director of TckTckTck from 2009–2014, was credited as the key organizer for the 2014 People’s Climate March:

“Large groups, like 350.org, Avaaz or the Sierra Club, and the numerous grassroots organizations (1,300 by some estimates) don’t just start magically working together to rent buses, secure police permits and make signs specific to their interests. There has to be a vision into which they all buy, a big enough umbrella under which everyone can stand. Building that umbrella—particularly for the international organizations—was Rigg’s work, work that includes important leadership lessons relevant to anyone trying to mobilize large groups with diverse interests and agendas. Her work can be seen as a road map for how to herd cats.“ Forbes, Sept 25, 2014: Leadership Lessons from The People’s Climate March [Emphasis added.]

Prior to her role at GCCA/TckTckTck, Rigg served as deputy campaigns director for Greenpeace International from 1998-2003, and as its project coordinator from 1982-1993. [Source] In addition, Rigg is founding director of the international consultancy, Varda Group co-founded in 2003 with Rémi Parmentier. GCCA/TckTckTck is identified as a Varda client, as is Greenpeace, Ceres (350.org divestment partner), Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, WWF, Nature Conservancy, WCBSD, UNEP, etc. [Client List]

Having started his career at Friends of the Earth France, Parmentier also holds an extensive history with Greenpeace spanning 27 years, as well as extensive relations with multilateral bodies:

“Rémi Parmentier has been involved in the process of Rio +20 from the start. He participated in the intersession meetings and the Preparatory Committee in New York with “informal consultations” on behalf of various international organizations and alliances. Previously, as the Political Director of Greenpeace International, in the Summit of Johannesburg in 2002, Parmentier was the negotiator and protagonist of the agreement between the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Greenpeace International on the Kyoto Protocol.” [Source] [Emphasis added]

Parmentier also served as deputy executive secretary for the Global Ocean Commission (2013-2016) which was launched in February 2013. Inés de Águeda who serves as the communications officer for the Global Ocean Commission, is also an associate at the Varda Group.

Commissioners of the Global Ocean Commission include/have included José María Figueres (co-chair), President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, brother of Christina Figueres, former president of the Carbon War Room, David Miliband, John Podesta (chair of the Center for American Progress and a former White House chief of staff ), Sri Mulyani Indrawati (managing director at the World Bank), Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organization and other high profile individuals.

Here we can add that José María Figueres served as a director of the World Wildlife Fund, the World Resources Institute, and the Stockholm Environment Institute. He was also the first CEO of the World Economic Forum and later served as  CEO of Concordia 21. [Source]

[Further reading: Under One Bad Sky | TckTckTck’s 2014 People’s Climate March: This Changed Nothing, September 23, 2015]

And the following information would too come as no surprise, if only the populace could see through the fog of faux environmentalism.

Alnoor Ladha is a founding partner and the head of strategy at Purpose. With its expertise in behavioural change, Purpose is most renowned for its White Helmets campaign – a 21^st century hybrid-NGO serving NATO states. Ladha is a founding member and the executive director of the Purpose project, The Rules. Ladha serves on the board of Greenpeace USA where its executive director, Annie Leonard, has co-founded Earth Economics. Yet another institution created to aid, abet, and, most importantly, profit off the financialization of nature scheme, now well underway as demonstrated in this series. Leonard’s Earth Economics [4] is a member of divestment partner CERES, which is in turn a partner of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Purpose (PR arm of Avaaz) manages The B Team (co-founder of We Mean Business) the official address of which, is the office of Purpose.

The link between most, if not all of these NGOs, institutions and high-level individuals, is the shared desire for carbon markets and/or the implementation of payments for ecosystem services (PES).

“Since the 1970s, several waves of privatization have swept the world. In 2017, the Privatization Barometer concluded that “the massive global privatization wave that began in 2012 continues unabated”. According to the rights expert, that wave has been driven not only by Governments and the private sector, but also by international organizations, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the United Nations.” — Human rights at risk from tsunami of privatization, Third World Network, November 16, 2018

Above: Kelly Rigg, Founding Director, Varda Group, US: The Economics of Sustainable Development, 16-19 June, 2012 | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Photo: International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) website

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“The second issue is the issue of reductions of emissions. There must be radical reductions of emissions starting from now. In our view, by 2017 we should cut, developed countries must cut by 52%, 65% by 2020, 80% by 2030, well above 100 [percent] by 2050. And this is very important because the more you defer action the more you condemn millions of people to immeasurable suffering.” — Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77, December 11, 2009, COP15

In 2008, as the global climate change director for E3G,  Jennifer Morgan (executive director, Greenpeace International) played a central role and lead catalyst in the formation and launch of the GCCA – the aforementioned coalition first conceptualized in 2006. [1] With extensive experience in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, Morgan was the ideal choice.

“With an overall budget of USD 6.8 million—over 95 % of which came from foundation funding—the GCCA was undoubtedly the most well-funded global climate campaign of 2009.” Grants for the 2009 GCCA/TckTckTck campaign (created by Havas Worldwide/Euro RSGG in collaboration with Kofi Annan‘s Global Humanitarian Forum) morphed to eleven million USD. [2]

In 2013, the International Policies and Politics Initiative (IPPI) was established by five foundations: the European Climate Foundation (ECF), ClimateWorks Foundation, Oak Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and the Mercator Foundation. The initiative would act “as a platform where foundations and grantees meet to strategize on how international political and policy levers can catalyse more ambitious policies at the domestic level.” The ClimateWorks Foundation was largely operated by the McKinsey & Company, an acting advisor to Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room. [3]

The GCCA would greatly benefit the IPPI:

“The GCCA and the TckTckTck campaign offer a potent example of how foundation funds—and most significantly those of the Oak Foundation—were mobilized for capacity building purposes in the run-up to Copenhagen.” — [Source, p. 73]

Morgan, by this time serving with the World Resources Institute, was the ideal person to coordinate the IPPI platform in the run-up to and during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) held in Paris. Morgan was chosen to lead IPPI due to her vast experience in the international climate realm coupled with her World Resources Institute (WRI) affiliation. In essence, this was a signal to corporate power that its interests would be protected. [“The WRI, given its director’s links with governments and international institutions like the World Bank, was seen as a legitimate partner in the eyes of the funders.”] [Source: The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, 2016, p. 101]

And while IPPI and GCCA controlled the “movement”, the same forces also controlled the message via the Carbon Briefing Service (CBS). The news service was launched by Jennifer Morgan (WRI) and Liz Gallagher (E3G) in late 2014 with additional funding by the ClimateWorks Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Villum Foundation and Avaaz. [Source]

The description on the E3G website describes CBS as “a joint E3G-WRI Platform providing political analysis and intelligence to a wide range of actors in the run up to the Paris 2015 climate change negotiations”. Consider that the communications distributed via the CBC “ownerless” network began with the following  notice: “This briefing is confidential and not for public circulation. You have received it due to your relationships with CBS members and networks.” Invitation only CBS participants included: Iain Keith (Avaaz), Jamie Henn (350), Camilla Born (E3G), Liz Gallagher (E3G), Mohamed Adow (ChristianAid), Monica Araya, Martin Kaiser (Greenpeace Germany), Farhana Yamin (TrackO), Wael Hmaidan (CAN International), Bill Hare (Climate Analytics), Pascal Canfin (WRI), Michael Jacobs (Grantham), Alden Meyer (UCS), Tim Nuthall (ECF), Alix Mazounie (RAC-France). [Source]

“IPPI is focused on using the ‘Paris moment’ to increase the scale and pace of change.” — Jennifer Morgan, World Resources Institute, [Source, p. 5]

By utilizing GCCA, IPPI, CBS and outside “progressive media”, in conjunction with collaborating NGOs and institutions that comprise the non-profit industrial complex, the creation of the “Paris moment” would be achieved.

Havas Worldwide (creator of the TckTckTck campaign) was recognized as a convening partner of the COP21 Earth To Paris campaign with collaborating partners identified as 350.org and Avaaz (GCCA/TckTckTck founders), Ceres, The Climate Reality Project, The Nature Conservancy, We Mean Business, the World Bank (via Connect4Climate) and a host of others. Long before the conference had even concluded, it was announced that during a live-streamed summit on December 7th and 8th, the Earth To Paris partners would deliver “a new universal climate change agreement.”[Source]

United Nations Development Programme Press Release, October 29, 2015:

“Earth To Paris, a coalition of partners helping to drive awareness about the connection between people and planet as well as the need for strong climate action, announced it will host “Earth To Paris—Le Hub” a two-day, high-impact, live-streamed summit on 7 and 8 December in Paris during COP21 — the United Nations climate conference to deliver a new universal climate change agreement.”

The fact that a “new universal climate change agreement” was announced on October 29, 2015, a month prior to the conference actually taking place, was lost on the populace. [From TckTckTck, to Air France, to “Earth To Paris”, Havas Worldwide Continues to Hypnotize]

“As the establishment rave in Paris winds down, the chimera of clean energy propels industrial societies toward nuking the future. The new age ghost dance, as an expression of social despair, has led to progressive self-delusion that promises us the world, if only we believe. Stepping through the looking glass, one can examine the metrics of messaging by establishment social media and philanthropy, that, combined, is the driving force of the non-profit industrial complex. — Jay Taber, Rave New World

IPPI, as coordinated by Morgan, was created as a “discrete ECF programme” which would “work behind the scenes.” “While the ECF had given rise to the original idea and while it housed its dedicated staff, IPPI was very much presented as an autonomous and “unbranded” initiative (“unbranded” as in not linked to any particular organization”). [Source, p. 101]

Video: Beyond Davos, 2015 – Mobilizing consumers and ownerless movements as explained by Avaaz/Purpose co-founder Jeremy Heimans. Introduction by Paul Hilder (Avaaz, Here Now/Purpose). [Running time: 3m:39s]:

 

“Although civil society groups are assumed to be normatively motivated […] they are nonetheless embedded in a global capitalist economy and have quite specific material requirements that must be fulfilled in order to operate successfully.” — Lipschutz and McKendry, Social Movements and Global Civil Society, August, 2011

Lipschutz and McKendry (quoted above) further elaborate: “to be successful, an organization must survive and, in a marketbased environment, this means finding ways to generate the funds necessary to sustain operations”. [5] Yet, it is more than this. Those at the helm, as this series has demonstrated, share the same ideologies and Western mindsets as the capitalists and corporations whose interests they serve.

The IPPI brought together the influential players: Greenpeace, WWF, 350.org, Avaaz, CAN International, Oxfam, E3G, The Climate Group and the World Resources Institute. The formation of GCCA was one commonality between many of these NGOs and think tanks coupled with extensive involvement in the international climate arena coupled with strong affiliations with negotiators and the UNFCCC secretariat. [Source: The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, 2016 [p. 101 and p. 118]

“The role of Avaaz is particularly revealing in this respect. In other words, it was not a case of promoting one approach among many but of making sure that the IPPI approach was the only approach while maintaining a false sense of pluralism both inside and on the margins of the climate negotiations. Core contributors to the IPPI strategy went to extraordinary lengths to prevent fellow non-state actors from “getting in the way” of a positive diplomatic outcome in Paris.” — The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, 2016, Edouard Morena] [p. 133]

The Key Foundations

To be clear, the IPPI is not the only case of foundation involvement and influence in the climate policy realm. However, it is one of the most “successful,” given how influential it has proven to be. Most policies (if not all) are driven by corporations via the largest and most influential foundations and think tanks created and financed by profits from these very same corporate entities.

The field of climate philanthropy regroups a fairly small number of large players.  A 2010 study for the Foundation Center, showed that in 2008, 25 foundations accounted for over 90% of all climate change funding. More recent data from the same source discloses that six foundations—Oak, Packard, Hewlett, Sea Change, Energy, Rockefeller—accounted for approximately 70% of climate change policy funding in 2012. [Source, p 10]

In 1989, Environmental Defence Fund, WWF and Greenpeace, with foundation backing, launched the Climate Action Network (CAN) which Jennifer Morgan also presided over in her career at USCAN. One foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which financed regional offshoots of CAN, would comment in it’s 1993 annual review, that these “global preachers” “played a central role beginning in the early days of the climate change debate”. [Source, p. 32]

It is here that we must jump forward to the present day.

In the article “Philanthropy Teams Up With Institutional Investors to Fight Climate Change,” published on September 7, 2017, the need for a new approach that will unlock capital for new climate infrastructure at scale is highlighted:

“[B]ecause climate change represents such an extraordinary threat, it’s imperative we compress the dynamics of innovation and scale through new approaches. That’s why Planet Heritage Foundation… a global investment advisory firm that works with institutional investors to channel capital into “climate infrastructure” sectors such as clean energy, water, and waste-to-value. These investors — sovereign funds, pensions, endowments, insurance companies, family offices, and foundations — represent more than $80 trillion in assets and are the only stakeholders other than governments with the capacity to invest at a scale… After only a year, the Aligned Intermediary model is already demonstrating promise in this regard…

 

“In partnership with Sarah Kearney (PRIME) and Alicia Seiger (Stanford University), we initially attracted grant funding totaling $500,000 from four philanthropies — the Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the ClimateWorks Foundation, and Planet Heritage Foundation — for research that demonstrated the potential of our model.” [Emphasis added]

One year later, at the One Planet Summit in NY on September 26, 2018, the Climate Finance Partnership, coordinated by the Task Force on Philanthropic Innovation and Aligned Intermediary, announced the new instruments for unlocking capital at scale:

“Efforts to blend capital in order to engage and mobilize large-scale institutional capital toward climate solutions took a notable step forward on September 26 at the One Planet Summit in New York, when French President Emmanuel Macron and BlackRock’s Larry Fink announced the Climate Finance Partnership (CFP). The CFP consists of a unique combination of philanthropies, governments, institutional investors, and a leading global asset manager. The parties, including BlackRock, the Governments of France and Germany, and the Hewlett, Grantham, and IKEA foundations, have committed to work together to finalize the design and structure of what we anticipate will be a flagship blended capital investment vehicle by the end of the first quarter, 2019.

 

The partnership, coordinated by the Task Force on Philanthropic Innovation and the Aligned Intermediary, an investment advisory group, was designed and structured specifically to use a layer of government and philanthropic capital to maximize private capital mobilization toward climate-related sectors in emerging markets.” [Emphasis added]

The Blended Finance Taskforce (ACT IV of this series) is comprised of fifty icons of finance including the MacArthur Foundation (World Resources Institute), the Rockefeller Foundation and the ClimateWorks Foundation. [Full list]

The same article sheds light on the “violent agreement” to unlock $100 trillion USD:

“A detailed analysis by the World Bank found that while $100 trillion is held by pension funds and other institutional investors, these same investors allocated less than $2 trillion over a 25 year period into infrastructure investment in emerging markets. And the fraction of that investment that could be considered green, clean, or climate-friendly was negligible.

 

So, what can be done? Whether you choose to look through the lens of unprecedented challenge or unprecedented opportunity, there is violent agreement that institutional capital needs to be “unlocked” (a favorite word on the climate conference circuit) and mobilized quickly and at scale.” [Emphasis added]

The foundations involved in climate policy from inception, that continue to work hand-in-hand with select NGOs and NGO leaders, are the same foundations to benefit from the Climate Finance Partnership. The roadmap to unlocking 100 trillion dollars is identified in pension funds. The roadmap to the privatization and financialization of nature, global in scale, is the interlocking directorate of the non-profit industrial complex, a matrix of overlapping highways of hegemony.

On December 12, 2017, at the One Planet Summit, Frank Bainimaramai, COP23 President and Prime Minister of Fiji, stated:

“…after all when we talk about tapping into the vast amounts of institutional capital for climate solutions we are largely talking about the retirement savings of ordinary hard-working citizens and we need to honor the expectation of being good stewards with the money…”

To be clear: The money for multi-billion-dollar corporations – to create privatized services and industries, under the guise of environmental protection, is going to be PAID FOR BY THE PUBLIC – BUT THE PUBLIC WILL NOT OWN THEM. (For this would be communism – a detestable idea in the Western world.) For the corporate sector, it’s no risk – all profit. Anything that fails – the public is on the hook.

John D. Rockefeller once stated that, “the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.” Truer words were perhaps never spoken.

The skill and precision in achieving the protection and expansion of the capitalist economic system is today nothing less than extraordinary. By utilizing the non-profit industrial complex, the world’s most powerful oligarchs need not force their will onto society. Rather, akin to what Aldous Huxley prophesized in his fictional novel Brave New World, we have been manipulated and engineered to demand the very “solutions” that will further empower those that destroy us.

“The climate Glitterati, such as, M. Bloomberg, L. DiCaprio, N. Stern, C. Figueres, A. Gore, M. Carney. All of these people have huge carbon footprints, and they fly around the world in private jets to inform us what to do about climate change. They are supported by a whole cadre of senior academics promoting offsetting, negative emissions, geo-engineering, CCS, green growth, etc. These are all ‘an evolution within the system.” — Kevin Anderson, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research [Source]

 

 

 

Underway: The Monetization of Social Capital

André Hoffmann is a Swiss industrialist belonging to one of the wealthiest dynasties in Europe. He served as vice-president of WWF from 2007-2017 and as WWF honorary chair from 1998-2017. He is president of the MAVA Foundation (a key funder of the Natural Capital Coalition) and vice- chairman of the board for Roche, the pharmaceutical and chemical giant founded by his family. [Bio]

Roche is the world’s largest biotech company. It is headquartered in Switzerland and has operations in over 100 countries. As one of the early adopters of the Natural Capital Protocol, the pilot summary report made mention that “an important point raised by the study was the fact that Roche generates considerable unaccounted for positive social value from use of their products and other socially responsible activities, which likely far outweigh any negative environmental impacts.” [Source] [Emphasis added]

The above disclosure opens up yet another layer of depravity. If we can assign monetary values to nature – we can assign monetary values to culture as well. Enter the assigning of monetary value to “social capital” in the language of “social capital markets”. [Social Capital Markets website: “dedicated to catalyzing world change through market-based solutions.”]

NextBillion was launched in May 2005 by the World Resources Institute. The “development through enterprise” project  shares an interest in the development of social capital. In 2010, the William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan joined the World Resources Institute as partners in ownership of NextBillion. As of December 4, 2012, NextBillion is managed exclusively by WDI, which is focused on providing private-sector solutions in emerging markets.

“Social Capital Markets is Dedicated to Accelerating a New Global Market at the Intersection of Money + Meaning”.  — Social Capital Markets Website

The 2017 Social Capital Protocol states that, “integrating approaches between social and natural capital” are driven by the same purpose and based on the same concepts and principles as the Natural Capital Protocol developed by the Natural Capital Coalition. [p. 6]

Although the social capital concept is still in its infancy [“the measurement and valuation of social capital is a relatively new concept”], its goals are clear: “Over the coming years, the Social Capital Protocol initiative will shape and drive collaborative action to achieve four goals.” The last goal can best be described as what will be the coup de grâce for the last vestiges of human normality: “Enable companies to capitalize on their implementation of the Social Capital Protocol by ensuring the finance community and capital markets recognize and reward social value creation.” [p. 5]

Again, as with the Natural Capital project/coalition, World Resources Institute plays a key role: “These principles align with the current principles of the Natural Capital Protocol, which itself builds on guidance from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the World Resource Institute (WRI)/WBCSD Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB).” [p. 10]

A new financial system that allows a corporation such as Roche, the world’s largest biotech company, to measure and account for positive social value” as a means of offsetting “negative environmental impacts” is a great tool indeed. It is little wonder that Hoffman would have invested in its development.

Hoffmann also serves as senior advisor at Chatham House and numerous other boards, including the World Economic Forum, the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and SYSTEMIQ.

Here it can be noted that Jeremy Oppenheim, the lead and former programme director of the New Climate Economy, is the founder and managing partner of SYSTEMIQ: “While giving full value to the natural ecosystem, these alternatives need to be economically viable and able to replicate at scale… We envisage successful models rapidly becoming a ‘bankable asset class’ for regular investors.” [Source] Oppenheim also serves as chair of the Blended Finance Taskforce. John E. Morton who serves as senior advisor to the Blended Finance Taskforce is a fellow to the European Climate Foundation. Two SYSTEMIQ associates serve as the project leads to the Blended Finance Taskforce. [Source] Suffice to say, all roads lead to the Climate Finance Partnership and the New Climate Economy.

André Hoffmann’s father, Luc Hoffmann served on the first international board of the WWF (co-founders include Goddfrey Rockefeller). In addition to his contributions to the founding of WWF, Luc Hoffmann also founded WWF France and WWF Greece. He served as honorary vice-president to WWF until his death in 2016. [Source]

In addition to the support provided to the WWF, Luc Hoffmann served as director of Wetlands International, was vice-president of the IUCN (World Union of Nature Conservation) and established the International Bank of Arguin Foundation in Mauritania. This is important to recognize, as in 2013, this project received the “first international payment for marine ecosystem services” [Source: The case of the Banc d’Arguin National Park, Mauritania]

+++

October 29, 2018, WWF Press Release, “WWF Report Reveals Staggering Extent of Human Impact on Planet”:

“A global deal for nature, similar to the Paris Climate Agreement, can ensure that effective conservation methods continue, and more ambitious goals are set.”

The report states that “the biggest drivers of current biodiversity loss are overexploitation and agriculture, both linked to continually increasing human consumption.” Yet, nowhere does it mention the ecological impacts of militarism. As a collective, we have become so conditioned to this incredible “oversight”, that we no longer take notice of its omission. The report draws attention to agriculture, but not to industrial livestock with its staggering ecological impacts coupled with its grotesque cruelty. It draws attention to increasing number of mountain gorillas – just prior to Jane Goodall’s promotional support of a fourth industrial revolution in January of 2019, in Davos. A revolution that consequently demands fivefold the minerals and metals we are already using as fast as we can. The very same metals that cause the conflict and resulting death of Congolose men, women and children – and gorillas. Here we can only conclude what those in the Global South have always known: technological “progress” is always intended to serve the West at the expense of what life and what resources remain.

As we peel back the layers, the “New Deal for Nature” is even more egregious than the Green New Deal. Yet, if the NGOs can create enough collective hype around the Green New Deal, in servitude to their funders, the more sinister deal can be brought into legislation without opposition. This bears resemblance to the anti-pipeline NGO campaigns. While Americans were hypnotized by a single pipeline, American business magnate Warren Buffett built a 21^st century rail dynasty to ship oil via rail, and the oil continued to flow – only even faster.

Storytelling

“… and I will say this to our colleagues from Western civil society — you have definitely sided with a small group of industrialists and their representatives and your representative branches. Nothing more than that. You have become an instrument of your governments.” — Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77, December 11, 2009, COP15

Above screenshot: In the 2012 David Blood lecture (video), “Breakthrough Capitalism Forum – David Blood”, one can view the sponsorship in the background. At the top of the screen, we can identify speakers/sponsors Jeremy Leggitt of Solar Century & Carbon Tracker, and Jennifer Morgan of WWF, to name two. [See full list of Breakthrough Capitalism partners.] [Source]

To demonstrate an example of “storytelling” employed to appease the public and feign opposition to those destroying our planet, we can look at the following Greenpeace International press release: January 25, 2019, “Profit, Not People, Clearly Remains Davos Elites’ Priority. As the World Economic Forum in Davos draws to a close, Greenpeace International Executive Director, Jennifer Morgan, stated:

Greenpeace came to Davos looking for moral, business and political leadership, and we did not find it. It is deeply disturbing that, as the world tinkers on the brink of a climate catastrophe, avoiding further temperature rise is not at the very centre of all of the meetings of CEOs and world leaders. The solutions are in front of them and they need to prioritise solving this crisis, join the youth who are leading the way forward and thus be on the right side of history.

 

Yesterday there were 32,000 school strike students on the streets of Belgium and today children are taking to the streets of Berlin clamouring for an early coal phase-out. The youth are demanding to be heard, the question is, why isn’t the Davos elite responding with the scale and pace required? Short-term business interests and making a greater profit, whatever the cost to others, clearly remains the Davos elites priority. We have no time to waste. In the powerful words of Greta Thunberg, we need to ‘get angry, and form that anger into action.'”

An excerpt from the January 16, 2019 press release by Morgan a week prior, as a lead-up to the WEF in Davos, stated:

“Make no mistake we are in a climate emergency and that emergency must dominate next weeks annual World Economic Forum gathering in Davos…. The Fourth Industrial Revolution could totally reimagine the way we approach solutions to the climate crisis. But only if this revolution is in service of solving climate change.” [Source]

This is very much the green light for the climate strikes in which Greenpeace plays the leading role – in the background.

Above: February 7, 2019, UKYCC tweet. Tagged users: Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, Greta Thunberg, People & Planet (The UK’s largest student network), UKSCN, YouthStrike4Climate and Friends of the Earth

Voice for the Planet

 

“Voice for the planet was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019 by the Global Shapers. The aim, to showcase the growing movement of people around the world calling for a new deal for nature and people: urgent global action  to address the current crisis for nature.” [Source: Voice for the Planet website]

The twenty-two organizations supporting the campaign (registered to WWF-UK) include: The Climate Reality Project, World Resources Institute, WWF, Conservation International, the Nature Conservancy and UNDP. [Accessed February 20, 2019] [Full list]

Global Shapers

Voice for the Planet leads us to Global Shapers, a global community of “change-makers” – supported by grant and community partners. Founded in 2011 by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Global Shapers is a defacto training center for young people under the age of 30 that can shape the world as envisioned by WEF, Al Gore, Jack Ma et al. With more than 7,000 members, the Global Shapers community spans 369 city-based hubs in 171 countries.

Here again we have the youth being trained to destroy their own futures as sacrificial lambs to capitalism.

Serving on the Global Shapers board of directors is David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chief executive officer of the  Carlyle Group, and Jack Ma, executive chairman of the Alibaba Group and co-founder of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

Partners include: The Climate Reality Project, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, Procter and Gamble, Reliance Industries, Oando, GMR Group, Hanwha Energy Corporation, Rosamund Zander and Yara International.

“Lastly, thanks to collaboration with the Climate Reality Project, more than 292 Global Shapers were able to join U.S. Vice President Al Gore at the Climate Reality Leadership Corps training. Global Shapers joined the training that took place in Berlin, Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Los Angeles, as well as during regional SHAPE events, to learn how to lead the global fight for climate solutions.” — Global Shapers Annual Report 2017

The Global Shapers is a grotesque display of corporate malfeasance disguised as good. As an example, under the heading “accelerating change,” is the “Coca-Cola Shaping a Better Future Grant Challenge”. In 2017 the award was given to the Bogotá Hub in order to “foster peace and reconciliation in conflict-torn areas of Colombia.” What the youth enraptured by Global Shapers will not be told is that Coca-Cola has a long and sordid history of murdering union leaders in Columbia.

As discussed in the addendum “The Branding of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – By Any Means Necessary” (February 15, 2019), more and more, youth are being recognized and targeted as key drivers of economic growth and influence:

“We are becoming increasingly aware that solutions to our global challenges must purposefully engage youth, at all levels – locally, regionally, nationally and globally. This generation has the passion, dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit to shape the future.” —Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman, World Economic Forum [Emphasis added]

This growing body of research is not lost on the power elite that gather annually at Davos, nor on the World Economic Forum that hosts them. Nature Conservancy, January 4, 2019, Ten Groups to Watch in 2019:

“The Revolution Will Be Snapchatted. Forget your John-Hughes-movie stereotypes. Today’s teens are civically active, globally minded —and they nearly unanimously agree that we need to do more to address climate change. A study of 31,000 youth from 186 countries found that climate change is their number one concern (surpassing terrorism, poverty and unemployment.) Over 90% agree that science has proven that humans are causing climate change, and nearly 60% plan to work in sustainability.” [Emphasis in original]

The survey Nature Conservancy highlights has been conducted by Global Shapers. This has nothing to do with goodwill or the well-being of youth. This is simple metrics in order to identify, understand, and ultimately exploit, the targeted  audience.

In the polling conducted for the 2017 Global Shapers annual survey report, one area of interest is the section concerning “sense of responsibility and responsiveness.” When asked who has the greatest responsibility in making the world a better place and thereby the power to address the most important global and local issues, the first choice is ‘individuals'(34.2%)”. Compare this to 9% of votes feeling the responsibility is with “global and large national companies”. [“The top choice is constant regardless of gender, age, regions, Human Development Index, Corruption Perceptions Index or income level.”]

In essence, we have youth – many from states whose contribution to climate change is almost nil – who have been convinced to believe their own impact is far greater to ecological devastation than corporations, the economic system itself, or even the global war industry.

Another insight garnered from the survey: “Does the feeling of responsibility translate into any concrete actions? Young people were asked whether they would be willing to change their lifestyle to protect nature and the environment, to which 78.1% responded yes“. And this is the primary reason for feigned concern by the world’s most powerful capitalists – how the youth can be exploited as consumers.

Meanwhile, on the “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode” Front

“IF THERE’S NO ACTION before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” — Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Nov. 17, 2007

 

“We still have a chance to turn things around, though. A major body of research led by The Nature Conservancy shows it is still possible to achieve a sustainable future for people and nature—if we take massive action in the next 10 years. – January 4, 2019

Meanwhile, in terms of the authorities in the “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode” front, we have the very same groups that brought us into the fold of the 2009 TckTckTck campaign for COP15 (“a movement that consumers, advertisers and the media would use and exploit”) – that were then able to “herd the cats” for the People’s Climate March orchestrated in 2014 – and are now tasked with mobilizing the populace again for the final crescendo, requiring even larger unprecedented numbers. Hence, we have headlines such as “The Human Survival Summit: The Next Wave Of Climate Change Protests Is Coming – Greenpeace and Amnesty International unite in push for greater civil disobedience.” [January 25, 2019]

The irony here is that both Greenpeace and TckTckTck threw all the world’s most vulnerable citizens under the bus in 2009 during the tenure of Kumi Naidoo who served as executive director of both organizations. Today, a decade later, Naidoo now leads Amnesty International as its secretary-general. In 2011, Amnesty International, by utilizing the behavioural economics of hatred, was instrumental in leading the illegal war on the sovereign nation of Libya – Libya being the most prosperous country in Africa under the leadership of Libyan revolutionary Muammar Gaddafi. Libya quickly became a war torn nation in a permanent state of chaos as hundreds of thousands of citizens perished (and continue to do so to this day). Yet, the elite institutions and oligarchs that finance it, control it and wield it as a weapon in the service of imperialism and patriarchy, would like you to believe that they actually have concern over the climate and human rights:

“Greenpeace International, which has traditionally focused on environmental issues, and Amnesty International, which has concentrated on human rights, are co-launching a Summit for Human Survival later this year to encourage nonviolent protests and other interventions that force greater action on climate change.

 

The idea of the Summit, said Naidoo, is not for it to dictate or try to coordinate centralized actions but rather to unite individuals and organizations so that they can collaborate in pushing for change. He pointed to new forms of protest such as the Extinction Rebellion movement, one of the many youth-driven civil disobedience movements focused on climate change. It began in the U.K. and is now launching chapters across the globe, including in the United States. Naidoo added that big international NGOs aren’t organizing this mobilization and that this sort of decentralization should be encouraged.”

And this too is a lie.

Having initially intended to write extensively in this segment about Extinction Rebellion, the need to do so is no longer paramount. It is simply sufficient to point out the fact that The Climate Mobilization NGO (whose founder is the author of the aforementioned paper “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode,” that collaborates with 350.org, The Leap and many others) has been working with Extinction Rebellion since at least last September [6]. This reveals why the Extinction Rebellion group was catapulted into international super stardom by The Guardian et al while far greater actions by land defenders in the Global South go ignored for eternity.

If that is not sufficient substantiation for some readers, it is fact that 350.org, Avaaz, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have all been in dialogue with the Extinction Rebellion co-founders, whom, with The Climate Mobilization, are very much in favour of such collaboration. [Interview with ER co-founders by The Climate Mobilization founder, December 6, 2018]:

Bradbrook    “…at the start of this campaign in back in early October we did an occupation of Greenpeace’s offices. It was very friendly.  We took cake and flowers and everybody hid the horns from Roger so it couldn’t go around blowing the horns because we wanted to keep it really lovely…

 

We are having conversations with organizations, [] conversation with [] some of the [] bigger online platforms even than 350.org. It’s always an important balance to figure out how you have a relationship with any kind of NGO so that there’s not big compromises being asked for, and watch this space on that front. I think I shouldn’t pre-announce things on here that aren’t being agreed yet with everybody else, but we yeah we are definitely talking to other organizations. More tricky than you think, quite often.”

 

Hallam       “…so this is a very serious sort of proposition that we’re putting to some of the [] NGOs which are, I think a lot of the people in the NGOs know this as well. I mean a lot of people know what’s coming and I think this opens up a really interesting space in progressive culture in the countries we’re in.  For the first time for a generation or two is to basically create a united front as it were people working together on a common agenda and I’ve been personally really surprised by how open some of the people have been at Greenpeace and Avaaz and various other organizations to the notion that, yes, we need to have as mass participation in civil disobedience and that’s going to be the future, we’ve run out of other options.”

The NGO relationships formed with Extinction Rebellion explain the deliberately vague three demands behind the Extinction Rebellion “movement” – a vagueness that goes largely unnoticed – while one particular demand is as clear as the light of day. While imperialism, capitalism and militarism – the main drivers of ecological devastation and climate change are nowhere to be found, there is something that is found buried in the FAQ section:

Question: “WHY HAVEN’T YOU GOT MORE TANGIBLE WINNABLE STEPPING STONE GOALS THAT WOULD BUILD MORAL[SIC] AS YOU WIN?”

Extinction Rebellion: “We have. We say the Government must reverse current policies inconsistent with acknowledging the climate emergency – there is much to be achieved there. For example banning fracking and dropping plans for a third runway at Heathrow. And reversing their decision to crush renewable energy investment while doubling down on fossil fuels. A massive Green New Deal is absolutely vital, possible and necessary.”

Here, one must ask why a UK group would identify a US campaign as a primary focal point of its demands. The answer is that not only were US NGOs already officially involved with Extinction Rebellion as early as September 2018 while simultaneously being aggressive proponents of the New Green Deal, but even more importantly, these NGOs, at the bequest of their benefactors, also had global designs for Green New Deals. The New Deal For Nature would be helped along after popularizing the language of “new deal” in order to mask its ugly intent. The New Deal for Nature, saturated with holistic linguistics and emotive hooks, lies in the dark shadows of the Green New Deal and climate strikes – waiting.

In the October 31, 2018 article covering the very first Extinction Rebellion action, published by the aforementioned DesmogBlog, a reference to a “new deal for nature” goes undetected:

“Extinction Rebellion’s declaration of rebellion comes a day after a report by the WWF found that many species’ populations have declined on average by 60 percent between 1970 and 2014 largely due to human activity.

 

The report said: ‘Decision makers at every level need to make the right political, financial and consumer choices to achieve the vision that humanity and nature thrive in harmony on our only planet.’

 

The WWF called for ‘a new global deal for nature and people’ to halt wildlife decline, tackle deforestation, climate change and plastic pollution and is backed by ‘concrete commitments from global leaders and businesses.'”

The fact that Extinction Rebellion does not include capitalism, imperialism or militarism – the primary drivers of the ecological assault against the Earth, in conjunction with the omission of other underlying structural causes, has raised important questions on if this vehicle can perhaps still be utilized to organize and build community.

Here, the question must be, why would we choose to lend our name to strengthen a BRAND that cites “a massive new deal is absolutely vital,” yet deliberately omits the fact that stopping capitalism, imperialism and militarism and other forms of oppression that are just as vital. This is worse than an oversight. It is a disgrace. Even more tragic is the fact that collectively we’ve been conditioned to such an extent, we are no longer even cognizant of such blatant hypocrisies.

As an ongoing coup against the sovereign state of  Venezuela led by the US and Canada accelerates – Extinction Rebellion fails to mobilize their groups, now international in scope. They not only fail to mobilize, they fail to speak of it. With its arms opened to imperial NGOs such as Avaaz and Amnesty International, the writing was already on the wall before the first action took place.

Adding to this, is the fact that Extinction Rebellion is yet another group that chooses to stay absolutely silent on the commodification and objectification of nature – another tell-tale warning sign.

We must lend our support and engage in small but connected resistance groups that work together to tear down the structures oppressing not only ourselves – but foremost, our brothers and sisters in the Global South. This means crushing the drivers of imperialism.

[Essential reading for youth: CHE GUEVARA TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE. “Between 1959 and 1964, freedom fighter Che Guevara delivered a number of speeches to youth groups and students to inspire and educate them about the revolution. This is a collection of these speeches – a collection of thought as iconic as Che Guevara’s image. He remains a hero to many, and represents a form of socialism that is hard to deny.”] [Download]

The Last Vestiges of Ethics and the Corporate Capture of Nature

This series has disclosed very ugly truths. It is our ethical and moral duty to share this knowledge. Only then, can the tide turn. The era of “green shaming” must come to an end. [Trust Nothing – John Steppling] It has been used as a weapon to ensure our silence for long enough.

This is 350 – born out of The Rockefeller Foundation. This is Avaaz – an instrument of empire – up to its neck in the blood of Libyan and Syrian men, women and children while campaigning for climate action as it creates acquiescence for wars. This is Greenpeace that cited the world must not exceed a global temperature increase of  1°C in 1997 only to demand a full 2°C in 2009. This is Friends of the Earth, who has served on the board of Ceres, since its inception – that also cited 1°C in 2001 as the global temperature that the Earth must not exceed. This is a cabal that has placed capital and corporate interests over environmental protection and Indigenous rights – time and time again.

“Many of you equally, and I will say this, and I would have never thought that one day I will accuse a civil society of such a thing. Dividing the G77, or helping divide the G77, is simply something that should be left to the CIAs, the KGBs and the rest [not the NGOs].— Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77, December 11, 2009, COP15

Clive L. Spash, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria, writes: “The Paris Agreement signifies commitment to sustained industrial growth, risk management over disaster prevention, and future inventions and technology as saviour. The primary commitment of the international community is to maintain the current social and economic system. The result is denial that tackling GHG emissions is incompatible with sustained economic growth. The reality is that Nation States and international corporations are engaged in an unremitting and ongoing expansion of fossil fuel energy exploration, extraction and combustion, and the construction of related infrastructure for production and consumption. The targets and promises of the Paris Agreement bear no relationship to biophysical or social and economic reality.” [This Changes Nothing: The Paris Agreement to Ignore Reality, Globalizations, 2016 Vol. 13, No. 6, 928–933]

Thunberg has stated repeatedly that her strike will continue “until Sweden is aligned with the Paris Agreement.” Therefore, by her own statements, this is the singular, overall purpose and goal of the strikes, now global in scale. A Paris Agreement that unlocks everything which has been disclosed in painstaking detail within this series.

On February 21, 2019, the European Commission was the latest to embrace and promote Thunberg: “The teenager opened a European Commission event in front of President Jean-Claude Juncker where she told politicians to stop ‘sweeping their mess under the carpet for our generation to clean up.'” Here again, Thunberg’s demands, on behalf of the youth participating in the climate strikes, are identified:

“We want you to follow the Paris agreement and the IPCC reports we don’t have any other manifests or demands. Just unite behind the science. That is our demand.” [Video]

Here we have three key players of capitalist hegemony, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and the European Commission – all promoting Thunberg in unprecedented fashion. Institutions housing individuals that systematically pillage the planet in exchange for economic growth, power and profits have been magically moved to protect the planet.

What is unbeknownst to the populace is the fact that all three of these institutions are founding architects/partners of the Climate Finance Partnerships which is aligned with Blended Finance Taskforce. The Climate Finance Partnership was formed under the leadership of French President Emmanuel Macron who announced the partnership on September 26, 2018 at the One Planet Summit held in New York. The One Planet Summit is organized by the Government of France jointly with the UN, the World Bank Group and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Partners of the Climate Finance Partnership include the Governments of France and Germany.

February 23, 2019: “De Franse president Macron ontving het Zweedse klimaatmeisje Greta Thunberg (rechts naar Macron) en een delegatie van Youth for Climate, onder wie Anuna De Wever (tweede van rechts) en Kyra Gantois (eerste van links).” [Source]

The Climate Finance Partnership was created in order to propel forward the New Climate Economy. Both being key vehicles to unlock the 100 trillion dollars identified in pension funds while simultaneously implementing the economic valuation and payment for environmental services (payments for ecosystems services) hidden within the Sustainable Development Goals. The privatization of nature will transform global finance. Those most responsible for the destruction will be assigned as the new “stewards of national natural capital.”

One can only hope that this series has  finally divulged once and for all who and what such powerful NGOs represent: oligarchs, corporate finance and capital. The NGOS at the helm of non-profit industrial complex must be recognized as the world’s most powerful lobbying arm for green technology. This comes at the expense of nature, not for the protection of nature. Again, reality turned on its head. This is why the non-profit industrial complex must be starved out of commission – by withdrawing our consent. Up to this point its power stems from its false claim of representing civil society. We must make it clear that it does not.

 

We have planetary boundaries that we must live within if life on Earth is to continue in some shape or form. These boundaries are non-negotiable. We can lie to ourselves all we want, in all of our anthropocentric glory, but it won’t change the reality. We can paint it green, we can share our illusions in glossy brochures and make them go viral on shiny screens – the biosphere does not give a flying fuck. If our society was actually sane, we would recognize these said “solutions” as delusions – but sadly that is not the case. Disconnected from nature – and more and more, disconnected from each other – we are lost.

Nature doesn’t deal.

“And that’s the real question facing the white activists today. Can they tear down the institutions that have put us all in the trick bag we’ve been into for the last hundreds of years?” — Black Power by Stokely Carmichael, 1966

We can end this grim instalment by reflecting upon what Indian author Arundhati Roy so articulately summarized almost fifteen years ago on August 16, 2004: “The NGO-ization of resistance.” We can say that tragically, yet unequivocally, the NGO-ization of resistance in the West is a fait accompli.

The NGO-ization of resistance, Arundhati Roy, August 16, 2004 [Running time: 5m:51s]:

 

 

End Notes:

[1] “Officially launched in 2008, the GCCA’s origins date back to April 2006 when representatives from some of the largest environmental and developmental groups—Oxfam, Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Brazil, WWF International, WWF India, the World Council of Churches, Friends of the Earth and the Union of Concerned Scientists—convened in Woltersdorf (Germany) to discuss the possibility of developing a common platform to mobilize the wider public and thereby bolster the climate negotiations.” [p. 70]

“In 2009, its core funders were the Oak Foundation, the Sea Change Foundation, the Turner-affiliated Better World Fund, the Prince Albert II Foundation of Monaco and the Government of Québec. With a total contribution ofUSD 5 million in 2009, the Oak Foundation was by far the GCCA’s main donor (the Sea Change Foundation coming second with USD 1.5 million). [p.69]

It was founded on “[connecting] the intelligence gathering and sophisticated advocacy provided by numerous NGOS in order to target and maximize the collective impact of groups on every continent” (GCCA 2009).” [p.71]

[Source: The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, published in 2016 by Edouard Morena]

[2] The GCCA made over USD 3 million worth of grants to partner organizations in support of their communications and campaigning activities. As they explain in their 2009 Annual Report, ‘most grants were awarded to support national and regional campaigning (including for rapid response actions and national hubs), with the remaining funds for global campaign and communication actions’. In other words, the GCCA, while not a foundation per se, acted as a de facto regranting organization, selectively distributing funds to push through a common message. What is more, GCCA grants had a leveraging effect by enabling partners to mobilize further funding—both internally and externally—for GCCA-related activities. According to its 2009 Annual Report, ‘partners reported a further total of more than eight million in funds leveraged from their own organisations plus additional sources for activities carried out with financial support from the GCCA’. [Source: The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, published in 2016 by Edouard Morena] [p.72]

[3] “IPPI is presented as “a new platform for philanthropic cooperation to catalyse greater ambition on climate through activities and processes taking place at an international level” (ECF 2014, 26). It is “designed to help philanthropy identify opportunities for international collaboration, develop joint strategies, and pool and align grant making to achieve greater overall impact.” It acts as a platform where foundations and grantees meet to strategize on how international political and policy levers can catalyse more ambitious policies at the domestic level. [Source: The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, published in 2016 by Edouard Morena] [p. 5]

[4] “Earth Economics, with the support of our Community Partners and Advisors, maintains the largest, spatially explicit, web-based repository of published and unpublished economic values for ecosystem services. With generous funding from our sponsors, in 2012 Earth Economics began porting our internal database to a web-based service. The Ecosystem Service Valuation Toolkit (EVT) portal was launched at Rio +20 in June 2012. The Researcher’s Library and SERVES were previewed at the ACES Conference in December 2012.”

[5] Funds are required to both finance participation and facilitate lobbying activities— through joint initiatives, platforms, dialogues, reports, campaigns, outreach activities, and the creation and upholding of informal relationships of trust between NGOs and the UNFCCC secretariat and/or members of government delegations (Caniglia et al. 2015 , 241; Caniglia 2001 ; Dodds and Strauss 2004 ). [Source: The Price of Climate Action-Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, published in 2016 by Edouard Morena] [p. 6]

[6] Gregory Schwedock, NY, NY, USA is the director of digital organizing for the Climate Mobilization Project (2014-present). He identifies himself as  coordinator for Extinction Rebellion from September 2018 – present. [Source: LinkedIn]

 

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green Collective.

 

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The House is On Fire! & the 100 Trillion Dollar Rescue [ACT IV]

February 3, 2019

 

By Cory Morningstar

 

This is ACT IV of the six-part series: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

 

In ACT I of this new body of research I opened the dialogue with the observations of artist Hiroyuki Hamada:

 

“What’s infuriating about manipulations by the Non Profit Industrial Complex is that they harvest the goodwill of the people, especially young people. They target those who were not given the skills and knowledge to truly think for themselves by institutions which are designed to serve the ruling class. Capitalism operates systematically and structurally like a cage to raise domesticated animals. Those organizations and their projects which operate under false slogans of humanity in order to prop up the hierarchy of money and violence are fast becoming some of the most crucial elements of the invisible cage of corporatism, colonialism and militarism.”

 

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent series has been written in two volumes.

[Volume I: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI] [Addenda: I]

[Volume II: An Object Lesson In Spectacle • ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V] [ACTS VI & VII forthcoming]

Volume I:

In ACT I, I disclosed that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and face of the youth movement to combat climate change, served as special youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, “We Don’t Have Time”. I then explored the ambitions behind the tech company We Don’t Have Time.

In ACT II, I illustrated how today’s youth are the sacrificial lambs for the ruling elite. Also in this act I introduced the board members and advisors to “We Don’t Have Time.” I explored the leadership in the nascent We Don’t Have Time and the partnerships between the well established corporate environmental entities: Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, 350.org, Avaaz, Global Utmaning (Global Challenge), the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In ACT III, I deconstructed how Al Gore and the Planet’s most powerful capitalists are behind today’s manufactured youth movements and why. I explored the We Don’t Have Time/Thunberg connections to Our Revolution, the Sanders Institute, This Is Zero Hour, the Sunrise Movement and the Green New Deal. I also touched upon Thunberg’s famous family. In particular, Thunberg’s celebrity mother, Malena Ernman (WWF Environmental Hero of the Year 2017), and her August 2018 book launch. I then explored the generous media attention afforded to Thunberg in both May and April of 2018 by SvD, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers.

In ACT IV, I examine the current campaign, now unfolding, in “leading the public into emergency mode”. More importantly, I summarize who and what this mode is to serve.

In ACT V, I take a closer look at the Green New Deal. I explore Data for Progress and the targeting of female youth as a key “femographic”. I connect the primary architect and authors of the “Green New Deal” data to the World Resources Institute. From there, I walk you through the interlocking Business & Sustainable Development Commission, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, and the New Climate Economy – a project of the World Resources Institute. I disclose the common thread between these groups and the assignment of money to nature, represented by the Natural Capital Coalition and the non-profit industrial complex as an entity. Finally, I reveal how this has culminated in the implementation of payments for ecosystem services (the financialization and privatization of nature, global in scale) which is “expected to be adopted during the fifteenth meeting in Beijing in 2020.”

In the final act, ACT VI [Crescendo], I wrap up the series by divulging that the very foundations which have financed the climate “movement” over the past decade are the same foundations now partnered with the Climate Finance Partnership looking to unlock 100 trillion dollars from pension funds. I reveal the identities of individuals and groups at the helm of this interlocking matrix, controlling both the medium and the message. I take a step back in time to briefly demonstrate the ten years of strategic social engineering that have brought us to this very precipice. I look at the relationship between WWF, Stockholm Institute and World Resources Institute as key instruments in the creation of the financialization of nature. I also take a look at what the first public campaigns for the financialization of nature (“natural capital”) that are slowly being brought into the public realm by WWF. I reflect upon how mainstream NGOs are attempting to safeguard their influence and further manipulate the populace by going underground through Extinction Rebellion groups being organized in the US and across the world.

With the smoke now cleared, the weak and essentially non-existent demands reminiscent of the 2009 TckTckTck “demands” can now be fully understood.

Some of these topics, in addition to others, will be released and discussed in further detail as addenda built on the large volume of research. This includes stepping through the looking glass, with an exploration of what the real “Green New Deal” under the Fourth Industrial Revolution will look like. Also forthcoming is a look at the power of celebrity – and how it has become a key tool for both capital and conformity.

[*Note: This series contains information and quotes that have been translated from Swedish to English via Google Translator.]

 

 

A C T   I V

 

Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

“15 minutes of fame is short-lived media publicity or celebrity of an individual or phenomenon. The expression was inspired by Andy Warhol’s words “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, which appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.” [1]

As Greta Thunberg is the founding block of this particular story, revisiting Sweden with the above observation feels like a good place to start part IV of this series where we deconstruct the ongoing marketing campaign with the most recent activity.

Let’s begin.

January 25, 2019: “Finally, we have to applaud the lineup for Thursday’s lunchtime panel. Marc Benioff was joined on the stage by Jane Goodall, Bono, teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, diplomat and environmentalist Christiana Figueres, President & CEO of Sompo Holdings Kengo Sakurada, and will.i.am. What a crew.” Photo by Jeff Elder | Source: “The 10 Best Moments From Davos With Salesforce“

On Thursday January 24, 2019, Greta Thunberg took part in a lunch panel presented by Marc Benioff at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. Benioff is the CEO and founder of Salesforce, as well as a co-founder of Breakthrough Energy (nuclear) with Bill Gates and other kindred billionaires. Also on the panel were Jane Goodall (United Nations Messenger of Peace), Bono (U2 lead singer and “activist”), “will.i.am” (Black Eyed Peas founder and “philanthropist”) and the young Greta Thunberg who made the following statement [0:40s]:

Thunberg’s words were quickly launched into the international stratosphere of global media outlets and social media.

CNN, January 25, 2019:

“On Thursday, Thunberg gave an impromptu speech at a lunch with a star-studded guest list that included music stars Bono and Will.i.am, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, and an array of bankers and investors. She roasted them.

 

“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we will have created, but that is not true, because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame,” Thunberg said flatly. “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”

Here it is vital to note the usage of language: impromptu and roasted.

France 24, January 25, 2019:

“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we have all created, but that is not true. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame, and someone is to blame. Some people, some companies, and some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue to make unimaginable amounts of money. And I think that many of you here today belong to that group of people,” she said in her impromptu speech, delivered without a moment’s hesitation.”

EZ News, January 27, 2019:

“On Thursday, Thunberg gave an impromptu speech at a lunch with a star-studded guest list that included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Goldman Sachs president and Trump administration official Gary Cohn, musicians Bono and Will.i.am, and an array of bankers and investors.”

Pluralist, January 28, 2019:

“Greta Thunberg reportedly took a 32-hour train from her home in Sweden to the Swiss retreat and camped out in zero degrees-Fahrenheit temperatures to deliver an impromptu roast of the celebrities and economic titans. In a speech at lunch, she accused the high-profile guests of causing the warming of the planet that they had spent the prior several days grandstanding about fixing.”

As demonstrated in the above talking points, there is much emphasis from the international media to establish the idea that Thunberg’ speech was spontaneous. As we will illustrate, it was not. This is merely an example of effective story-telling being put into practise, as orchestrated by the NGOs and corporate alliances that are handling Thunberg.

On January 22, 2019, three days prior to the “impromptu speech” at the WEF, a video was uploaded onto YouTube by  Uphill Media. [“Uphill Media, is the continuation of Bernie2016 TV and Political Revolution TV. We are 501(c)(3)3 non profit independent media network focused on informing the electorate through engagement on the Internet.”][2]

In this video of Thunberg speaking, filmed prior to her traveling from Stockholm to Davos, the key talking points within the message [3] [26 seconds in] are almost verbatim to the “impromptu” speech at WEF:

January 22, 2019 video:

“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we all have created. But that is just another convenient lie. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame. Some people, some companies, and some decision makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money.”

January 25, 2019, WEF lunch panel:

“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we will have created. But that is not true. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame. Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”

This was not lost on the WEF organizers, whom, in a concerted effort with Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, were already sharing the Swedish ecommercial within the WEF event and on social media – prior to the Salesforce lunch panel where Thunberg would cite the passages for media. The attempt by the media, and forces at play, to frame the speech as spontaneous, regardless if it was deliberate or not, evokes a layer of child-like authenticity by the messenger, if not the message itself. In spite of the motive, this is disingenuous to say the least.

January 23, 2019, Extinction Rebellion:

https://youtu.be/5Fo69sPq_Og

Greenpeace International, twitter account, January, 22, 2019:

Our leaders are behaving like children, but thankfully some of our children are stepping up and leading.

Watch @GretaThunberg call on delegates at this week’s World Economic Forum (#WEF19) to do #WhateverItTakes to address the climate crisis! pic.twitter.com/h6OfyC1bfw

— Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) January 22, 2019

This compounds with other earmarks of a well-orchestrated media campaign.

On December 15, 2018, Thunberg was thrust into international stardom following a speech at the COP24 in Katowice, Poland, that was published  on December 15, 2018 by Conect4Climate (a global partnership program under the World Bank) and other outlets. The video quickly went viral. The speech as described by Quartz, (December 15, 2018) is representative of how global media framed the event to the public:

“Fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg minced no words at the COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland this week. Speaking to the assembled countries Wednesday, at the most important climate negotiating meeting since the Paris talks in 2015… In a speech lasting under five minutes, Thunberg castigated leaders at the talks for decades of inaction and too-small steps in the face of climate crisis”

Yet, a poor editing job in a Swedish newsroom inadvertently revealed yet another inconvenient truth – there was almost no one in the auditorium when Thunberg spoke:

Video: Greta Thunbergs tal i Katowice enligt SvT Morgonstudion [Running time: 1m:15s]

Such inconsistencies between the real intent of the World Economic Forum [“Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”] and the re-framing for public perception are best captured in the following images shared on social media:

This bit of social engineering is stunning in it’s blatancy. Like magic, the telling word “salesforce” and the phrase “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” no longer appear in the image.

Gone are the obvious contradictions between the unprecedented magnitude of precious Earth metals including Coltan and Cobalt – a key requirement for the “fourth industrial revolution”, which the mining of has decimated the chimp population Goodall claims to advocate for. [Jane Goodall Institute: “Many of the metals and minerals used in these technologies are extracted from threatened chimpanzee habitats across the Congo Basin. Control over these resources has also fueled conflict among people — conflict that has resulted in the deaths of more than five million people.”]

Such is the primary role of the non-profit industrial complex.

The Climate Mobilization     

“We launched at the People’s Climate March in 2014 as the first group organizing for a WWII-scale climate response, an idea that had emerged as a hidden consensus among climate experts.” [Source]

Here, we have an NGO that would very much appreciate Thunberg’s sober and “flat” (CNN) delivery style. The Climate Mobilization.[4] Founded in 2014, at  the People’s Climate March, the founder and executive director of this US NGO is psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon.

The Climate Mobilization has one primary goal: “Our mission is to save civilization”. [Source] To do so, Salamon outlines a “wartime-style mobilization, akin to the American home front effort during World War II”:

“The Climate Mobilization is a growing group of people who know that climate change threatens the collapse of civilization within this century. We believe, along with many well-respected scientists and environmental analysts, that the only way to preserve a climate that is safe, stable, and supportive of human civilization is to fight climate change with a World War II-scale mobilization.”

Salamon’s strength, as a psychologist specializing in climate change, is exactly what Annex I states across the world are now embracing via the establishment of “nudge units”. That is, the implementation and use of behavioural science for policy within government. [“Salamon earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Adelphi University and also holds a BA in social anthropology from Harvard. Via Climate Mobilization, Salamon applies her psychological and anthropological knowledge to solving climate change. She is the author of the blog The Climate Psychologist.”]

The 2014 People’s Climate March was organized by the Global Call for Climate Action (GCCA/TckTckTck), Climate Nexus (“Climate Nexus is dedicated to changing the conversation on climate change”), 350.org, USCAN and Avaaz/Purpose. At the helm of this NGO assemblage was the Rockefeller Brothers Fund working with the V.K. Rasmussen Foundation.

Additionally, Climate Nexus is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a 501(c)3 organization.

“When the Climate Mobilization was founded at the People’s Climate March in 2014, there was no climate group publically organizing around the need for WWII-scale emergency speed transition. Since then, we have worked to establish an active ’emergency climate movement’ wing of the broader climate movement.” [Source]

Eleven of The Climate Mobilization advisory board members include:

• Betsy Taylor: president of Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions consulting firm, co-founder of 1Sky (financed by the Clinton Global Initiative) that merged with 350.org (incubated by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation) in 2011, advisory boards include 350.org and Ceres (350.org investment partner)
• Laura Dawn Murphy: former creative director for MoveOn.Org [parent of Avaaz]
• Paul Gilding: former executive director of Greenpeace International, strategy advisor and founder of Changing Markets Foundation [“The Changing Markets Foundation was formed to accelerate and scale up solutions to sustainability challenges by leveraging the power of markets.” Clients include Unilever, BHP Billiton, DSM, Ford and DuPont.]
• Jamila Raqib: executive director of Albert Einstein Institute [“Raqib has worked with Dr. Gene Sharp, the world’s foremost scholar on strategic nonviolent action since 2002. As the director of the Albert Einstein Institute she promotes the study and use of strategic nonviolent action.”]
• Gus Speth: founder of the World Resources Institute and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council
• Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr: president of the Hip Hop Caucus
• Richard Heinberg: senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute
• Lise Van Susteren: American psychiatrist, named to the board of directors of Al Gore’s The Climate Project in 2009, organized the first conference to focus on the psychological impacts of climate change in 2009, co-authored “The Psychological Effects of Climate Change” published by the National Wildlife Federation where she serves on the board
• Michael Mann: American climate scientist
• David Spratt and Philip Sutton: Spratt is the director of Breakthrough – National Centre for Climate Restoration. [Breakthrough collaborates with the Club of Rome.] Spratt and Sutton co-authored the book Climate Code Red in 2008

[Full list]

[The interlocking directorate of the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC) is extensive. As this series focuses on the marketing strategy itself, more than those constructing it, the above bios are purposely brief.]

The Climate Mobilization’s foray into politics began with “Mobilize California” (#Mobilizeca) campaign. Leading the effort with The Climate Mobilization was Naomi Klein and her Leap NGO (Leap L.A. Coalition), as well as a coalition of “like minded organizations”.

The coalition, in partnership with Los Angeles City councilmember Paul Koretz, sought to initiate a “WWII-scale Climate Mobilization of L.A.”

Video: Naomi Klein at launch of Los Angeles Climate Justice Mobilization 2025 Working Group [4m:59s]

By May 2018 the council voted unanimously “to explore the establishment of the country’s first climate emergency mobilization department and set aside $500,000 in seed money toward the effort. In June 2018, Berkeley declared a climate emergency and committed to an Emergency Climate Mobilization and Just Transition to end greenhouse gas emissions and begin drawing down the excess carbon in the atmosphere as quickly as possible.” Other cities would soon follow. [Source]

Here it is critical to note the language: “drawing down the excess carbon in the atmosphere.” Long gone are discussions on reducing or cutting carbon emissions. This is not coincidence. Rather it is again, strategic.

Two days prior to the 2014 People’s Climate March, on September 19, 2014, the article titled “The Founder of The Climate Mobilization Talks With Bridget Read About How Psychology—Not Science—May Be the Key to Ending America’s Climate Denial” reported the following:

“In 356 words, The Climate Mobilization’s Pledge to Mobilize calls on the United States government to commence a World War Two-scale mobilization to fight climate change: to decrease our net greenhouse gas emissions 100% by 2025, to deploy a system of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere with wartime speed, and to make reducing net GHGs 100% globally, with the same swiftness, a top political priority.”

The Climate Mobilizations influence within the NPIC is articulated in the following text outlining its groundwork with the US Democratic Party platform, as well as the Green New Deal:

“The evidence of impact is clear, as assertive wings of the Democratic Party [5] as well as chapters of organizations such as 350.org and the Sierra Club adopt our prescriptions as core demands. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez signed our Pledge to Mobilize and has been outspoken specifically for the need for emergency mobilization as part of the push for a House Select Committee on the Green New Deal.” [Source]

Today’s re-designing of our Western subjugation is nothing different than what has been unveiled in the past. Whereas education, health, arts, and all sectors of society were shaped and financed by foundations and their capital largesse, today’s “fourth industrial revolution” remains in the clutches of the ruling elite. This includes the 2014 People’s Climate March – where The Climate Mobilization was born.

Extinction Rebellion (to be discussed in part V) has three very broad demands, the primary one being that governments must “enact legally binding policy measures to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025” echoing the talking points brought into the mainstream by the NPIC, the World Bank, et al in 2014.

The term “net-zero emissions” does not mean zero emissions. Rather, it is the amount of emissions being put into the atmosphere being equal to the amount being “captured.” Net-zero therefore, the requirement for massive investments into the technologies being developed and rolled out by Bill Gate’s “Mission Innovation“. [For an example of this, one can read the much lauded “Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act” [Section 101–5 “We must significantly increase Federal R&D funding to develop and deploy the technologies needed for deep decarbonization in our economy. This was a proposal announced at the Paris Climate Accord with Bill Gates called Mission Innovation, which committed to double government investment in energy technology.”][6] Here, it is vital to recognize that WEF and Mission Innovation formed a partnership on  June 1, 2017.

Net-zero is carbon capture storage and a host of other technologies that promise business (and emissions) will continue – as usual. Consider the reality that while we are inundated with anti-pipeline protest coverage, there is zero opposition to the carbon capture projects that are slowly coming online, such as the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line in Canada.

Indeed the inconvenient “zero” [emissions] and “near zero” terminology in the 2014 AR5 Synthesis report, was conveniently transformed to the “net zero” term we now see in the public realm, barely missing a beat.

But the real question, is how to save capitalism, which is described as being “now in free fall”.  [January 3, 2019]

With “capitalism in danger of falling apart” (a rare, cryptically honest quote from Al Gore), and years of stagnant global economic growth now in free fall, the Greta campaign must be understood for what it is. An elaborate distraction that has nothing to do with protecting the natural world, and everything to do with the manufacturing of consent. The required consent of the citizenry that will unlock the treasuries and public monies under the guise of climate protection.

But before we go further into what we can aptly describe as a politically correct – and unprecedented global bailout, we must look at how collective society can be successfully manipulated and manoeuvred, in order to sanction the release of the funds.

The very strategy to unlock the public purse – and thus save capitalism itself, is that of a climate emergency.

#climatestrike + #fridaysforfuture + #ExtinctionRebellion = #climateemergency

Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: “Our House in On Fire”

“If you don’t know who Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is, you can think of her as an international climate-change counterpart to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Like the rock-star congresswoman from New York, Thunberg is a charismatic young woman whose social-media savvy, moral clarity, and fearless speaking truth to power have inspired throngs of admirers to take to the streets for a better world and call out the politicians and CEOs who are standing in the way..

 

Thunberg claimed on her Twitter feed that there have been student strikes for climate on every continent except Antarctica—70,000 strikers in total last week. Meanwhile, the Swedish teenager continued to blast the elites in Davos, in flawless English. “Adults keep saying, ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope,'” she said. “But I don’t want your hope…. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is.” — The Kids Are Coming, January 28, 2019, The Nation

 

In April 2016, The Climate Mobilization published the paper “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement.”

The strategy document leads with:

“Imagine there is a fire in your house.

What do you do?
What do you think about?

You do whatever you can to try to put out the fire or exit the house. You make a plan about how you can put out the fire, or how you can best exit the house.

our senses are heightened, you are focused like a laser, and you put your entire self into your actions.

You enter emergency mode.”

-Leading the Public Into Emergency Mode, pg. 2

In the document, Salamon introduces “the concept of ’emergency mode'”, which is how individuals and groups function optimally during an existential or moral crisis — often achieving great feats through intensely focused motivation.” She articulates that “the goal of the climate movement must be to lead the public out of “normal” mode and into emergency mode”. [p. 2][Emphasis in original.]

The emergency mode is enacted by the triggering of a switch.

“This has huge implications for the climate movement’s communication style, advocacy, and strategy. Because emergency mode is contagious, the best strategy is for climate activists and organizations to go into emergency mode themselves, and communicate about the climate emergency, the need for emergency mobilization, and the fact that they are in emergency mode, as clearly and emphatically as possible.” — Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement

And now, in 2019, we see how the strategy as laid out in the paper, has now been deployed in real time, in real life.

“Since emotional ads create a deeper and more visceral impression on the memory centers of the brain, marketers are now measuring more cerebral responses to content using neurometrics tools like facial coding, implicit response testing, eye tracking, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).” — The Dangerous Power of Emotional Advertising, April 14, 2016

Video: January 25, 2019, Greta Thunberg | “Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019” [Running time:6m:3s]

 

January 25, 2019, ‘Feel the fear’: Climate change is now the talk of Davos, CNN:

“‘Feel the fear’ – The spirit of the event was reflected in two attendees with little in common: One is a former vice president of the United States; the other a 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl. What Al Gore and Greta Thunberg share is anger at corporate executives who aren’t moving quickly enough to address climate change. “I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic, I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” Thunberg told attendees.

 

 

The Crux of the Strategy Document

The crux of the strategy document, Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement, is that citizens must first face, then accept that there is a life-threatening emergency in order to go into the necessary emergency mode. Once triggered, this enables the deployment of “a huge amount of resources toward solving the crisis” which would quickly become the clear, top priority for society. [p. 4 & p. 5] The more the climate movement provides “structures for people’s engagement — clear directions and support for people who are ready to tackle the climate emergency — the more people will go into emergency mode.”[p. 7]

Whereas budget restraint occurs in non-emergency mode, in emergency mode “all available /necessary resources are devoted to the emergency and, if necessary, governments borrow heavily.” [p. 9]

“Economic mobilization is an emergency restructuring of a modern industrial economy, accomplished at rapid speed. It involves the vast majority of citizens, the utilization of a very high proportion of available resources, and impacts all areas of society. It is nothing less than a government-coordinated social and industrial revolution. Mobilization is what happens when an entire nation enters emergency mode, and the results can be truly staggering.” [p. 8]

Intentional or not, Salamon’s paper weighs heavy with American exceptionalism. Notes of nationalism and cultural superiority waft throughout the document: “We also made huge advances in the sciences. The first computer was invented, as were blood transfusion and radar technology. The Manhattan Project successfully built the world’s first atomic bomb in less than three years — a morally catastrophic but nonetheless stupendous feat of planning, cooperation and scientific ingenuity.”

Reflecting the aforementioned observations, gone is the language to reduce or stop emissions. Consider the word “stop” does not appear once in the document, while the word “reduce” has one single entry: “If we only reduce the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on politicians, the problem will solve itself.” [p. 23] Today’s gently persuasive language, is a mirror image of the language and demands drawn out in the strategy document: “restore a safe and stable climate”, “draw down excess CO2” and “cool the planet”.

“The way we respond to threats — by entering emergency mode or by remaining in normal mode — is highly contagious. Imagine the fire alarm goes off in an office building. How seriously should you take it? How do you know if it is a drill or a real fire? Those questions will be predominantly answered by the actions and communications of the people around you, particularly people designated as leaders. If they are chatting and taking their time exiting the building, you will assume that this is a drill. If people are moving with haste, faces stern and focused, communicating with urgency and gravity, you will assume there is real danger and exit as quickly as possible.” [p. 14]

The document acknowledges that the climate crisis is a “top threat to the global economy“. (highlighted in red font in the original document). [p. 21] What is not stated, yet understood, is the fact that the climate can also be exploited, to salvage the global economy. In essence, to save capitalism.

“We cannot be silent about the fact that emergency mobilization can only be coordinated by a “big” government that is granted the power to spend without limit to save as much life as possible.” [p. 22]

The document also outlines a cheerful camaraderie with the oppressors of the working class and those most marginalized:

“These pressure campaigns should escalate in degrees of assertiveness, all the way to disruptive protest. However, even in a protest, we must maintain an open, welcoming attitude. Thus, while we will need to be quite confrontational and unwavering, we are not “against” our targets of protest. We gain nothing from demonizing them. We need these leaders to do the right thing. The tone should not be primarily angry, but urgent and insistent.

 

Rather, the tone should be serious and patriotic. We are calling on America to lead the world in heroic, world-saving action! Protests should involve elements of protestor sacrifice, such as risking arrest or hunger strike, to generate empathy from the public. Maintaining strict non-violence is critical to winning widespread public support and is non-negotiable.” [p. 28]

This document is astonishing in many ways. Not once does the author pause to reflect upon what specific societies and nations benefit from industrial civilization on our finite planet – and which ones are sacrificed for the same cause.

The said purpose of the strategy, is not the protection of what remains of the natural world, but rather, to save “organized civilization” [p. 2] and our “functioning global civilization”. [p. 21] The root word of civilization – is civil. And there is nothing civil about the industrial civilization we have built.

The savagery of our global economic system unleashed upon the biosphere, and both sentient and non-white human life, is certainly nothing to boast about – and certainly nothing to protect. It is the global capitalist economic system, that upholds industrial civilization, which must be deconstructed. It is both ironic and telling that even the societies who have benefited the most from industrialization, those in the West (and especially in North America), have never been more miserable. Today we witness an unprecedented crisis of mental illness and depression – with a massive percentage of  society now dependent upon anti-depressant pharmaceuticals in order to function in a day-to-day existence.

Yet the most egregious aspect of this document, is that despite the references to Pearl Harbour, the atomic bomb and American war efforts of countless stripes, all cited as glowing examples of American ingenuity, NOWHERE is the militarism’s impact on both climate and ecology mentioned. Consider the U.S. Department of Defense is the largest consumer of oil in the U.S. and the largest institutional consumer of oil in the world. With militarism’s phenomenal  contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation – this omission is beyond the pale to say the least. This is the unspoken environmental racism and blatant eco-imperialism that hums beneath the foundational building blocks of the non-profit industrial complex.

“Here’s the awful truth: even if every person, every automobile, and every factory suddenly emitted zero emissions, the earth would still be headed, head first and at full speed, toward total disaster for one major reason. The military produces enough greenhouse gases, by itself, to place the entire globe, with all its inhabitants large and small, in the most imminent danger of extinction.” — The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism, by Barry Sanders, May 1 2009 [The environmental of militarism podcast]

The power of conformity is a key aspect of social engineering. Its power is tragically often overlooked and grossly underestimated.

“Thought Leaders and Leaders of Civil Society: If people in the public eye, and in the public esteem go into emergency mode, they will significantly influence the broader public.” — [p. 30]

“The Race to Mobilize Is On, Cities around the globe are declaring Climate Emergency and committing to Climate Mobilization. Will your city join them?” The Climate Mobilization website

Of no surprise whatsoever, is the fact, that since Extinction Rebellions meteoric rise to stardom – in perfect symmetry with Thunberg, the group has announced a massive restructuring of the organization. The global expansion is being led by Salamon, [Source] who launched the Extinction Rebellion US twitter account on October 31, 2018 – the same day as the launch of Extinction Rebellion in the UK. The accompanying US website would launch November 3, 2018 and the US Facebook group account would launch on November 4, 2018. Between the official launch on October 31, 2018, in the UK, to December 6, 2018, it grew to over 130 groups, across 22 countries. [7] By January 29, 2019, the Extinction Rebellion groups spanned across 50 countries. The Extinction Rebellion demands are not only complimentary to The Climate Mobilization’s emergency strategy, they are a mirror image of it with the slogan, “tell the truth”.

 

The September 20, 2018, Yale Climate Connections article, “Climate Mobilization Plea: Cities Must Declare Emergency” references the “climate emergency language” gaining momentum in perfect stride with a cohesion of intersecting campaigns: the Thunberg campaign, the Extinction Rebellion protests, the Green New Deal, the general climate strikes, and the FridaysForFuture youth climate strikes.

“Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and ran for the Democratic nomination, isn’t the only politician drawing parallels between climate change and fascist aggression. New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been hailed as an up-and-coming progressive champion, has spoken about the need for a World War II-style commitment to fighting global warming. The Democratic Party in 2016 included similar language in its official platform.

 

The injection of this messaging into American political discourse can be traced in part to The Climate Mobilization, a largely volunteer-run nonprofit founded in 2014.”

 

August 15, 2016: “We’re under attack from climate change—and our only hope is to mobilize like we did in WWII”, by 350.org founder Bill McKibben, illustration by Andrew Colin Beck [Source: 350.org]

“I assume that many activists will continue to be drawn to fossil fuel infrastructure protests. I recommend to them that they work as hard as possible to communicate the way forward (emergency mobilization off fossil fuels and carbon intensive agriculture, plus carbon drawdown to cool the earth back to a safe level) as much as possible in their verbal and non-verbal communications. This can be as simple as wearing Rosie the Riveter bandanas while protesting, displaying a banner demanding WWII-scale climate mobilization to restore a safe climate, and including the demand for net zero emissions by 2025, plus large-scale drawdown, in press releases and web materials.” — April, 2016, Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement, April 2016 [p. 30]

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Video: 2-Minute Intro to Climate Mobilization [Running time: 2m:23s]

 

A Climate of Fear:  Capitalism Is Now in Free Fall

“Capitalism is in crisis, says World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab.” — January 17, 2017, Deutsche Welle

Leading up to the January 2019 Davos gathering, a top Wall Street economist warned investors that they face a tough road ahead with global economic growth ‘now in free fall’. The current headlines read like Orson Welle’s economic version of “War of the Worlds”.

January 3, 2019, The Globe and Mail, “Global economic growth ‘now in free fall’:

“Merrill Lynch strategist Ajay Singh Kapur recently wrote that “global [economic] growth is now in a broad, deep and persistent slowdown,” creating market conditions that, I believe, will make life treacherous for commodity sectors and beyond…”

“Since August, 2017, growth in manufacturing activity has been decelerating rapidly, dragging metal prices with them.”

January 15, 2019:

“Global economic growth is slowing, including in Canada, according to new data from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).”

January 21, 2019:

IMF, CEOs Warn of Slowing World Economy on Eve of Davos Summit: “Corporate executives joined the International Monetary Fund in warning the global economy is slowing faster than expected, establishing a downbeat tone for this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.”

January 21, 2019:

“China’s 6.6% growth in 2018 is its slowest in nearly 3 decades…”

February 1, 2019:

“World’s Largest Pension Fund Loses $136 Billion in Three Months”

To the Rescue: A Politically Correct Bailout -The Climate Finance Partnership

“UNLOCKING THE INCLUSIVE GROWTH STORY OF THE 21ST CENTURY – Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times – This is our ‘use it or lose it’ moment. Investing the US$90 trillion to build the right infrastructure now will deliver a new era of economic growth. Investing it wisely will help drive innovation, deliver public health benefits, create a host of new jobs and go a long way to tackling the risks of runaway climate change. Getting it wrong, on the other hand, will lock us into a high-polluting, low productivity, and deeply unequal future.” — The New Climate Economy website, Executive Summary  

Following the September 8, 2018 Rise for Climate mobilization (a follow-up to the People’s Climate March 2014, having been re-branded to the People’s Climate Movement in 2017), the single goal behind the accelerating climate emergency language, was finally unveiled at the September 26, 2018 One Planet Summit in New York:

“Efforts to blend capital in order to engage and mobilize large-scale institutional capital toward climate solutions took a notable step forward on September 26 at the One Planet Summit in New York, when French President Emmanuel Macron and BlackRock’s Larry Fink announced the Climate Finance Partnership (CFP). The CFP consists of a unique combination of philanthropies, governments, institutional investors, and a leading global asset manager. The parties, including BlackRock, the Governments of France and Germany, and the Hewlett, Grantham, and IKEA foundations, have committed to work together to finalize the design and structure of what we anticipate will be a flagship blended capital investment vehicle by the end of the first quarter, 2019.“

September 26, 2018, “Governments and Philanthropies Announce Ground-breaking Partnership with BlackRock to Mobilize and Deploy Climate Finance at Scale”:

“France, Germany, the Hewlett, Grantham and IKEA foundations, and asset manager BlackRock today announced the Climate Finance Partnership at the One Planet Summit in New York. The Climate Finance Partnership is an unprecedented cooperation between philanthropies, governments and private investors, which have committed to jointly developing an investment vehicle that will aim to invest in climate infrastructure in emerging markets.”

The two institutions identified as the media contacts for the above unprecedented announcement, are the European Climate Foundation and the aforementioned Climate Nexus – a lead organizer for the 2014 People’s Climate March.

On November 8, 2018, the article “The Climate Finance Partnership: Mobilizing Institutional Capital to Address the Climate Opportunity” discloses where the money will come from for the “fourth industrial revolution”, sold to the public under the guise of sustainability:

“Nowhere is the investment gap between what is needed and what is currently flowing greater and more urgent, or the opportunities more significant, than in the world’s developing and emerging markets. These economies are generally characterized by growing populations, rapidly increasing energy demand, and extraordinary infrastructure investment needs. But they also tend to have less developed capital markets and higher political and regulatory risk than their developed country counterparts. Institutional investors may therefore be partially forgiven for moving cautiously, even in the face of compelling long-term economic and demographic drivers.

A detailed analysis by the World Bank found that while $100 trillion is held by pension funds and other institutional investors, these same investors allocated less than $2 trillion over a 25 year period into infrastructure investment in emerging markets. And the fraction of that investment that could be considered green, clean, or climate-friendly was negligible.

 

So, what can be done? Whether you choose to look through the lens of unprecedented challenge or unprecedented opportunity, there is violent agreement that institutional capital needs to be “unlocked” (a favorite word on the climate conference circuit) and mobilized quickly and at scale.”

It is here that the accelerating “demand” for countries to align with the Paris Agreement becomes clear: “The Paris Agreement requires us to align finance flows in support for a low carbon and climate resilient development.” Note the word “requires”. What was considered non-binding one moment, conveniently becomes binding when it involves opening up the treasuries and pension plans to the our corporate overlords.

No risk, all reward. The double speak of Wall Street is deliberately opaque. Yet, in layman’s terms,  these are simply high-finance words to say there is less risk in using someone else’s money other than your own:

“Blended finance, or the strategic deployment of public or other concessional capital to de-risk institutional capital investment, offers one compelling answer.” Recently, the Blended Finance Task Force, a broad-based interdisciplinary effort, finalized a comprehensive report identifying key barriers to large-scale institutional capital mobilization toward the Sustainable Development Goals, and then subsequently designed a detailed Action Program to address these barriers.” [Source]

The Blended Finance Taskforce comprises fifty icons of finance including HSBC, Credit Suisse, Citi, JP Morgan Chase, USAID, WEF –Sustainable Development Investment Partnership (SDIP), World Bank, Investec, MacArthur Foundation, Allianz, EBRD, ClimateWorks (founded by the Hewlett, Packard, and McKnight foundations) and the Rockefeller Foundation. [Full list]

“The partnership, coordinated by the Task Force on Philanthropic Innovation and the Aligned Intermediary, an investment advisory group, was designed and structured specifically to use a layer of government and philanthropic capital to maximize private capital mobilization toward climate-related sectors in emerging markets.” [Source]

And here again, is where more stark reality is faintly disclosed:

“Doing so in partnership with the world’s largest manager and its set of world-class institutional investor clients should send an important signal to fund managers and institutional investors alike that there are profits to be had in sectors and geographies where this capital has not historically deployed…

 

“The partnership will seek to make investments in a targeted set of sectors including renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and low-carbon and electrified transportation, across three regions including Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Today’s climate emergency mobilization must be recognized for what it is: a strategically orchestrated campaign financed and managed by the world’s most powerful institutions – for the preservation of capitalism and global economic growth.  This is the launch of a new growth industry in the Global South coupled with the creation of new and untapped markets. Leading up to this precipice, The B Team, the Open Society Foundation, Oxfam, and many others that serve as the human face of capitalism, have moved their offices to or set up new divisions in both Africa and Latin America.

Also of threat, to Western imperialism, is a burgeoning China. And to be clear – there will be no “fourth industrial revolution” for the Western ruling class – without uninterrupted and perpetual access to Africa’s bounty of rare earth minerals and metals:

“While significant progress has been made on Africa’s political and economic transformation, the continent continues to face significant challenges. Geopolitically, new economic alliances are altering traditional relationships and spheres of influence.” [Source: WEF, 2019]

The sycophantic NGOs – in servitude, indeed on the very same team as their corporate benefactors, created a literal, albeit virtual firestorm (encapsulated in the mantra “our house is on fire”) – in order to instigate a “climate revolution”. The collective energy of the West stemming from a growing societal discontent, is being captured and utilized – transcending into a new weapon of choice that will aid the further colonization of the Global South.  A climate revolution in name only, this said emergency, has nothing to do with the protection of our Earth – or climate – and never will. Rather, it has everything to do with saving, protecting and expanding the capitalist economy – at the expense of our already decimated planet. And nothing more than that. This oncoming new onslaught of environmental devastation and plunder – in the name of climate revolution – will make all of modern man’s historical violence against nature, up to this point – seem like childish prattle.

Yet none of this should come as a surprise. As the oligarchs financed, shaped and largely managed the climate movement – it’s only natural that they alone benefit from it. The power-elites repackaged our oppression as revolution and sold it back to us. By exploiting the innocent youth, which in turn exploited our emotions and fears as a collective populace, we devoured it.  And soon, young Greta, and all the youth they have exploited, will be thrown under the bus. It’s all par for the course under capitalism.

 

+++

 

The Asche experiment: “During the 1950s Solomon Asch conducted and published a series of experiments that demonstrated the degree to which an individual’s own opinions are influenced by those of a majority group.” [1m:57s]

 

 

 

End Notes:

[1] Photographer Nat Finkelstein claimed credit for the expression, stating that he was photographing Warhol in 1966 for a proposed book. A crowd gathered trying to get into the pictures and Warhol supposedly remarked that everyone wants to be famous, to which Finkelstein replied, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.” The phenomenon is often used in reference to figures in the entertainment industry or other areas of popular culture.” [Wikipedia]

[2] “We work with individuals and organizations that are about the issues we face as human beings and meet our partnership guidelines. We offer our platform to scientists, environmentalists, activists, and any individual, group or organization including political candidates that meet these guidelines. Uphill Media, is the continuation of Bernie2016 TV and Political Revolution TV. We are 501(c)(3)3 non profit independent media network focused on informing the electorate through engagement on the Internet. Learn more @ http://UphillMedia.org. Read and share the Democratic Party of Oregon 2018 Platform. https://www.dpoplatform.org/” [Source: YouTube]

[3] “Some people say that we are not doing enough to fight climate change. But that is not true. Because to “not do enough” you have to do something. And the truth is we are basically not doing anything. Yes, some people are doing more than they can, but they are too few or too far away from power to make a difference today. Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we all have created. But that is just another convenient lie. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame. Some people, some companies, and some decision makers in particular [has][sic] known exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. I ask you to stand o the right side of history. I ask you to pledge to do everything in your power to push your own business or government in line with a 1.5 degree world. Will you pledge to do that? Will you pledge to join me, and the people all around the world in doing whatever it takes. [Screen: #whateverittakes]

[4] “The Climate Mobilization is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit and a sister organization of Climate Mobilization Project (501(c)(3). The Climate Mobilization supports the mission of Climate Mobilization Project through direct lobbying and political work.” [Source: Climate Mobilization Website] [Source]

[5] “Our organizers successfully intervened in the 2016 Democratic primary elections, bringing WWII-scale Climate Mobilization into the discussion by successfully lobbying presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to embrace the idea. In July 2016, the need for WWII-scale mobilization was adopted into the Democratic Party Platform thanks to Climate Mobilization advisor and ally Russell Greene who was appointed to the platform committee by Bernie Sanders. This commitment was reaffirmed in August 2018 when Democratic National Committee passed a resolution calling for ‘a national social and economic mobilization’ to ‘address the climate emergency’ and ‘restore a safe climate.'” [Source]

[6] Mission Innovation: “Mission Innovation (MI) is a global initiative of 23 countries and the European Commission (on behalf of the European Union). These 24 members have committed to seek to double public investment in clean energy RD&D and are engaging with the private sector, fostering international collaboration and celebrating innovators.” [Source]

Mission Innovation Member States:

[7] December 6, 2018, “Margaret Klein Salamon talks to XR founders” [Source]

 

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green Collective.

 

 

 

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Most Inconvenient Truth: “Capitalism is in Danger of Falling Apart” [ACT III]

January 28, 2019

By Cory Morningstar

 

This is ACT III of the six-part series: The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

 

In ACT I of this new body of research I opened the dialogue with the observations of artist Hiroyuki Hamada:

 

“What’s infuriating about manipulations by the Non Profit Industrial Complex is that they harvest the goodwill of the people, especially young people. They target those who were not given the skills and knowledge to truly think for themselves by institutions which are designed to serve the ruling class. Capitalism operates systematically and structurally like a cage to raise domesticated animals. Those organizations and their projects which operate under false slogans of humanity in order to prop up the hierarchy of money and violence are fast becoming some of the most crucial elements of the invisible cage of corporatism, colonialism and militarism.”

 

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent series has been written in two volumes.

[Volume I: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI] [Addenda: I]

[Volume II: An Object Lesson In Spectacle • ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V] [ACTS VI & VII forthcoming]

Volume I:

In ACT I, I disclosed that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and face of the youth movement to combat climate change, served as special youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, “We Don’t Have Time”. I then explored the ambitions behind the tech company We Don’t Have Time.

In ACT II, I illustrated how today’s youth are the sacrificial lambs for the ruling elite. Also in this act I introduced the board members and advisors to “We Don’t Have Time.” I explored the leadership in the nascent We Don’t Have Time and the partnerships between the well established corporate environmental entities: Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, 350.org, Avaaz, Global Utmaning (Global Challenge), the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In ACT III, I deconstruct how Al Gore and the Planet’s most powerful capitalists are behind today’s manufactured youth movements and why. I explore the We Don’t Have Time/Thunberg connections to Our Revolution, the Sanders Institute, This Is Zero Hour, the Sunrise Movement and the Green New Deal. I also touch upon Thunberg’s famous family. In particular, Thunberg’s celebrity mother, Malena Ernman (WWF Environmental Hero of the Year 2017), and her August 2018 book launch. I then explore the generous media attention afforded to Thunberg in both May and April of 2018 by SvD, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers.

In ACT IV, I examine the current campaign, now unfolding, in “leading the public into emergency mode”. More importantly, I summarize who and what this mode is to serve.

In ACT V, I take a closer look at the Green New Deal. I explore Data for Progress and the targeting of female youth as a key “femographic”. I connect the primary architect and authors of the “Green New Deal” data to the World Resources Institute. From there, I walk you through the interlocking Business & Sustainable Development Commission, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, and the New Climate Economy – a project of the World Resources Institute. I disclose the common thread between these groups and the assignment of money to nature, represented by the Natural Capital Coalition and the non-profit industrial complex as an entity. Finally, I reveal how this has culminated in the implementation of payments for ecosystem services (the financialization and privatization of nature, global in scale) which is “expected to be adopted during the fifteenth meeting in Beijing in 2020.”

In the final act, ACT VI [Crescendo], I wrap up the series by divulging that the very foundations which have financed the climate “movement” over the past decade are the same foundations now partnered with the Climate Finance Partnership looking to unlock 100 trillion dollars from pension funds. I reveal the identities of individuals and groups at the helm of this interlocking matrix, controlling both the medium and the message. I take a step back in time to briefly demonstrate the ten years of strategic social engineering that have brought us to this very precipice. I look at the relationship between WWF, Stockholm Institute and World Resources Institute as key instruments in the creation of the financialization of nature. I also take a look at what the first public campaigns for the financialization of nature (“natural capital”) that are slowly being brought into the public realm by WWF. I reflect upon how mainstream NGOs are attempting to safeguard their influence and further manipulate the populace by going underground through Extinction Rebellion groups being organized in the US and across the world.

With the smoke now cleared, the weak and essentially non-existent demands reminiscent of the 2009 TckTckTck “demands” can now be fully understood.

Some of these topics, in addition to others, will be released and discussed in further detail as addenda built on the large volume of research. This includes stepping through the looking glass, with an exploration of what the real “Green New Deal” under the Fourth Industrial Revolution will look like. Also forthcoming is a look at the power of celebrity – and how it has become a key tool for both capital and conformity.

[*Note: This series contains information and quotes that have been translated from Swedish to English via Google Translator.]

 

 

 

A C T   T H R E E

 

Malena Ernman: WWF Environmental Hero of the Year, 2017

Greta Thunberg’s mother and father. Opera singer Malena Ernman with husband actor Svante Thunberg at the Polar Music Prize, 2012. Ernman represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009. Photo: Chapman

In October, 2018, Miljö & Utveckling recognized We Don’t Have Time founder, Ingmar Rentzhog, as Sweden’s #1 Environmental Influencer of the year. [Source: The Secret Sauce of a Global Climate Movement]

Greta Thunberg, special youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, We Don’t Have Time,  was recognized as the #2 influencer of the year.

The previous month, on September 1, 2018, Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s most prominent newspaper, ran an op-ed from Global Challenge titled “The Acute Climate Crisis Requires a Broad Political Gathering”:

“Although much of the change required is both possible and profitable, vigorous political campaigns are essential to adjust prices, taxes and regulations so that the transition to a sustainable society becomes attractive, profitable and fast. ” [Full letter in English]

“The signatories stand ready to assist in the process, in support of transforming our society and the wider world into a low-carbon economy: Mats Andersson, Vice Chairman of the Global Challenges Foundation; Erik Brandsma, CEO of Jämtkraft; Malena Ernman, Opera Singer; Antje Jackelén, Archbishop; Staffan Laestadius, Professor Emeritus KTH; Kristina Persson, former Minister of the Future; Ingmar Rentzhog, Chairman of the Global Development Challenge; Johan Rockström, Professor of Environmental Sciences SU; Daniel Sachs, CEO of Proventus; and Anders Wijkman, Chairman of the Club of Rome.”

Anders Wijkman, cited in the above signatories, is a former member of parliament, chairman of the Swedish Environment Council and the former co-president of the Club of Rome. He is also a member of Global Utmaning with a special commitment to climate issues and circular finances.

Also cited in the above signatories is Malena Ernman, mother of Greta Thunberg.

In an interview published October 15, 2018 recognizing Rentzhog as the “#1 Environmental Influencer of the year”, Miljö & Utveckling asks Rentzhog who are his greatest influences. He cites Greta Thunberg, yet does not mention the assistance his company provided Thunberg (current We Don’t Have Time special youth advisor and trustee) that would result in her campaign going international. Nor does he identify his relationship with Thunberg’s mother, Marlena Ernman, who is briefly cited in the same article.

Earlier in the year, on May 4, 2018, Rentzhog and Ernman were both featured guests at the Friday opening gala of the climate conference (“climate change day”) held from May 4-6 in Stockholm, Sweden. Greta Thunberg’s sister, Beata Ernman-Thunberg, was also featured in the program. This was a low key, modest event.

Thunberg was born into privilege and wealth.

Her mother is Swedish opera singer and celebrity Malena Ernman. Her father is actor Svante Thunberg, while her grandfather is actor and director Olof Thunberg. “Her ancestor on her father’s side is the Nobel Prize winner, Svante Arrhenius. Arrhenius was a Swedish physicist and chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903. He is known for myriad scientific contributions but it was his discovery that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the Earth’s surface temperature. That finding led to the conclusion that human-made carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming.” [Source][On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Svante Arrhenius, 1896]

The newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) is the third largest in circulation in Sweden. It has been generous in its coverage of both Thunberg and her mother, Ernman.

On May 30, 2018, SvD selected Thunberg as one of its winning laureates in the SvD youth writing competition for the climate.

Prior to this, on April 21, 2018 SvD gave coverage of the families book that was underway. The book “Scener ur Hjärtat” (which translates in English to “Scenes of the Heart”), about the mental health challenges within her family coupled with anxieties facing climate change, would be launched on August 24, 2018, four days following the first day of Thunberg’s school strike (August 20, 2018).

World Wildlife Fund (WWF), perhaps the most corporate and egregious NGO in the world, and a fully corporatized Greenpeace, have both been instrumental in the propping up of Thunberg with the support of other international NGOs such as 350.org. On October 11, 2017, WWF Sweden awarded Ernman with the Environmental Hero award.

“Artist Malena Ernman and biologist Rebecka Le Moine appointed Miljöhälter of the Year by WWF” [Source]

On September 17, 2018, WWF Sweden named Thunberg as one of its three nominees for the Young Environmental Hero of the year 2018.

Greenpeace Sweden: ” Malena Ernman is an incredible activist in the fight to preserve our forest for future generations. Thanks to the support of her, and all of you other amazing people who support us, we can continue to protect our outstanding planet. Do you also want to give away a Christmas present that makes a real difference?” [Source: Facebook]

Greenpeace also utilizes Ernman, and Thunberg, to promote their powerful brand. Few are aware that in 1997, Greenpeace believed that climate policy must reflect the understanding that the world must not exceed a 1ºC temperature rise. Yet not long after, in 2009, with a full ecological crisis now engulfing the planet, Greenpeace led the demand (at the United Nations Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen), for a binding agreement that would allow the Earth to further warm to a full 2ºC. The 2ºC demand, under the umbrella group TckTckTck, co-founded by Greenpeace, would undermine Bolivia, the G77 and other small island states that had fought for a binding agreement to keep global temperatures from exceeding 1ºC. The following year, 350.org – another co-founder of TckTckTck – would undermine the Indigenous peoples of Bolivia yet again at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

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“Capitalism is in Danger of Falling Apart”

“But the more important fact remains: the mainstream debate is about how to practise capitalism, not whether we should choose between capitalism and some other system.” — Generation Investment

“We are making the case for long-term greed.” Al Gore and David Blood, in Generation’s New York City Office. August 25, 2015. (Christopher Griffith) [Source]

Utilizing the power of celebrity (an unprecedented phenomenon for the expansion of capital in the west), today’s global influencers such as Thunberg, are fully utilized to create a sense of urgency in regard to the climate crisis. The unspoken reality is, they are the very marketing strategy to save capitalism. This is a very “inconvenient truth”.

The Financial Times, July 27, 2014:

“Now is a crucial moment for investors, he continues. “The next five to 10 years is the most critical time to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. We think capitalism is in danger of falling apart. As a result, the business, which has been fairly reticent in the past about the mechanics of investing sustainably, is planning to increase its visibility. ‘We need to go all in. We are going to be more aggressive because we have to.'” — Blood and Gore: “Capitalism is in Danger of Falling Apart”, Financial Times, July 27, 2014

The September 8, 2015 article “David Blood and Al Gore Want to Reach the Next Generation” published by Institutional Investor, disclosed that “the California State Teachers’ Retirement System [CalSTRS], the second-­largest public pension fund in the U.S., with $191 billion in assets, was the first American institutional investor to invest in Generation.” This was part and parcel of the divestment campaign led by Ceres partner 350.org on behalf of wall street and finance. Jack Ehnes, CEO of CalSTRS, also serves on the board of Ceres.

The same article sheds light on the driving force behind the environmental NGOs that comprise the non-profit industrial complex and interlocking directorate highway that merges the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC) with the corporate world of finance:

“I would highly recommend people who are looking to divest from carbon take a look at Generation,’ says Larry Schweiger, a longtime conservationist and a board member of the Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit founded by Gore to promote education and initiatives about climate change. Schweiger was president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation from 2004 to 2014; under his watch the NWF became a Generation investor. ‘It was one of the best-­performing investments in our portfolio.’ he says.” — September 8, 2015, “David Blood and Al Gore Want to Reach the Next Generation,  Institutional Investor

Jumping forward, to April 29, 2018, the article, Al Gore: Sustainability is History’s Biggest Investment Opportunity, published by the Financial Times, discloses “climate wealth” is not for the many, but rather for the few:

“Generation lists large public sector investors among its clients, such as Calstrs, the $223bn Californian teachers’ pension plan, the $192bn New York State pension plan and the UK’s Environment Agency retirement fund. It also manages money for wealthy individuals but has stopped short of opening to retail investors. Almost all its assets are run in equity mandates, yet $1bn is invested in private equity.” [Source]

“I called Generation Income and found that their investment opportunities are limited.  They have two investment funds – Global Equity and Asia Equity.  The Global Equity fund is currently closed – there is a multi-year waiting list that is also currently closed.  The minimum investment is $1 million and you need to be super-accredited.  The fund seems to be targeted at institutional investors – not individuals.  The Asia Equity fund is open but the same minimum requirements apply ($1M minimum).” [Source: AIO Financial]

Generation Investment board members include eco-luminaries such as Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and the founder of the nonprofit, Mary Robinson Foundation. Robinson serves as president to Richard Branson’s B Team, which is managed by Purpose – the  public relations arm of Avaaz.

 

At this juncture, seeing as we are being led to believe that “sustainable investments” are the pathway to solving our planetary crisis, it might be wise to ask in what sustainable corporations Generation Investment is investing. Generation Investment has created a focus list of some 125 companies around the world in which it invests not based on how sustainable the business is, but rather, “on the quality of their business and management.” [Source]

Generation Investment’s portfolio and investments include multinational corporations with horrendous records of malfeasance, such as Amazon, Nike, Colgate, MasterCard, and the Chipotle restaurant chain with heavy investments in health and technology. And as all of these corporations are heavily invested and/or dependent on fossil fuels, how Generation Investment can justify investing in these companies is anyone’s guess.

“[Gore] and his colleagues are aiming at a small audience within the financial world that steers the flow of capital, and at the political authorities that set the rules for the financial system. ‘It turns out that in capitalism, the people with the real influence are the ones with capital!’ Gore told me during one of our talks this year. The message he hopes Generation’s record will call attention to is one the world’s investors can’t ignore: They can make more money if they change their practices in a way that will, at the same time, also reduce the environmental and social damage modern capitalism can do.” [Source]

[Tracking Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management Portfolio]

Above: The Washington D.C, 2017 People’s Climate March:  “The B Team, led by Sir Richard Branson, Sharan Burrow and former Vice President Al Gore, joined hundreds of thousands of workers, scientists, business leaders, students, parents, grandparents, children and indigenous groups demanding action on climate change by the U.S. administration.” [Source]

“It’s about an industrial transformation on a scale that we’ve never seen before.” — Sharan Burrow, general secretary, International Trade Union Confederation, B Team leader [Video]

 

“This is the biggest economic opportunity of our lifetime. This movement has left the station and is never going to stop.” — Jean Oelwang, President, Virgin Unite, Senior Partner, The B Team

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An Inconvenient Case Study: M-Kopa Solar, Africa

Source: M-Kopa website

“We think it’s possible to build a business with no trade-offs. We can benefit the environment. Our customers will be better off. And we’ll get richer. We all can win.” M-Kopa Canadian co-founder, Jesse Moore

Gore, with a net worth of approx. 350 million dollars, pays much lip service to subjects of inequality, wealth disparity and poverty.  Thus, it is useful to actually take a look at what the much hyped green energy revolution actually looks like, when played out in real life and exactly who is being served by the so-called “green revolution”.

M-Kopa Solar – “Power for Everyone” is a pay-per-use solar power provider (in the form of solar kits) created for impoverished African countries by white uber rich capitalists. The countries targeted thus far include rural Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

M-Kopa is the brainchild of Jesse Moore (CEO), Chad Larson and Nick Hughes —who helped develop M-Pesa, which has more than 19 million users in Kenya. [1]

From its inception, Gore’s firm has been a lead equity investor of M-Kopa. Incubated by Signal Point Partners in 2011, M-Kopa Solar raised money from investors including Richard Branson and Generation Investment Management. Launching in late 2012, the company’s initial goal of selling 1,000 solar packages a week within three years was reached within 12 months. On December 2, 2015, M-Kopa, now the world’s leading “pay-as-you-go energy provider to off-grid homes”, announced the closing of a 19 million USD financing round led by Generation Investment Management LLP. [Source]

Included on the M-Kopa board of advisors is Colin Le Duc, a founding partner of Generation Investment Management and the Co-CIO of Generation’s growth equity Climate Solutions Funds.

Other investors/lenders/partners include Shell Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

At this juncture, before we continue, it is vital to note that, in 2015, M-Kopa estimated that eighty percent of its customers lived on less than 2 USD per day.

By 2015, M-Kopa had reached over 40 million USD in revenue.

The December 2, 2015 Bloomberg article “The Solar Company Making a Profit on Poor Africans – M-Kopa Plans to be a $1 Billion Company by Selling Solar Panels to Rural Residents—and Providing Them With Credit” discloses the reality behind corporate vulturism hidden beneath a vellum of white saviour greenwash. Following the “success” of prepaid water meters for many African countries, M-Kopa charges high interest rates to the poor, with astronomically higher dividends/returns going back to the rich:

“The interest M-Kopa charges is high by U.S. or European standards. The cash price of one of its products is about 20 percent less than the installment price. But in the markets where the company’s working—so far, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda—the rates are competitive. Traditional microfinance companies typically charge about 20 percent interest on their loans, and in October the Kenyan government issued treasury bills that offered investors a 23 percent annual return.”

Upon first glance, a person would assume this business is the selling of solar. Yet this assumption would be a mistake. The product is finance: “About a quarter of those who pay off their first purchase move on to others, the company says.” This is colonization in a 21^st century new form. Colonization via debt made possible by the selling of Western values.

Other vultures exploiting the impoverished and vulnerable under the guise of green and “clean energy for all” include stalwart organizations, such as the Gates Foundation and Mastercard.

Unlike Western finance, where loans are usually paid in monthly installments, Africans are not given this same measure of trust. Rather, on top of a deposit, they must pay for their new loan (debt) on a daily basis. Perhaps this can be filed under “green energy racism”. Those that do not make their payments, will be punished accordingly: “Our loan officer is that SIM card in the device that can shut it off remotely,” says Chad Larson, M-Kopa’s finance director and its third co-founder. “We know that it’s important for them to keep their lights on at night, so they can be counted on to keep paying.” [Source] [“The pay-as-you-go feature is enabled by embedded machine-to-machine technology that allows M-KOPA to receive payments through the M-Pesa mobile money platform. M-KOPA can turn off the device remotely if the customer falls behind on payments. Repayments create a credit history for poor consumers that may give them access to other financial services.”][Source]

“The solar lamps are programmed in such a way that they automatically switch off whenever customers default on the daily payments. The start-up provides a solar power system that consists of a panel, three lamps, radio and mobile phone charging kit.” — M-Pesa solar dealer to blacklist defaulters with credit bureaus, February 18, 2015

Daily payments for M-Kopa are topped up through the M-Pesa service whereby Safaricom, the largest telecommunications corporation in Kenya (and the most profitable company in the East and Central African region) earns an undisclosed fee for every transaction. M-Kopa and Kenya Power, are Safaricom’s biggest pay-billing clients. [In 2015, Kenya’s Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore was the fourth African to join Richard Branson’s B Team – Ventures Africa].

“We don’t invest in solar at all,” says David Rossow, who helps manage the Gates Foundation’s $1.5 billion portfolio of program-related investments (PRIs). The foundation doesn’t even have a clean energy program. But it does have a program called Financial Services for the Poor. “We care about asset-backed lending for the last mile.” [Source]

Of further value for our white saviour entrepreneurs is the valuable metadata: ” M-Kopa’s current customer contract stipulates that the data the company amasses can be used only to improve customer experience, but the company has plans to collect listener and viewership data from its radios and televisions. ‘There’s data we can gather that practically no one else can,’ [Chad] Larson says.”

And what does the green energy revolution, wholly dependent on the further plundering of the Earth, actually bring to Africa, where more than 600 million people have zero access to electricity and more than 300 million have no clean sanitation? A solar oven? A toilet? Water filtration? Plumbing? Schools? Health clinics? Hospitals? Answer: the television.

“Make your payments in full and on time, so you can qualify for system upgrades and much more!” — M-Kopa website

And just because the business is actually finance, more than it is providing solar products, [2] that doesn’t mean there isn’t ample opportunity to rob African people blind. The price of the basic 24-inch television solar kit [2-1][2-2] when financed is an outrageous 644.88 USD. The cash price is still a whopping 546.61 USD, which is an exorbitant sum for people who exist on $2 (USD) per day. Of course, this price only remains so if the daily payments are made each and every day, ensuring no additional interest or penalties accumulate on top of the original loan amount.

The gross exploitation here is beyond the pale. Consider a 30W solar package comparable to the M-Kopa package above can be purchased retail for 157.99 USD on Amazon. Likewise, the price of a basic 24-inch LED television is often advertised in the United States and Canada for under 100.00 USD/CND. Many of the items sold in the packages, [2-3], can be found in the proliferating Western “dollar” stores for $1.00 (USD) each.

 

Photo: M-Kopa

One might wonder what happens when the loans outlive the outsourced products with short-lived warranties – a two-year warranty on the 24-inch television and a one-year warranty on accessories.

Between bombing campaigns on African countries, former US president Barrack Obama found time to visit the M-Kopa solar corporation. “US President Barack Obama talks to June Muli, M-Kopa’s head of customer care, during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi in July 2015. Photo: M-Kopa.” [Source: Forbes]

In February 2015, M-Kopa announced its plan to have their customers, who defaulted on their loans, blacklisted with credit bureaus:

“M-Pesa-linked solar dealer, M-Kopa, will from April begin sharing information on loan defaulters with credit reference bureaus to arrest the rising number of non-payers. The firm has issued a notice saying it plans to share information on how customers pay for their M-Kopa solar kits, in a move that will see defaulters blacklisted by lenders. M-Kopa now joins other utility providers such as Kenya Power and water service boards which have taken to credit reference bureaus to list those who default on paying their bills.” [Source]

Credit and the perpetual debt that ensues is not the only aspect of the American dream that multinational corporations are bringing to the Global South.

To be clear, it’s not “sustainable economies” that our corporate overlords pursue. A capitalism that is in trouble, must seek out – in order to save itself, new markets:

“The Gates Foundation’s team saw in M-KOPA an opportunity to demonstrate that mobile financial services could help businesses get more such valuable products into the hands of a new market of eager consumers: poor people.” [Source]

“The key was helping M-KOPA turn its customer accounts into bankable collateral. Other investors were taking equity positions in the startup. The Gates Foundation instead made a $5 million loan, alongside the Commercial Bank of Africa. The thesis: if M-KOPA could successfully pay back the loan, local commercial banks would see the payments from pay-as-you-go financing schemes as a reliable revenue stream. That would create a new lendable asset class.” — Banking on the Poor, summer, 2016, Stanford Social Innovation Review

Here we must look at the reality behind the “green jobs” – that M-Kopa created – a pivotal selling feature of the so-called “green economy”, new green deal, sustainable development / global goals, and a myriad of other holistic sounding language that mask reality.

What is rarely mentioned, if ever, is the fact that the M-Kopa solar panels, televisions, etc. are not made locally, rather, they are “sourced from overseas markets.” (China) Although the company has suggested that solar panels may be made locally over the next few years, (likely due to the growing animosity from Kenyans), the following information will demonstrate that this will only be the case if Kenyans can be exploited more so than Chinese.

 

In the March 19, 2018 article, Solar Firm M-Kopa Lays off 450 Staff to Cut Costs, published by Business Daily Africa, the reason for doing so was disclosed in no uncertain terms:

“Kenya’s mobile phone-based solar kit reseller M-Kopa Solar fired 450 workers in its subsidiaries in four countries to ease operational costs and boost profitability.

 

M-Kopa co-founder and CEO Jesse Moore said the firm was in a better position to meet its targets and expand solar connections to the next one million customers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania offices.

 

‘This was done to reduce fixed costs and keep us on the path to profitability which resulted in job reductions across offices in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and UK, reducing our global headcount by 18 per cent,’ he said.”

An article published by Quartz Africa four days prior, on March 15, 2018, was even more to the point:

“M-Kopa, the Kenyan pay-per-use solar power provider, is downsizing in a bid to improve its competitiveness, ensure long-term sustainability, and increase return for investors.”

This is worth emphasizing. To be clear – this is a profitable increase for investors, with net-worths of millions of dollars – made at the expense of firing workers making approx. $2.00 USD per day.

March 15, 2018: M-KOPA secures 100million Ksh from CDC, FinDev Canada: CIO East Africa (L-R) Jesse Moore, Co-Founder and CEO, M-KOPA and Paul Lamontagne, Managing Director of FinDev Canada during a customer site visit in Ngong.

Immediately following the sacking of African M-Kopa employees – along with outsourcing – Generation Investment put up more funding. The  March 21, 2018, article “M-Kopa Solar Receives $10 Million Investment After Sacking 150 Employees” published by the Kenyan Wall Street, disclosed the following:

“The investment comes after the company completed a restructuring exercise that saw staff count reduce by 18% from 1000 to 850 across East Africa. As we reported last week, about 78 developers were fired and their work has now been outsourced to a foreign company called Applicita that is owned by the company’s new CTO.

 

According to the CEO Jesse Moore, the restructuring process has been driven by the need to increase its competitiveness, enhance long-term sustainability, and boost investors’ returns.

 

The FinDev investment was led by CDC Group, an investor that had formerly pumped $7 million into the company, and includes follow-on investments by Generation Investment Management and LGT Venture Philanthropy. The two firms are current M-Kopa shareholders.”

The white colonization that continues to proliferate was not lost on Kenyan Wall Street which noted:

“… the company continues to raise eyebrows over its status as a Kenyan startup since its senior management is mostly composed of foreigners. What’s more, the matter of sacking local employees to outsource its operations to a foreign company will not go forgotten.”

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“The Gathering” & Nurturing of Foundation Funded Pragmatism

As disclosed in ACT I of this series, the very first people tagged in the initial Thunberg school strike tweet by We Don’t Have Time founder, Ingmar Rentzhog, were the following five Twitter users: Greta Thunberg, This Is Zero Hour, Jamie Margolin, the teenage founder of This Is Zero Hour, Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and the People’s Climate Strike Twitter account (in the identical font and aesthetics as 350.org).

The first tweets from any given NGO Twitter accounts are important as they often reveal exactly for what purpose/action the account was created for. In this particular instance, the very first tweet from the People’s Climate Strike account contained the hashtag #floodthesystem (July 24, 2015). This hashtag was devised to promote the action named Flood Wall Street, which took place on September 28, 2015, leading up to the second People’s Climate March on November 29, 2015. In 2015, the first to start using the #floodthesystem hashtag were This Changes Everything (NGO of Naomi Klein, 350.org board member), May 6, 2015; OccuWorld, May 12, 2015 (“something big is coming this fall”), retweeted by Rising Tide North America, Sharon Vardatira, Meridian Consulting, May 13, 2015, and Occupy Wall Street, May 20, 2015.

The strategy behind devising different social media accounts affiliated with hashtags, campaigns and NGO manufactured movements, is one that will catch fire. Such is the case with the Climate Strike Twitter account (Climate Strike! – Global Climate Convergence) that was largely abandoned by 2017, and #EarthStrike, which largely failed to catch fire (thus far), to this very recent climate strike – as a hashtag – that has struck gold with the public psyche.

The “one 15 year old girl” tweet was then re-tweeted by Paola Fiore, founder and CEO of ETICAMBIENTE® Sustainability Management & Communications Consulting. Fiore is also the National Coordinator for Italy for The Climate Reality Project Europe. [1] Affiliations, memberships and partnerships of Fiore’s firm include, but are not limited to, the Association for Coaching, Eco Community, United Planet Faith & Science Initiative (Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a founding member as is Dr. Rajendra Pachauri), 2degrees (funded by the European Commission), and the International Coach Federation. ETICAMBIENTE® holds membership with both The Climate Reality Project, and it’s client, the International Society of Sustainability Professionals.

The first “follows”‘ selected from any given NGO Twitter account are also important as they often reveal who created the account – or those closest affiliated with the project. In this instance, the first two follows for the People’s Climate Strike Twitter account (created June 2015) are Cheri  Honkala and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign founded by Honkala. Honkala was the “Our Revolution” endorsed candidate for Pensylvania State Representative (#WeAreThe197th) in 2017.

With the formation of board announced on August 29, 2016, the 2018 Our Revolution winning candidates included Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On September 18, 2018 Our Revolution (OR) and the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) announced a formal partnership established by both of the organizations national boards.  “PDA  is a grassroots political action committee, founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and U.S. politics by electing progressives to federal office.” The PDA National Advisory Board includes members of US Congress, documentary film maker Michael Moore, commentator Thom Hartmann, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and others of high liberal status.[5]

Recently, a new institute was launched which is partnered with Our Revolution: The Sanders Institute (“Our Mission: To Revitalize Democracy”). The inaugural conference (The Sanders Institute Gathering) took place in Burlington, Vermont (US) from November 29 – December 1, 2018. The invite only event  included the crème de la crème of the liberal political establishment including; Bernie Sanders who delivered the keynote, 350.org board member Naomi Klein and 350.org founder Bill McKibben ( Sanders Institute fellow) who both spoke on the New Green Deal,  Jeffrey Sachs (Sanders Institute fellow), Cornel West (Sanders Institute fellow) New York mayor Bill de Blasio, Nina Turner (Ohio state senator, president of Our Revolution), Ben Cohen (Ben & Jerry’s), and U.S. representative Tulsi Gabbard (Sanders Institute fellow) [Full list]

The green bourgeoisie rubbed elbows with “celebrity activists” including Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte (Glover and Belafonte are both Sanders Institute fellows). WCAX News reported that the only debate that night was whether or not media would be allowed into the event. Ultimately the media was given access to the event, yet had to adhere to conditions of who they were, and who not allowed to record. (So much for freedom of the press.)

Participants spoke passionately about Indigenous rights, racism, etc. at the invite only event of predominantly white rich saviours who are presented as the leaders of our only salvation. In reality, they are only trying to salvage a system (via reforms) in which they are flourishing. Another inconvenient truth at odds with the gathering, are the promotional videos produced for the institute, which deliberately strive to give the pretense of politically correct diversity and inclusion.

July 20, 2018: Zero Hour’s Jamie Margolin is to the left of Bernie Sanders (centre). Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is in the back row, far right. “Organizers with Zero Hour meet with Sen. Bernie Sanders during their lobbying day Thursday.” Photo: Courtesy of Zero Hour [Source]

As previously highlighted, Zero Hour is one of the five Twitter accounts tagged in the first Thunberg school strike tweet. Partners of This Is Zero Hour include; We Don’t Have Time, 350.org, The Climate Reality Project, the Sierra Club, Power Shift, the Sunrise Movement and many other NGOs that garner much power and influence within the non-profit industrial complex.

September 20, 2018, Twitter: “Thank you Vice President @algore for your support & endorsement of the #ThisIsZeroHour movement”

January 4, 2019, Twitter

Other Zero Hour partners include Powershift, iMatterYouth, CareBoutClimate, ClimateSign, Sierra Club, 350.org and Citizens Climate.

In this December 10, 2018 tweet (9:35AM), ten Twitter accounts were tagged; 350.org, We Don’t Have Time, the Sunrise Movement, Teen Vogue, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Women’s March, Our Children’s Trust, Zero Hour, and March for Our Lives.

Activism & Corporatism Working Hand in Hand

The Climate Group,  is a co-founder of We Mean Business – a coalition of organizations working with thousands of the world’s most powerful corporations and investors. [6]

Perhaps the most noteworthy online exchange were the “words of encouragement” extended via Twitter by The Climate Group [6] to Zero Hour for leading the Youth Climate March in July, 2018. Also of significance were the hashtags used in The Climate Group tweets: #WeDontHaveTime and #FrontlineYouth. This effectively illuminates the strategy and the key players behind the “climate movement” – where the NGOs, their funders, and the corporate entities are all on the same team.

This is not kindness. This is exquisite, albeit callous strategy.

Incubated by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as an in-house project that later evolved into a free-standing institution, The Climate Group is a co-founder of We Mean Business – “a coalition of organizations working with thousands of the world’s most influential businesses and investors.” The founding partners of We Mean Business are Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) (full membership and associate members list), CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), Ceres, The B Team, The Climate Group, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (CLG) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Together, these groups represent the most powerful – and ruthless – corporations on the planet, salivating to unleash 100 trillion dollars for the fourth industrial revolution.

As I will demonstrate in the next segment of this series, the “frontline youth” energy is strategically being mobilized by a highly organized and sophisticated climate campaign. This same energy is being captured, then channeled back to save, strengthen and expand, the capitalist, hegemonic system that promises to destroy the future for these very same youth. One could call this a circular death economy. It takes much skill and coordination to “herd cats” [7] – to their own slaughter.

 

 

End Notes:

[1] M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer, financing and microfinancing service. It was launched in 2007 by Vodafone for Safaricom and Vodacom (the largest mobile network operators in Kenya and Tanzania it has expanded to Afghanistan, South Africa, India, Romania, and Albania.) In Kenya, M-Pesa is being utilized to impose a debt ideology/familiarity that reflects western debt ideology.

[2] The company M-KOPA offers the following three(3) product packages:

[2-1] The M-KOPA 5 Solar Home System can be purchased with a deposit of $2,999.00 Ksh. ($29.75 USD), plus 420 daily payments of $50.00 Ksh($0.50 USD). This total payment, including the deposit, is $23,999.00 Ksh. ($238.03 USD). The cash purchase price with no financing is  $18,999.00 Ksh. ($188.44 USD). [Accessed January 27, 2019]

The “M-KOPA 5 Solar Home System” includes one 8W solar panel, one rechargeable radio, one M-KOPA 5 control unit with a lithium battery, four 1.2W LED bulbs, one 5-in-1 phone charge cable, one custom charge cable, and one rechargeable LED torch.

[3-2]  The M-KOPA 600 requires a deposit of $5,999.00 UGX. ($59.50 USD), plus 590 daily payments of $100.00 Ksh($0.99 USD). The total payment, including the deposit, is $64,999.00 Ksh. ($644.68 USD). The cash purchase price with no financing is  $ 1,999,000.00 Ksh. ($546.61 USD).” [Accessed January 27, 2019]

The “M-KOPA 600 (24? TV)” package includes one M-KOPA 600 control unit, one 24-inch flat screen digital TV, one 30W solar panel, one TV remote control, one TV aerial, two solar lights, one solar rechargeable LED torch, one solar rechargeable radio, and two phone charging cables. “Satellite Dish & CAM Card provided separately.”

[3-3]  The M-KOPA 600 w/ Zuku CAM requires a deposit of $6,999.00 UGX. ($69.42 USD), plus 590 daily payments of $135.00 Ksh($1.34 USD). The total payment, including the deposit, is $86,649.00 Ksh. ($859.42 USD). The cash purchase price with no financing is  $ 69,999.00 Ksh. ($694.27 USD).” [Accessed January 27, 2019]

[4] We create and promote innovative sustainability programs and corporate social responsibility initiatives, and offer strategic advisory services on climate change and the SDGs.

[5] The PDA National Advisory Board includes members of US Congress: Representatives Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison, Raul Grijalva, and James McGovern; as well as documentarian Michael Moore, Actress / Activist Mimi Kennedy, Rev. Dr. Rodney Sadler, Author Jim Hightower, and Radio Hosts / Authors Lila Garrett and Thom Hartmann. Activists Michael Lighty, Medea Benjamin, Steve Cobble, Kristin Cabral, Dr. Paul Song, M.D., Belen Sisa, and Professor Marjorie Cohn also serve on the PDA Advisory Board, which is chaired by the exemplary activist Donna Smith.” [Source][Full Board Accessed January 10, 2019]

[6] The Climate Group: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also acts as an incubator for in-house projects that later evolve into free-standing institutions – a case in point being ‘The Climate Group’, launched in London in 2004.  The Climate Group coalition includes more than 50 of the world’s largest corporations and sub-national governments, including big polluters such as energy giants BP and Duke Energy, as well as several partner organizations, one being that of the big NGO Avaaz. The Climate Group are advocates unproven carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), nuclear power and biomass as crucial technologies for a low-carbon economy. The Climate Group works closely with other business lobby groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which works consistently to sabotage climate action. The Climate Group also works on other initiatives, one being that of the ‘Voluntary Carbon Standard’, a new global standard for voluntary offset projects. One marketing strategist company labeled the Climate Group’s campaign ‘Together’ as “the best inoculation against greenwash”. The Climate Group has operations in Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America.  It was a partner to the ‘Copenhagen Climate Council’.

[7] Forbes, September 25, 2014: Leadership Lessons from The People’s Climate March:“With that as her model of leadership it is perhaps no surprise that so many cats have been so successfully herded. But there is more. The other leadership lesson is putting project before person.” [Source]

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green Collective.

 

 

 

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex [ACT I]

By Cory Morningstar

January 17, 2019

 

“What’s infuriating about manipulations by the Non Profit Industrial Complex is that they harvest the goodwill of the people, especially young people. They target those who were not given the skills and knowledge to truly think for themselves by institutions which are designed to serve the ruling class. Capitalism operates systematically and structurally like a cage to raise domesticated animals. Those organizations and their projects which operate under false slogans of humanity in order to prop up the hierarchy of money and violence are fast becoming some of the most crucial elements of the invisible cage of corporatism, colonialism and militarism.” — Hiroyuki Hamada, artist

 

1958: “17-year-old Bianca Passarge of Hamburg dresses up as a cat, complete with furry tail, and dances on wine bottles. Her performance was based on a dream and she practised for eight hours every day in order to perfect her dance.”

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent series has been written in two volumes.

[Volume I: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI] [Addenda: I]

[Volume II: An Object Lesson In Spectacle • ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V] [ACTS VI & VII forthcoming]

Volume I:

In ACT I, I disclose that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and face of the youth movement to combat climate change, serves as special youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, We Don’t Have Time. I then explore the ambitions behind the tech company We Don’t Have Time.

In ACT II, I illustrate how today’s youth are the sacrificial lambs for the ruling elite. Also in this act I introduce the board members of and advisors to We Don’t Have Time. I explore the leadership in the nascent We Don’t Have Time and the partnerships between the well-established corporate environmental entities: Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, 350.org, Avaaz, Global Utmaning (Global Challenge), the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In ACT III, I deconstruct how Al Gore and the planet’s most powerful capitalists are behind today’s manufactured youth movements and why. I explore the We Don’t Have Time/Thunberg connections to Our Revolution, the Sanders Institute, This Is Zero Hour, the Sunrise Movement and the Green New Deal. I also touch upon Thunberg’s famous family. In particular, Thunberg’s celebrity mother, Malena Ernman (WWF Environmental Hero of the Year 2017) and her August 2018 book launch. I then explore the generous media attention afforded to Thunberg in both May and April of 2018 by SvD, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers.

In ACT IV, I examine the current campaign, now unfolding, in “leading the public into emergency mode”. More importantly, I summarize who and what this mode is to serve.

In ACT V, I take a closer look at the Green New Deal. I explore Data for Progress and the targeting of female youth as a key “femographic”. I connect the primary architect and authors of the “Green New Deal” data to the World Resources Institute. From there, I walk you through the interlocking Business & Sustainable Development Commission, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and the New Climate Economy – a project of the World Resources Institute. I disclose the common thread between these groups and the assignment of money to nature, represented by the Natural Capital Coalition and the non-profit industrial complex as an entity. Finally, I reveal how this has culminated in the implementation of payments for ecosystem services (the financialization and privatization of nature, global in scale) which is “expected to be adopted during the fifteenth meeting in Beijing in 2020.”

In the final act, ACT VI [Crescendo], I wrap up the series by divulging that the very foundations which have financed the climate “movement” over the past decade are the same foundations now partnered with the Climate Finance Partnership looking to unlock 100 trillion dollars from pension funds. I reveal the identities of individuals and groups at the helm of this interlocking matrix, controlling both the medium and the message. I take a step back in time to briefly demonstrate the ten years of strategic social engineering that have brought us to this very precipice. I look at the relationship between WWF, Stockholm Institute and World Resources Institute as key instruments in the creation of the financialization of nature. I also take a look at the first public campaigns for the financialization of nature (“natural capital”) that are slowly being brought into the public realm by WWF. I reflect upon how mainstream NGOs are attempting to safeguard their influence and further manipulate the populace by going underground through Extinction Rebellion groups being organized in the US and across the world.

With the smoke now cleared, the weak and essentially non-existent demands reminiscent of the 2009 TckTckTck “demands” can now be fully understood.

Some of these topics, in addition to others, will be released and discussed in further detail as addenda built on the large volume of research. This includes stepping through the looking glass, with an exploration of what the real “Green New Deal” under the Fourth Industrial Revolution will look like. Also forthcoming is a look at the power of celebrity – and how it has become a key tool for both capital and conformity.

[*Note: This series contains information and quotes that have been translated from Swedish to English via Google Translate.]

 

 

A C T   O N E

 

“How is it possible for you to be so easily tricked by something so simple as a story, because you are tricked? Well, it all comes down to one core thing and that is emotional investment. The more emotionally invested you are in anything in your life, the less critical and the less objectively observant you become.” — David JP Phillips, We Don’t Have Time board of directors, “The Magical Science of Storytelling”

 

 

October 26, 2018, Facebook: Greta Thunberg, We Don’t Have Time

 

August 2018, Finance Monthly: co-founder of We Don’t Have Time, Ingmar Rentzhog

We Don’t Have Time

As this term is quickly becoming the quote du jour as a collective mantra to address the ongoing environmental disaster that can best be described as a nod to the obvious, it’s true that we don’t have time. We don’t have time to stop imperialist wars – wars being the greatest contributor to climate change and environmental degradation by far – but we must do so. Of course this is an impossible feat under the crushing weight of the capitalist system, a US war economy, and the push for a fourth industrial revolution founded on renewable energy. Yet, inconvenience has nothing to do with necessity in regards to addressing a particular situation. What is never discussed in regard to the so-called “clean energy revolution” is that its existence is wholly dependent on “green” imperialism – the latter term being synonymous with blood.

But that’s not what this series is about.

This series is about new financial markets in a world where global economic growth is experiencing stagnation. The threat and subsequent response is not so much about climate change as it is about the collapse of the capitalist economic system. This series is about the climate wealth opportunity of unprecedented growth, profits, and the measures our elite classes will take in order to achieve it – including the exploitation of the youth.

What is We Don’t Have Time?

 

“Our goal is to become among the biggest players on the internet.” — Ingmar Rentzhog, We Don’t Have Time, December 22, 2017, Nordic Business Insider

On August 20, 2018 a tweet featuring a photo of “a Swedish girl” sitting on a sidewalk was released by the tech company, We Don’t Have Time, founded by its CEO Ingmar Rentzhog:

“One 15 year old girl in front of the Swedish parliament is striking from School until Election Day in 3 weeks[.] Imagine how lonely she must feel in this picture. People where [sic] just walking by. Continuing with the business as usual thing. But the truth is. We can’t and she knows it!”

Rentzhog’s tweet, via the We Don’t Have Time twitter account, would be the very first exposure of Thunberg’s now famous school strike.

Above: We Don’t Have Time tweet, August 20, 2018

Tagged in Rentzhog’s “lonely girl” tweet were five twitter accounts: Greta Thunberg, Zero Hour (youth movement), Jamie Margolin (the teenage founder of Zero Hour), Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, and the People’s Climate Strike twitter account (in the identical font and aesthetics as 350.org). [These groups will be touched upon briefly later in this series.]

Rentzhog is the founder of Laika (a prominent Swedish communications consultancy firm providing services to the financial industry, recently acquired by FundedByMe). He was appointed as chair of the think tank Global Utmaning (Global Challenge in English) on May 24, 2018, and serves on the board of FundedByMe. Rentzhog is a member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Organization Leaders, where he is part of the European Climate Policy Task Force. He received his training in March 2017 by former US Vice President Al Gore in Denver, USA, and again in June 2018, in Berlin.

Founded in 2006, Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project is a partner of We Don’t Have Time.

The We Don’t Have Time Foundation cites two special youth advisors and trustees: Greta Thunberg and Jamie Margolin. [Source]

Mårten Thorslund, chief marketing and sustainability officer of We Don’t Have Time, took many of the very first photos of Thunberg following the launch of her school strike on August 20, 2018. In the following instance, photos taken by Thorslund accompany the article written by David Olsson, chief operating officer of We Don’t Have Time, This 15-year-old Girl Breaks Swedish Law for the Climate, published August 23, 2018:

“Greta became a climate champion and tried to influence those closest to her. Her father now writes articles and gives lectures on the climate crisis, whereas her mother, a famous Swedish opera singer, has stopped flying. All thanks to Greta.

 

And clearly, she has stepped up her game, influencing the national conversation on the climate crisis—two weeks before the election. We Don’t Have Time reported on Greta’s strike on its first day and in less than 24 hours our Facebook posts and tweets received over twenty thousand likes, shares and comments. It didn’t take long for national media to catch on. As of the first week of the strike, at least six major daily newspapers, as well as Swedish and Danish national TV, [1] have interviewed Greta. Two Swedish party leaders have stopped by to talk to her as well.” [Emphasis added]

The article continues:

“Is there something big going on here? This one kid immediately got twenty supporters who now sit next to her. This one kid created numerous news stories in national newspapers and on TV. This one kid has received thousands of messages of love and support on social media…. Movements by young people, such as Jaime Margolin’s #ThisIsZeroHour that #WeDontHaveTime interviewed earlier, speaks with a much needed urgency that grown-ups should pay attention to…” [Emphasis in original]

Yes – there was, and still is, something going on.

It’s called marketing and branding.

“Yesterday I sat completely by myself, today there is one other here too. There are none [that] I know.” — Greta Thunberg, August 21, 2018,  Nyheter newspaper, Sweden [Translation via Google]

The “one kid immediately got twenty supporters” – from a Swedish network for sustainable business. What is going on – is the launch of a global campaign to usher in a required consensus for the Paris Agreement, the Green New Deal and all climate-related policies and legislation written by the power elite – for the power elite. This is necessary in order to unlock the trillions of dollars in funding by way of massive public demand.

These agreements and policies include carbon capture and storage (CCS), enhanced oil recovery (EOR), bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), rapid total decarbonisation, payments for ecosystem services (referred to as “natural capital”), nuclear energy and fission, and a host of other “solutions” that are hostile to an already devastated planet. What is going on – is a rebooting of a stagnant capitalist economy, that needs new markets – new growth – in order to save itself. What is being created is a  mechanism to unlock approximately 90 trillion dollars for new investments and infrastructure. What is going on is the creation of, and investment in, perhaps the biggest behavioural change experiment yet attempted, global in scale. And what are the deciding factors in what behaviours global society should adhere to? And more importantly, who decides? This is a rhetorical question, as we know full well the answer: the same Western white male saviours and the capitalist economic system they have implemented globally that has been the cause of our planetary ecological nightmare. This crisis continues unabated as they appoint themselves (yet again) as the saviours for all humanity – a recurring problem for centuries.

Source: WWF

+++

“Our goal is to become at least 100 million users. It is an eighth of all who have climbed on social media. Only last month we managed to reach 18 million social media accounts according to a media survey that Meltwater news made for us. At Facebook, we are currently seven times the number of followers among the world’s all climate organizations. We are growing with 10,000 new global followers per day on Facebook.” — Ingmar Rentzhog interview with Miljö & Utveckling, October 15, 2018

We Don’t Have Time identifies itself as a movement and tech start-up that is  currently developing “the world’s largest social network for climate action”. The “movement” component was launched on April 22, 2018. The web platform is still in the progress of being built, but is to launch on April 22, 2019 (coinciding with Earth Day). “Through our platform, millions of members will unite to put pressure on leaders, politicians and corporations to act for the climate.” The start-up’s goal to rapidly achieve 100 million users has thus far attracted 435 investors (74.52% of the company’s shares) via the web platform FundedByMe.

The start-up intends to offer partnerships, digital advertising and services related to climate change, sustainability and the growing green, circular economy to “a large audience of engaged consumers and ambassadors.”

We Don’t Have Time is mainly active in three markets: social media, digital advertising and carbon offsets. [“In the US alone estimated market for carbon offsetting amount to over 82 billion USD of which voluntary carbon offset represents 191 million USD. The market is expected to increase in the future, in 2019 estimated 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions to be associated with any kind of cost for offsetting.”] As the company is a niche organization, social networks are able to provide services tailored to platform users. The start-up has identified such an opportunity by offering its users the ability to purchase carbon offsets through the platform’s own certification. This option applies to both the individual user of the platform, as well as to whole organizations/companies on the platform.

One incentive of many identified in the start-up investment section is that users will be encouraged to “communicate jointly and powerfully with influential actors.” Such influencers are Greta Thunberg and Jamie Margolin who both have lucrative futures in the branding of “sustainable” industries and products, should they wish to pursue this path in utilizing their present celebrity for personal gain (a hallmark of the “grassroots” NGO movement). [Further reading: The Increasing Vogue for Capitalist-Friendly Climate Discourse]

The tech company is banking on creating a massive member base of “conscious users” that will enable “profitable commercial collaborations, for example, advertising”:

“Decision makers – politicians, companies, organizations, states – get a climate rating based on their ability to live up to the users’ initiative. Knowledge and opinion gather in one place and users put pressure on decision makers to drive a faster change.”

 

“The main sources of revenue come from commercial players who have received high climate rating and confidence in the We Don’t Have Times member base.[2] … The revenue model will resemble the social platform of TripAdvisor.com’s business model, which with its 390 million users annually generates over $ 1 billion in good profitability…We will work with strategic partners such as Climate Reality leaders, climate organizations, bloggers, influencers and leading experts in the field.”

Video: We Don’t Have Time promotional video, published April 6, 2018 [Running time: 1m:38s]

A “state of conscious and permanent visibility assures the automatic functioning of power.” — Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish

Comparable to other social media endeavors where “likes”, “followers”, and unfathomable amounts of metadata determine financial success, the fact that the business is virtual enables high profit margins. The return on investment, best described as mainstream acquiescence and desirability by way of exposure, will be obtained through future dividends. In anticipation of this projected success, the tech company plans to take its business to the stock exchange in the near future (think Facebook and Instagram.) The most critical component to the success of this start-up (like its predecessors) is achieving a massive member base. Therefore, according to the company, it “will work actively with both enlisting influencers and creating content for various campaigns linked to the hashtag #WeDontHaveTime.”

 

 

On April 18, 2018, the crowdfunding platform FundedByMe (utilized by We Don’t Have Time to enlist investors) acquired Ingmar Rentzhog’s Laika Consulting. Excerpts from the press release are as follows:

“FundedByMe today announced that they acquire 100% of the shares in the established financial company Laika Consulting AB, a leading communications agency in financial communications. As a result, the company doubles its investment network to close to 250,000 members, making it the largest in the Nordic region. The acquisition is a strategic step to further strengthen FundedByMe’s range of financial services…

 

[Ingmar Rentzhog] will continue to work on strategic client projects for FundedByMe and Laika Consulting in part-time. Moreover he takes a role in the company’s board. The majority of his time he will focus on climate change through the newly established company, “We Don’t Have Time”, as a CEO and founder.” [Emphasis added] [Source] [3]

 

We Don’t Have Time Software App: The Latest Wave of Western & Corporate Ideology at Your Fingertips

 In October 2016, Netflix aired the third season of Black Mirror, “a Twilight Zone–esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures.” The first episode “Nosedive” posits a shallow and hypocritical populace in which “social platforms, self-curation and validation-seeking” have become the underpinning of a future society. [Black Mirror’s third season opens with a vicious take on social media]. The disturbing episode shares parallels to the concept behind We Don’t Have Time. The difference being instead of rating people exclusively, we will be rating brands, products, corporations and everything else climate related.

Acquisition International Magazine Issue 10, 2018 

The not unintended results will be tenfold. The corporations with the best advertising executives and largest budgets will be the winners. Greenwashing will become an unprecedented method of advertising as will the art of “storytelling” (no one ever said a story has to be true). Small or local businesses with little financial means will more than often be the losers. Especially hit, will be migrant entrepreneurs whose cultures differ from ours in the West – where “Western democracy” is the only democracy that is valid.

Adding to the conversation as to who is ultimately benefiting from this endeavor from a cultural, social, geographical and ethnic perspective is the fact that “subconscious biases about race or gender, is a proven problem on many crowdsourced platforms.” [Source] Ultimately, this means that in order to acquire the needed support as a multimedia platform, the self-interest of the Western world must be at the fore with no concern for the Global South – other than what we can continue to steal from her.  The inconvenient truth is that all roads lead to the same collective (if even subconscious)  goal: the preservation of whiteness.

Rentzhog assures his audience that “our core, though, will remain, namely to empower our users to put pressure on world leaders so that they move faster towards an emission-free world and environmentally sustainable solutions and policies.” [Acquisition International Magazine Issue 10, 2018]

An “emission-free world” sounds enticing – yet there are no plans whatsoever to retract our growth economies. “Environmentally sustainable solutions” … according to who? According to a tribal elder who upholds the principles of “the seventh generation” (the Indigenous belief that humans must properly provide for its descendants by ensuring that our actions in the present allow the Earthly survival of seven succeeding generations – not to be confused with Unilever’s Seventh Generation acquisition) – or according to the World Bank? (We all know the answer to this rhetorical question.)

Another inconvenient truth, regarding the above premise, is that there is growing pressure on governments to increase Federal research and development funding to develop and deploy “deep decarbonization” technologies as one of the primary “solutions” to climate change. This was proposed at the Paris Climate Accord with Bill Gates’ “Mission Innovation” initiative which committed to doubling government investment in energy technology.

“We want it to cost more, in terms of revenue, public support and reputation, to not work on lowering emissions and improve environmental sustainability, whereas those that lead the way should be recognized for this. Our vision is to create a race towards environmental sustainability and CO2 neutrality, making it the core priority for businesses, politicians and organizations worldwide.” — Acquisition International Magazine Issue 10, 2018 

Here again, we must look closely at language and framing. Who are “those that lead the way”? Are they referring to Western citizens who can fit all their belongings in a duffle bag? [Here it must be said that the environmental heroes in the West are NOT the Richard Bransons or Leonardo DiCaprios of the world. The real heroes for the environment, due to their almost non-existent environmental footprint, are  the homeless – despite the scorn they receive from society as a whole.] Are they referring to the African Maasai who, to this day, literally leave no trace? Or are “those that lead the way” Unilever and Ikea (represented on the We Don’t Have Time board)? This is another rhetorical question we all know the answer to. Notice the mention of CO2 “neutrality” rather than a drastic reduction of CO2 emissions. Convenient language when one of the main pillars of the business model is the sale of carbon offsets – rationalizing a continuance of the same carbon-based lifestyle by constructing a faux fantasy one, that anyone with monetary wealth, can buy into.

As online reviews and ratings systems have become a Western staple of determining the worthiness of a person, group or corporation,  the internet presently is a primary source of determining the quality of an entity. One example of this type of system is the online site Trip Advisor, which utilizes user feedback as a measuring stick of a hotel, airline, car rental, etc.  As the Trip Advisor rating system is the revenue model We Don’t Have Time seeks to emulate, we will explore this particular rating system.

Whereas a reputable and established website such as Trip Advisor is based on an actual experience – We Don’t Have Time evaluations are more geared toward promises into the future regarding a green technology revolution and/or the effectiveness of advertising in making people believe the veracity of these promises. By utilizing fake accounts (think Twitter and Facebook), strategically orchestrated campaigns will effectively allow the app to break political careers and demonize people and countries based on the numbers of ratings (“climate bombs”). These bombs can be administered against any foe that does not embrace the technologies (sought by the West to benefit the West) of this so-called revolution, regardless if the reason for doing so is justifiable or not.

The word “bomb” itself will become reframed. Rather than associating bombs with militarism (never touched upon by We Don’t Have Time) the word bomb will eventually become first and foremost associated with ratings, bad products, bad ideas and bad people. Such is the power of language and framing when combined with social engineering. Here, the behavioural economics of hatred can be weaponized – a virtual new form of soft power. The Nicaraguan Sandinista government who did not sign onto the Paris Agreement because it is too weak (and serves only Western interests) could quickly become a pariah on the global stage – as the West controls the stage. Already a target for destabilization, the soft power app would be applied as the ruling class sees fit.

When one contemplates the non-profit industrial complex, it must be considered the most powerful army in the world. Employing billions of staff, all inter-connected, today’s campaigns, financed by our ruling oligarchs can become viral in a matter of hours just by the interlocking directorate working together in unity toward a common goal to instil uniform  thoughts and opinions, which gradually create a desired ideology. This is the art of social engineering. Conformity and emotive content as tools of manipulation has been and always will be the most powerful weapons in the Mad Men’s  toolbox. If 300,000 people have already voted with “climate hearts” on a “trending” topic in under 48 hours – it must be a great idea.

“Nobody wants to be bottom of the class.”  Ingmar Retzhog, We Don’t Have Time, December 22, 2017, Nordic Business Insider

To be clear, the West is in no position to “teach” (nudge/engineer) the “correct” value system regarding sustainability to the world, when the biggest polluters on the planet are manufactured into “climate leaders” and “climate heroes”. This is reality turned on its head. A reality we are conditioned to accept. Institutions such as the United Nations in tandem with the media, spoon-feed this insanity (that defies all logic) to the global populace, in servitude to the ruling classes.

“Nudging”: Acquisition International Magazine Issue 10, 2018 

Finally, this behavioral science platform lends itself to the continued devolvement of critical thinking. With virtually everything and everyone to rate all day long – who has time to look in depth at any given policy or product that after all, sounds, looks and feels simply amazing due to sophisticated marketing coupled with behavioural change tactics? It is vital to keep in mind that social engineering – and massive profit – are the key merits and purpose of this application.

 

End Notes:

[1] TV 2 Danmark Danish public service, SVT Swedish public service, TV 4 News, Metro TV, Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet (August 20, 2018), Sydsvenskan, Stockholm Direkt, Expressen (August 20, 2018) , ETC, WWF, Effekt Magazin, GöteborgsPosten,Helsingborgs Dagblad, Folkbladet, Uppsala Nya tidning, Vimmerby Tidning, Piteå Tidningen, Borås Tidning, Duggan, VT, NT, Corren, OMNI, WeDontHaveTime CEO viral FaceBook post that mention it first. [Source]

[2] Click-based advertising based on highly rated companies that want to drive traffic to their websites; Targeted web advertising for companies that want to reach out to environmentally aware users in different segments; Business subscriptions where companies and organizations have the opportunity to interact with the members and get the right to use the We Don’t Have Times brand and the company’s rating in their marketing [Source]

[3] “Laika Consulting was one of the first companies in Sweden to work with crowdfunding when we established the brand in 2004. I look forward to follow the company’s growth closely. A combination of Laika’s expertise in listed companies, together with FundedByMe with its international and digital presence, can create new opportunities for growth.”says Laika’s CEO, Ingmar Rentzhog.” [Source]

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green Collective.

 

 

LISTEN: A Mexican Crossing Lines – Fake Progressive Agendas – Part 3

KPPP-LP FM             

Recorded live August 30, 2017

 

Part 3 of a 6 Part Series

[The 6-part series can be found here: Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 | Read the addendum here.]

A Mexican Crossing Lines discusses the Fake progressives that are linked to the Kathleen Bennett case, as well as the connections to Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits.

Also discussed:

:: Houston Hurricane
:: Update on Liars and Exploiters at camps and elsewhere
:: Fake Progressive Agendas Part 3

Listen To an Audio Podcast of the Show Here:

A Mexican Crossing Lines – Fake Progressive Agendas – Part 3

Download Audio Link

Link to Standing Rock article discussed in this podcast:

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2016/12/09/standing-rock-profusion-collusion-big-money-profits-part-3/

FaceBook Live Video of this Show Before Broadcasting (Note, FB Live videos are pre-recorded and then edited properly for radio Broadcasts on the air):

 

[Cindy Gomez-Schempp is station manager of KPPP-LP FM radio, Board President of The Peoples Press Project and editor-in-chief at Mexi-Can]

The Pygmalion Virus in Three Acts [2017 AVAAZ SERIES | PART II]

August 3, 2017

By Cory Morningstar

 

Avaaz Investigative Report Series 2012 [Further Reading]: Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI

Avaaz Investigative Report Series 2017 [Further Reading]: Part I

 

Act One

In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a statue of a beautiful woman out of ivory. A statue so beautiful, that Pygmalion fell in love with it. The symbolism in the play by George Bernard Shaw is premised on Henry Higgins falling in love with his own creation. [Source]

+++

According to The B Team report, Keith Tuffley manages the day-to-day operations of The B Team.

In his LinkedIn profile Tuffley states he is “Managing Partner & CEO of The B Team, a not-for-profit initiative headquartered in New York.” (Here, we must again recall that the headquarters as spoken of by B Team affiliates is that of the PR firm Purpose.) He is the former Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs in Australia with over 25 years experience in investment banking, finance, and capital markets. Tuffley is founder & chairman of NEUW Ventures, an impact investing company based in Switzerland. He also serves as Director or Governor on various NGOs including WWF-Australia.

Tuffley is a member of the Corporate Advisory Panel of the World Forum for Natural Capital^{[Full bio]} and is identified as belonging to the “wider project team” of co-founders Polman and Malloch’s Business and Sustainable Development Commission. [Source: BETTER BUSINESS BETTER WORLD, the report authored by the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, January 16, 2017]

The B Team executive committee [1] is comprised of the executive chair (Jochen Zeitz), three senior partners (Jean Oelwang, Joanna Rees and Keith Tuffley) and Managing Director Rajiv Joshi, who “oversees the organisation’s strategy”.

Where White Polar Bears Meet White Helmets

“Ultimately, this is a cultural challenge—linked to our own culture and to wider cultural dynamics. In the good old days, we saw NGOs as leading indicators of change, but today it’s the Millennials, whatever NGOs or networks they may belong to.” — The Stretch Agenda, Breakthrough in the Boardroom [Source]

“Mikael Fraenkel, Rajiv Joshi, Arianna Huffington, Shalini Mehan, Felix Stellmaszek during DLD15 FOCUS Nightcap at Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvédère in Davos on January 21, 2015.” Foto: Hubert Burda Media / BRAUER PHOTOS. Flickr

From the aforementioned Better Business Better World report:

“Rajiv Joshi is a Managing Director and has been with the organisation since its inception. He previously served as Executive Director for the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. Joshi served six years as a Trustee of Oxfam and as a Board Member of CIVICUS. He is currently on the Board of the Centre for Scottish Public Policy, and has served on the Equality and Human Rights Commission and as chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament.”

Joshi has an extensive background pushing forward both the UN Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs/”Global Goals”). He has been groomed by the United Nations, Skoll (2017 Skoll Awardees Convening, 2017 Skoll World Forum) and Branson. From the Skoll website:

“During this time he led global action towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), mobilizing over 173 million people as part of the ‘Stand Up: Take Action’ initiative. He also supported ‘The Elders’ with their Every Human Has Rights campaign and helped spearhead citizen participation in creating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as co-founder of ‘The World We Want 2015’ platform and founding Chair of the Post-2015 Policy and Strategy Group.”

Let this section serve as an introduction to where 21^st century environmentalism (which today is, in reality, anthropocentrism) meets the 21^st  humanitarian industrial complex. [Further reading: The Humanitarian Industrial Complex School of Thought | A Fish Analogy] Where white polar bears (the emotive veneer for economic growth, land and resource theft, privatization, the financialization of nature) meet white helmets (the emotive veneer for economic growth, land and resource theft, privatization, war). This is the intersection where today’s anointed “thought leaders” cut their teeth.This is the intersection where today’s anointed “thought leaders” cut their teeth. Akin to the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, today’s so-called environmental leaders and human rights activists are not (yet) genetically engineered, rather they are socially engineered experiments decanted from Harvard, Yale, Rockwood Leadership Institute and other institutions of indoctrination that serve and expand the global hegemony. One could theorize that today’s 21^st century activism is a new process of mimesis – the millennial having assimilated into spectacle – far removed from both nature and reality.

“TEDxSkoll on Twitter: #TEDxSkoll TALK: ‘White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef: The Power of Trained Volunteers'”[Source]

Indicative of the accolades and tutelage showered down upon the aforementioned millennial Joshi, today’s thought-leaders are groomed, molded, and managed – specifically to manufacture and mobilise/engineer world views as desired and designed by the world’s most powerful hegemons. Ego, celebrity fetish, access, wealth, luxury are all Western desires that are fostered and cultivated in today’s assembly-line “activists”. Together, these desires, when nurtured, are an opiate that lures, beguiles and hooks the freshly-engineered plastic “activists” that today flourish like cells within the walls of non-profit industrial complex. The complex is the vehicle for the continued expansion of capital markets (infinite growth) and the protection of existing power structures.  Today we witness the world’s richest 300 people having more monetary wealth than the bottom 3 billion people. The same ruling elite invest trillions into the NPIC to ensure this existing power structure not only stays firmly intact, but expands. This is not “philanthropy”, a word created by and utilized by the rich to make theft of labour and commons not just acceptable, but illustrious. Rather, this is the best investment money can buy.

The aforementioned Stand Up and Take Action is an annual global mobilization coordinated by the United Nations Millennium Campaign and the Global Call to Action against Poverty. In addition, the Elders is another Richard Branson NGO, a person who has his tentacles wrapped around an innumerable amount of NGO endeavors owned and sanctioned by the global elite. “The World We Want” is a United Nations SDG campaign.

“Most funding and direction come from the wealthy nations. Often the donors form a conglomerate creating mutual responsibility and considerable ambiguity. CIVICUS, a partnership to promote “civil society” worldwide, is funded by, among others, American Express Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Canadian International Development Agency, Ford Foundation, Harvard University, Oxfam, and United Nations Development Programme.” — Joan Roelofs [Source]

 

As the grooming is underscored by the collaboration of mentors and mentees in private and public endeavors, it is of course no surprise to find Rajiv Joshi in the company of Avaaz/Purpose co-founder Jeremy Heimens in a We Mean Business video series (since We Mean Business is an NGO founded by The B Team registered to Heiman’s Purpose). However, the following excerpt from the book The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough  demonstrates the unity and alliances of multifarious NGOs that prosper in a highly centralised manner outside of the public spectrum (see excerpt below). Public perception is critical for the brand. Thus, NGOs that serve on the forefront of the manufactured movements make a concerted effort to not publicly align with NGOs openly chasing capital and economic growth. The reality is this: the cherry-picked and highly groomed “leaders” of the world’s most influential NGOs, the ones with the faux radical veneer such as 350.org, Avaaz and Greenpeace, run in the same circles as the openly capitalist NGO models such as the B Team – which run/operate in the same circles as the International Crisis Group. NGOs that publicly promote and accelerate market-based solutions that will only further perpetuate our multiple ecological crises. NGOs that perpetuate the myth of “humanitarian interventions” and spontaneous popular revolutions.

Above: Screenshot from The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough By Alex Evans

Here we witness the social-organizational psychology experts grooming tomorrows “new champions“, “global shapers” and “new power” “thought-leaders” as determined and ultimately dictated by the world’s most powerful elites. In the 21^st century, psychology is not only an extremely important tool in influencing public opinion, it is now considered to be perhaps the single and most important tool. The necessity to comprehend the mental processes, desires and social patterns of the populace at large cannot be understated. Working in lock-step with controlled media and the best marketing executives foundation money can buy, today’s faux activists, thought-leaders and media lapdogs are the very mechanisms of modern-day perception.

Consider the following claim by Avaaz that “BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera reported that at one point 40% of the images that were used in their coverage of the Arab Spring were generated by the Avaaz-supported citizens’ journalist network”. (See below screenshot.)

If this claim is verifiable, it is indisputable truth that the establishment is able to use its resources to maneuver, influence and control untold portions of protests. Thus, it is critical to question what is a legitimate protest versus what is a protest  orchestrated by outside influences.

“We’ve trained them. That translates into diplomatic leverage.”— Supremacy by Stealth, Robert Kaplan

As an example of the opacity prevalent in these various movements, the race to implement the financialization of nature (payments for ecosystem services) under the guise of UN’s “Global Goals” is nothing less than frenetic. Yet for all of the ongoing activity, this corporate triumph is being conducted in the background, with zero dissent, due to the fact that at the forefront of the manufactured movements – there is complete silence. Zero opposition. The non-profit industrial complex being the wall that protects and insulates the coup d’état of nature itself.

“Surveying this new landscape, it is clear that the true role of the thought leader is to serve as the organic intellectual of the one percent—the figure who, as Gramsci put it, gives the emerging class “an awareness of its own function” in society. The purpose of the thought leader is to mirror, systematize, and popularize the delusions of the superrich: that they have earned their fortunes on merit, that social protections need to be further eviscerated to make everyone more flexible for “the future,” and that local attachments and alternative ways of living should be replaced by an aspirational consumerism.” — The Rise of the Thought Leader – How the superrich have funded a new class of intellectual, June 28, 2017

[Further reading: From Stable to Star – The Making of North American “Climate Heroes”]

Establishing New Norms: Future Stewards, Pathfinders and Deep Practitioners

Perhaps there is no better snapshot of the congregation of all this grooming of the next generation of NGO leaders than the 2015 Avaaz retreat. This retreat finds The B Teams Joshi in the company of his peers and “movement builders”. Those identified in the aforementioned book excerpt are as follows:

Robert Gass: co-founder of the Rockwood Leadership Institute, former President of ARC International, a global consulting and training company specializing in transformational change with Fortune 500 companies. Robert has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Organizational Development from Harvard University. [2]

Judith Ansara:  A former facilitator for the Rockwood Leadership Institute’s The Art of Leadership trainings, she has facilitated organizations and leaders Avaaz, Witness and UNICEF. She has taught Transpersonal Psychology at Naropa University and Strategic Communications at the University of Massachusetts. [3]

Maura Bairley: Leads the Organizational Development Team for Move to End Violence, a project of the NoVo Foundation. [4]

Rachel Bagby: A Stanford Law Degree in Social Change and  leadership consultant whose clients include leaders from organizations such as Google, the Sierra Club and Rockwood Institute. [Source]

Radhika Balakrishnan: Faculty director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. Past experience includes working for the Ford Foundation as a program officer in the Asian Regional Program.

Ian Bassin: Former Associate Counsel to President Obama, General Counsel and Campaign Director at Avaaz, Current director of United to Protect Democracy [“United to Protect Democracy, which draws its name from a line in President Barack Obama’s farewell address that urged his supporters to pick up where he was leaving off…] Signatory to the Economic Security Project. [5]

Dalia Hashad: Attorney and a campaign director at the global advocacy group Avaaz.org. Prior to Avaaz Hashad worked for Amnesty International UK (Director, USA Program) and ACLU  American Civil Liberties Union.

Jamie Henn: 350.org co-founder, Strategy and Communications Director.

“I thought I’d never live to see the day when you could strap on a rocket pack and fly through the air… but then I met Avaaz. They supercharge work across the world, sending campaigns and movements soaring to new heights.” — Jamie Henn, co-founder, 350.org, Avaaz website

Paul Hilder: Avaaz co-founder Paul Hilder is the former Vice President of Global Campaigns for Change.org, a for-profit social venture started in 2006. He is co-founder and Chief International Officer of Crowdpac, “the platform for new politics”. He cofounded 38 Degrees and openDemocracy.net. He played leadership roles at Oxfam, Purpose, Here Now (Purpose) and the Young Foundation. His background in the NPIC and the Middle East is extensive. [6]

Joanna Kerr: Executive Director of Greenpeace Canada. Former Chief Executive of ActionAid International, Policy Director at Oxfam Canada. [7]

Adauto Modesto Junior: Brazil Student Ambassador, Lemann Fellow, at David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies, Brazil (Harvard). Served on the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of Finance in Brazil. [Source]

Luis Morago: Campaign Director at Avaaz (Spain). Former head of Oxfam International’s EU Office (2007: “EU institutions are in a unique position to promote the R2P principle and give leadership,” Source] Previously worked on “the concept of rights-based approach in an emergency context” with British Red Cross Society and ActionAid (Research and Programme Learning Officer). [Source]

Heather Reddick: Avaaz Chief Operating Officer, Avaaz. Former Director of Finance & Administration at Let’s Get Ready, International Operations Director at Students for a Free Tibet, and National Operations Director at League of Young Voters. (Avaaz salary in 2014: USD$148,323.00 & USD$5,736.00 misc. expenses)

Carolina Rossini: Coordinates the Brazilian Open Educational Resources Project: Challenges and Perspectives funded by the Open Society institute. [Source] [Source]

Esra’a Al-Shafei: Bahraini civil rights activist, founder and executive director of Mideast Youth and its related projects, including FreeKareem.org  and CrowdVoice.org. Featured at the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative University. Featured in Forbes’ 2014 “30 Under 30” list of social entrepreneurs making an impact in the world. Listed by the World Economic Forum as one of “15 Women Changing the World in 2015.”[8]

Theo Sowa: An independent advisor and consultant, specialising in international social development. An international consultant for NGOs such as as UNICEF, The Stephen Lewis Foundation, The African Union, Department for International Development, and UNDP. Awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in June 2010. [Source]

Tristram Stuart: English author and campaigner.

Farhana Yamin: International lawyer specializing in global climate change law and policy. Founder and CEO of Track 0, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Visiting Professor at University College London. [Source]

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For further proof of strategic and highly organized grooming, consider the We Mean Business, Leaders’ Quest and Mission 2020 (under the direction of The B Teams Christiana Figueres) document Future Stewards – The Case for Partnership and Investment 2016-2020. The document outlines the desired behavioural change strategy to implement the “new economy”. The term “Deep Practitioners” is applied to a cohort of “30 senior leaders of influential private, public and civil society organizations, who are willing to collaborate across sectors and change their own patterns of behavior.” The budget thus far to train “future stewards” is 10 million. In the sample list of participants from the document outlining the “Pathfinders and Deep Practitioners Programs from 2017, we find recognizable names such as Jamie Henn, Strategy and Communications Director, 350.org, former co-director of Greenpeace International’s Global Climate and Energy Program and corporate pet Tzeporah Berman, Grant Advisor, New Venture Fund and Rajiv Joshi, Managing Director of The B Team. As the machine works to churn out the next generation of leaders more beholden to the system than their predecessors yet with better and increased obfuscation, the following quote from the document best summarizes the goals and aspirations of gatherings such as the Avaaz retreats: “Global Influencers will create public and private opportunities for influential leaders to join the collective movement. Committed leaders will increase pressure on their peers to engage – establishing a new norm.”

Here, in these circles, there is no conscious belief in American imperialism, but only American “exceptionalism”, a description that is beyond debate and unquestionable in mainstream circles. Trees, whales and bees no longer exist except as a means of achieving sought metrics. All/any remaining anti-war sentiment having been replaced with the pathological cheerleading of  “coloured revolutions”, exporting “American democracy” and “greening” the military. The NPIC is the vehicle of “transformational change” which can only be honestly described as that which is designed, sought and financed by the world’s most powerful elite. The ideologies underpinning the dream of “ethical globalization” (a term utilized by the group Res Publica),  a globalized “deliberative democracy” has been the said driving force of Avaaz co-founders since their founding of Res Publica. Here, in these circles is where the myth of American exceptionalism is perpetuated. This faux belief, is the tie that binds. Here, in these circles, the power of conformity takes hold.

Nowhere is the role of Avaaz more apparent in the advancement of the Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the financialization  of nature, global in scale) than in the following paragraph written by Patel in 2014:

“The vision put forward by the UN High-Level Panel on the Post- 2015 Development Agenda is a beautiful one, and one I believe the vast majority of people share. But now comes the hard part: getting our governments to get behind this plan, first rhetorically, and then with actual budgets and political will. And to stay behind it until the job is done. To make that happen, we need one of the largest, most comprehensive and sustained political campaigns the world has ever seen. One that captures public imagination like never before. It won’t be a single campaign or coalition that does this, but a vibrant network of governments, NGOs, businesses and individuals that come together around this shared vision and coalesce into fit-for-purpose groups as needed, to seize opportunities and meet threats. These groups will need to use every tactic in the book, because that’s what entrenched interests who oppose progress will be doing. The threads that tie all this together likely won’t be a single brand, but memes and narratives that define and embody the zeitgeist. One popular meme, often offered tongue-in-check, is the idea of saving the world. It’s a narrative deep in our psyche, the theme of many of our most popular epics. But if ever there were a time to use this meme and its power in all seriousness, it’s now. It’s time for a movement to save the world.” —  p. 17, Ricken Patel, Global Development Goals, Partnerships for Progress, 2014

 

Act Two

 

“Establishing “heroes” and “villains” adds a moral element that will advance advocacy efforts.” — “Mobilizing Climate Action, To Paris and Beyond” retreat, March 4–6, 2015, New York

Here it is critical to highlight the “Mobilizing Climate Action, To Paris and Beyond” retreat held March 4–6, 2015, in Tarrytown, New York. As it is here that the hierarchy is laid bare and cannot be contested. The organizer of the retreat was the United Nations [9] with the retreat itself being financially facilitated by foundations (in this instance, the Clarmondial Foundation and The Stanley Foundation). The congregation consists of numerous participants that all play a vital role: corporate financiers that rule the corridors of power by way of their purse strings, public relations and media, and the institutions and NGOs that reside at the helm of the socially influential non-profit industrial complex: the United Nations, World Bank, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, We Mean Business (represented by co-founder Callum Grieve [10]), 350.org (represented by co-founder Jamie Henn) Upworthy (co-founded by Avaaz co-founder Eli Pariser), Avaaz, Here Now (Purpose, sister for-profit arm of Avaaz) World Economic Forum, GCCA (TckTckTck), World Business Council for Sustainable Development (chaired by Unilever CEO Paul Polman), Greenpeace, Unilever, and The Climate Reality Project (founded by Al Gore, co-founder of Generation Investment).

Mobilizing Climate Action, To Paris and Beyond retreat participants:

• Emad Adly, General Coordinator, Arab Network for Environment and Development
• Susan Alzner, Officer in Charge, Non-Governmental Liaison Service, United Nations
• Robert Bisset, Senior Communications Officer, Climate Change, The World Bank
• Roberto Borrero, UN Programs Coordinator, International Indian Treaty Council
• Karl Burkart, Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation
• Patty Carnevale, Senior Account Strategist, Upworthy
• Joel Finkelstein, Communications, Climate Advisers
• Nick Gaylord, Data Scientist, Idibon
• Rhys Gerholdt, Communications Manager, Climate and Energy Program, World Resources Institute
• Callum Grieve, Director of Communications, We Mean Business
• Michael Hanley, Editorial Director, World Economic Forum
• Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, GreenFaith
• Jamie Henn, Strategy and Communications Director and Co-Founder, 350.org
• Antonio Hill, Executive Director, Global Call for Climate Action
• Wael Hmaidan, Executive Director, Climate Action Network
• Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, College of the Marshall Islands, Co-Founder, Jo-Jikum
• Ruth Jones, Head of Leadership Programme, The Climate Group
• Iain Keith, Campaign Director, Avaaz.org
• Amy Keller, Strategic Partnerships, Live Earth
• Ann Kobia, Advocacy Team, Secretariat, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance
• Kate Lappin, Regional Coordinator, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
• Carina Larsfälten, Managing Director, Global Policy and Strategic Partnerships, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
• Patricia Lerner, Senior Political Advisor, Greenpeace International
• Marie L’Hostis, Global Hub Coordinator, action/2015
• Thomas Lingard, Climate Advocacy and Sustainability Strategy Director, Unilever
• Tracy Mann, Consultant, MG Limited, and Project Director, Climate Wise Women
• Michael Mathres, Director, World Climate Ltd.
• Nelson Muffuh, Head of Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement, Post-2015 Development Planning Team, United Nations
• Margaret Novicki, Chief, Communications Campaigns Service, Department of Public Information, United Nations
• Nicholas Nuttall, Coordinator, Communications and Outreach, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
• Jonathan Rich, President, JCR Communications
• Mila Rosenthal, Director of Communications, Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, United Nations Development Programme
• Naysán Sahba, Director of the Division of Communications and Public Information, Office of the Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme
• Peter Sargent, Campaigns Director, The Climate Reality Project
• Dan Shepard, Information Officer, Development Section, Department of Public Information, United Nations
• Robert Skinner, Executive Director, New York Office Operations and UN Relations, United Nations Foundation
• Sean Southey, Chief Executive Officer, PCI Media Impact
• João Talocchi, Campaign Director, Here Now
• Denise Young, Head of Communications, International Council for Science
• Stanley Foundation Staff [10]

 

Par for the course, the report includes the standard disclaimer: “Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only. Participants attended as individuals rather than as representatives of their governments or organizations.” This rhetoric is standard across most (if not all) boards that serve non-profit industrial complex. It is best understood as protectionist rhetoric. In reality, participants are absolutely representative of their governments or organizations. Otherwise, they would not have been chosen for, nor would they retain, these lucrative positions.

The purpose of this retreat was preparations for COP21, Paris. 2015 was chosen by the elites as the year to formally implement the necessary policies that would accelerate growth and create new markets. This will be achieved via the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) under the guise of environmental protection and poverty eradication. From the report: “Progress on climate change negotiations will take place within the context of broader efforts to establish a sustainable development agenda that addresses the differentiated needs of all countries and provides adequate financing for development projects that will enable growth without negatively impacting the environment and humanity. Therefore, efforts to address climate change will be enhanced by integrating them with the post-2015 development agenda also being negotiated this year.” [Source]

“The retreat will bring together communications and advocacy leaders to discuss how best to communicate about and inspire climate action as an accelerator of sustainable development in the context of the post-2015 agenda.” — Mobilizing Climate Action: To Paris and Beyond, Stanley Foundation Website

The “global goals” of the elites requires approx. 90 trillion dollars (90 trillion between now and 2030 that is required for planned mega-infrastructure projects, which is up from initial estimates of $60-70 trillion as of 2015). The Ceres (partner of the “We Mean Business” project, as well as a partner and advisor of the 350.org divestment scheme) “Clean Trillion” campaign “encourages investors, companies and policymakers to invest an additional $1 trillion per year globally in low-carbon energy alone.” The development projects are contingent on furthering extractive industries (all of which are dependent on fossil fuels from cradle to grave). The most important items to note here are the following:

1) the “global goal” to unleash developments projects that “enable growth without negatively impacting the environment and humanity” is a proven and irrefutable oxymoron, and

2) most critically, the main pillar of the “new economy (“global goals”) is the financialization of nature. That is, privatizing and assigning monetary value to all services on the planet that nature provides. Make no mistake, the financialization of nature is the unspoken, yet absolute key goal of the United Nations (in servitude the oligarchy) that today is being implemented behind closed doors.

“Paris is not the end point. It’s a launching pad”, said Robert C Orr, principal policy advisor to the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.” — Paris Meet will be a Launching Pad: UN official, March 8, 2015

 

“Nick Henry, CEO of Climate Action, said: “Climate change not only presents the single largest threat to mankind, it also creates the greatest economic opportunity since the industrial revolution. ” —  Businesses and Investors Pioneering the Green Economy Highlight Multi-trillion Dollar Opportunity in Tackling Climate Change, December 7, 2015

The emphasis at the retreat was the building of societal consensus for the Paris outcome by establishing new climate “leaders” and “subgroups”, the incorporating of “storytelling”, and the further targeting of youth, as identified in the highlights:

“Climate change messaging should be reframed and rebranded. Messages of despair ought to be transformed into scenarios for hope and opportunity, particularly in the context of sustainable development.”

 

“Increasing mobilization and amplification are critical leading up to COP21. This will include new media strategies as well as outreach to new audiences and advocates.”

 

“Identifying leaders of all kinds in their respective spheres of influence will heighten awareness for newly acknowledged subgroups of climate change actors as well as political leaders; storytelling will incorporate a personal, emotional element of climate change that has been missing from the narrative.”

 

“It is widely agreed that engaging youth is of central importance to encourage future constructive climate action—for the youth of today are the decision makers of tomorrow.”

For anyone who believes local grassroots groups are not prone to be influenced, led or even manipulated by international organizations, the following “broader approach” highlighted in the report demonstrates otherwise: participants acknowledged that the agreed upon broader approach “can then be tailored at the local level so that the varied campaigns are connected”.

To further the continuous targeting of youth, the retreat participants identified key targets “to deepen the pool of activists by mobilizing leaders across the world in their respective spheres of influence and reaching out to even more groups of stakeholders”. The two key “international actors” identified to achieve this goal were trade unions and public-private partnerships. [12]

One particular campaign strategy identified in the report was the shared aspiration to develop a “ribbon symbol” (“create a climate change symbol that is equally pervasive and can be used broadly across all public campaigns to escalate collaboration and solidarity.”) Here, one can recall the “Climate Ribbon Campaign” of the People’s Climate March and Cop21 Paris. Although the document identified blue as the sought colour for the ribbons, the end result was red as outlined in the 350.org “Redlines for Climate Actions Manual Draw the Line for Climate Justice” document. [13]

“Symbols are powerful, inspirational and instantly recognizable. When harnessed effectively by companies, symbols can have a strong impact on corporate culture, recruiting, morale and brand longevity.” — Forbes

 

“No matter what action you do, please also share your action on social media?so the rest of the world can see it. Take a photo or video and post on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (if it’s on Facebook, please make sure it’s public) ­­and then use make sure you add #D12 or #redlines. You can also send an email to socialmedia@350.org“

[COP21 – Wear Red. Further reading on the Climate Ribbon Campaign: Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 3]]

“We perceive, understand, and negotiate the world around us by investing meaning in all manner of signs and symbols.” — The History of Logos and Logo Design by Dan Redding

“As people interact with a symbol — whether brand, religious, or otherwise — it gets packed with meaning. It becomes a heuristic of what’s to come.” — Make Your Brand Iconic: The Power of Symbols in Branding, Sticky Branding website

United Nations Development Programme, A Look at the Sustainable Development Goals, 2015

Other essential tasks as highlighted in the report are to “identify business leaders who are willing to take the spotlight and reveal their support for climate change efforts up to and beyond COP21”. This is more than simply greenwashing. Short-term, this is the growing strategy to bring corporate power into the fold of “activism”. The Avaaz partner, Ben & Jerry’s, owned by Unilever and a client of Purpose, is a prime example of this mind-fuck. Long-term, as the  financialization of nature is implemented at a global scale, financial markets and business will be assigned as the new “stewards of national natural capital.” Hence, the transformation (in appearance only) of corporations from psychopathic institutions into our future “stewards of nature” has already commenced.

Here, it is of special interest to note the role of media. Journalists are simply to be trained. From the report:

“Train media and establish a rapid response team: Spend time with media organizations to train them on climate change messaging.”

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC at launch of ‘We Mean Business’ at the Climate Week NYC 2014

The report identifies specific language that can be utilized by all NGOs. Repetitive language has long been key to successful social engineering. Consider the “de facto slogan”, agreed upon by the participants: “together we can, together we must, together we will“.  Examples of the agreed upon terminology have been utilized by the NGOs and can be found in the following excerpts:

“I believe that with clear leadership together we can, and we must, continue to deliver multilateral breakthroughs time after time after time,” — Christiana Figueres, July 18, 2016, former UN climate chief, B Team leader

 

“It will take all of us. But together, we can — and we will — blaze a bright path through this dark day.” — May Boeve 350, November 9, 2016

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Here it is critical to reflect upon the “leadership void”, a concern highlighted by those in attendance at this retreat and their allies, such as The B Team. To this end, there are no limits on who or what the elite and market forces are prepared to exploit in order to fill the niches that will further advance their desired agendas. As par for the course for the further expansion of industrial civilization, Indigenous People will, as always, be on the front lines of those most impacted by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hence, in regard to the aforementioned need of the NPIC to “reach new audiences and advocates”, to have an Indigenous face as an exotic veneer to one’s brand is a marketing achievement of such grandeur, it is fetishized by those that comprise the non-profit industrial complex. An Indigenous face to brand/market the SDGs – is the ultimate acquisition.

Activism is the New Sex – But Sex Still Sells

Photography Dan Martensen, “Xiuhtezcati wears Jeans, belt and bracelets (worn throughout) model’s own.”

“That’s the crux of successful marketing today: activism is in. ‘Our activism is currently mediated by brands,’ says Will Fowler, creative director of Headspace. ‘Brands are allowing people to pat themselves on the back without them personally having to sacrifice anything.'” — Sex Doesn’t Sell Any More, Activism Does. And Don’t the Big Brands Know It, February 3, 2017

Today, selling “environmentalism” utilizes the same successful formula utilized to sell designer blue jeans decades ago – as well as the same formula used to promote white superiority in the mid-1800’s.

“This childish figure, outfitted in a short skirt, with pretty moccasins on its dainty feet and a single feather in its long, flowing hair, represents a quintessential, sexually undifferentiated Indian—although the bare breasts and the bow and arrows strewn along the ground reveal this to be a nonthreatening male Indian. The woman is pointing at a map in a book held open in her lap. Following her gaze, the Indian is also looking at the book, and his posture, more than the unreadable expression of his face, suggests that he is open to, if not exactly eager for, the instruction about to be dispensed.” — White Women’s Rights, evolution, woman’s rights, and civilizing missions, page 23

Consider the case of the 17-year-old Indigenous youth Xiuhtezcatl Martinez made famous by the media, who made his debut in the “environmental movement” at age six. Today, Martinez is the youth director of Earth Guardians, a worldwide conservation organization – an NGO which at COP21 shared the stage at the United Nations with international NGO “leaders” including Al Gore (The Climate Reality Project) and 350.org’s May Boeve. Martinez has been sought by, coddled and courted by those most powerful and influential including Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, The United Nations, Mark Rufallo, Bill McKibben, etc. etc.

At the tender age of 15, Martinez was photographed for a VICE feature (July 11, 2016), with images that deliberately seek to invoke a suggestive, hip prowess. One may recall a very contentious 1980 Calvin Klein ad featuring a 15-year old Brooke Shields (shot by photographer Richard Avedon). What was controversial in 1980 is today lost in a system where sexualisation is used to sell most everything including so-called environmentalism. Jeans yesterday. Faux environmentalism today – both in servitude to capital. The sexualization of children and teens is not so much problematic as it is sought, idolized, and even worshipped by a culture in decline. With almost four consecutive decades of social engineering and conditioning, this exploitation and sexualisation is not only of very little interest, it is rarely, if ever, noticed at all.

“His work has been featured on PBS, Showtime, National Geographic, Rolling Stones, Upworthy, The Guardian, Vogue, Bill Maher, Skavlan, CNN, MSNBC, HBO, VICE, and more. In 2013, Xiuhtezcatl received the 2013 United States Community Service Award from President Obama, and was the youngest of 24 national change-makers chosen to serve on the President’s youth council. He is the 2015 recipient of the Peace First Prize, recipient of the 2015 Nickelodeon Halo Award, 2016 Captain Planet Award and the 2016 Children’s Climate Prize in Sweden. Bill Mckibben of 350.org calls Xiuhtezcatl ‘an impressive spokesman for a viewpoint the world needs to hear.'” —  Earth Guardians Website

“Viewing sexualized images tend to elicit a variety of sensations that lead one to making an association of possible pleasurable outcomes for him/herself.” (Adams 1916)

Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez, Earth Guardians speaks at UN Climate Reception – 21 April 2016

 

“Now that you’ve been denied your former way of life, and can only play at being Indian, let me teach you some geography in accordance with our remapping of a wilderness that once was yours.” — White Women’s Rights, evolution, woman’s rights, and civilizing missions, page 23

+++

Rebranding Capitalism. Above: The future is here: Corporations as the new “stewards of national natural capital.”

 

The Final Act

 

At this juncture, we must take a moment to circle back to 2014. In the report (Towards a Plan B for Business, June 2013-June 2016) on page 32 we find the section titled Fostering Collaboration by Joshi. Here, we can examine exactly why the This Changes Everything project (strategically launched in September of 2014 in unison with the People’s Climate March and the UN Climate Summit) was financed by The Rockefellers, Ford, etc. and how they’ve successfully utilized it.

“We can achieve great things when unlikely bedfellows come together, like last December at COP21 when the Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, joined leading CEOs, including The B Team, to call for an ambitious, long-term goal in the Paris Agreement, standing in solidarity with low-lying island communities in calling for ‘1.5°C to stay alive’.” — The B Team Progress Report June 2013 – June 2016, p. 11 [Source]

The 350.org/Klein slogan This Changes Everything (“to change everything we need everyone”) launched simultaneously with the hype surrounding the 2014 People’s Climate March, served as the foundation to merge corporate ideology with modern day activism – which is now reduced to nothing more than anthropocentrism. This pathology, which has gone largely undetected, is today completely normalized. Full collaboration (and even adoration) of those at the forefront of environmental devastation and exploitation of the most vulnerable, is gradually becoming “the new normal“. This is a prime example of successful social engineering and behavioural change – the foundation of public relations firm Purpose.

“Today’s leaders increasingly recognize that we are all in this together. Transforming the economic system is impossible without enlightened consumers, innovative progressive companies, brave politicians, and visionary civil society leaders working together, putting individual interests aside for collective gain.” — The B Team Progress Report June 2013 – June 2016, p. 11 [Source]

Here we can also reflect on how those that funded Klein’s This Changes Everything Project – formerly marketed as “The Message” – is successfully utilized by the elites to rebrand capitalism. Following the 2014 People’s Climate March, in which Klein’s book served as an integral part of the “new economy” launching pad, “caring capitalism”, “breakthrough capitalism”, “ethical capitalism”, “compassionate capitalism” and a host of other grotesque and paradoxical phrases sanitizing the word “capitalism” came pouring out of the floodgates. By far the brand with the most money behind it (those present represented one-third of the world’s investable assets, approx. £18tr.) is the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism (the coalition held its first conference on May 27 2014, just ahead of the release of Klein’s book and The People’s Climate March that would follow approx. 4 months later). This highly orchestrated strategy by the global elite is unsurprising since after all, what brand could be more inclusive to build on the motto of the People’s Climate March “to change everything, we need everyone” than the idea of “inclusive capitalism”? Not sure? Perhaps ask 350.orgs Jamie Henn, “deep practitioner” for We Mean Business, or Klein herself. After all, Klein, deep in the pockets of 350.org, (which merged with 1Sky, a Rockefeller incubator NGO in 2011, when Klein joined the board) has clearly stated: “But I have never said that we need to “slay” “ditch” or “dismantle” capitalism in order to fight climate change.”

It was never about “inclusive capitalism” or other “compassionate forms of capitalism, it was always about saving the global capitalist economic system, which is hovering close to stall speed. With nowhere else to go. Hence, the financialization of nature (natural capital/payments for ecosystem services) that very few within the NPIC speak of (although most are fully aware), is achieving its goal of creating and reaching new untapped markets. This task is at the front and centre of most all institutions, foundations, corporations, investment firms, banks and governments on Earth.

“The Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism was founded in 2014 by Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild. Beside her in this noble task are, according to the Coalition’s website, a Working Group comprised of such luminaries of social justice as Sir Evelyn de Rothschild of E.L. Rothschild, Dominic Barton from McKinsey and Company, Ann Cairns of MasterCard, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles of HSBC, Paul Polman of Unilever, along with CEOs of various pension plans and philanthropic foundations, like the eponymous Ford and Rockefeller foundations.” — Cynthia McKinney, September 15, 2015

 

“Prince Charles, Mr Clinton and Mr Carney will make speeches, along with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, and Larry Summers, the former US Treasury secretary, who is now a Harvard professor. Panellists include the chief executive of Unilever, Paul Polman; the chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Andrew Witty; Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt; Prudential chief executive Tidjane Thiam; Sergio Ermotti, group chief executive of the investment bank UBS; and Sir Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership.” — London hosts world leaders in debate on ‘fairer’ capitalism, May 26, 2014

Should we be surprised that Klein’s book slogan would be used to advance capital? Should we be surprised that key funders of The Inclusive Capitalism, the Ford Foundation and The Rockefeller Brothers Funds also financed “The Message” project and the This Changes Everything film? [14] Don’t be. It’s all par for the course. This is how the system is designed. This is why today’s “leading activists” are 6-figure jet-setters if not multi-millionaires, or even billionaires. This is why the NPIC exists. It’s not a coincidence that Klein’s book was released in the year that the re-branding of capitalism by the world’s most powerful oligarchs took centre stage. The scripts are written years if not decades in advance by those we pretend to oppose, to advance or implement what we pretend to oppose. Or at least what we would have opposed in another lifetime. Behavioural change works wonders on the collective psyche.

And to illustrate how the next generation of leaders have been schooled in the proper rhetoric, consider Joshi’s vision for the Ford Foundation on “reimagining  capitalism.” Even the task of re-branding capitalism is instead re-framed as redesigning capitalism.

“We believe there is a bright future for business—an inclusive model of capitalism that could really drive sustainable prosperity. It looks like a world in which business has the right aspirations, where we’re celebrating the right kind of leadership and where there’s true accounting.” — Rajiv Joshi on Reimagining Capitalism for the Ford Foundation

In a desire to elicit converts to this project of “redesigning” capitalism,  the “to change everything we need everyone” image accompanying Rajiv Joshi’s “Fostering Collaboration” article (highlighted in The B Team 2013-2016 report) speaks volumes in regards to the propaganda being utilized to appropriate converts to this ultimately benign message of impossible reformation:

Photo Courtesy: Alisdare Hickson, entitled To change everything we need everyone.

Narcissus Redux – To Catch A Glimpse Of Our Beautiful Self No Matter The Cost

In an interview with Avaaz co-founder Ricken Patel, December 9, 2011, it is noted that Avaaz was embarking on a 20-year planning cycle. In the same interview, Patel also disclosed that “Avaaz is also studying organizational models not typically followed by civil society organisations – such as Apple and Walmart.”  Note the last sentence cited in the paragraph below: “…thus its potential to influence politics and opinion at a global level is completely unprecedented.”

Interview with Avaaz co-founder Ricken Patel, December 9, 2011 [Source:  Pathways to Systemic Change]

The B Team is a shining example of what could be described as a “shell NGO”. A virtual construct with its “headquarters” in the real world, better known as the Purpose public relations firm. An office where the architectural drawings for the further destruction and privatization of nature, are drawn up by The B Team and carried out by the groomed “up-and-comers”. The main institutions that propel the desires of hegemonic power can be recognized throughout reports, founders bios, boards, advisory and executive committees. In the previously mentioned B Team report (2013-2016) honourable mentions include Heather Grady who works at the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and also serves as advisor to The B Team. One of the original founders of The B Team, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the former Minister of Finance of Nigeria and Coordinating Minister for the Economy. She was also Managing Director of the World Bank and Finance Minister and of Foreign Affairs Minister in Nigeria. Currently, she is chair and member of boards including the UN’s Post 2015 Millennium Development Goals High-level Panel, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the ONE Foundation (the brainchild of singer Bono and Microsoft owner Bill Gates). The same report boasts glowing reviews/endorsements for The B Team from those such as Gillian Caldwell, (p. 18) [15] co-founder of 1Sky (A Rockefeller incubator NGO that merged with 350.org in 2011) and current CEO of the elite financed Global Witness. Over and over, we see this interlocking directorate which essentially creates the “ties that bind”.

Perhaps the most sobering analysis and insight as to what drives the non-profit industrial complex itself comes from The B Team’s Joshi himself, as highlighted by the Ford Foundation:

“We live in a world where most of the world’s population doesn’t have the ability to participate in the economy. The opportunity to market your services to the 3.5 billion people who are not currently participating actively in the economy is the biggest economic opportunity of our generation.” — Rajiv Joshi for the Ford Foundation

And this fact is vital.

Although the global economy is nothing less than sacrosanct in the west which is in direct contrast to the 3.5 billion people at the bottom of the food chain, the global economic system, the capitalist economy, the green economy, the new economy – regardless of whatever lovely term is assigned to rebrand it, is completely irrelevant to the well-being of at least half the planet’s human population. They have everything to lose – and nothing to gain. Further, to non-human life, the global economy has zero benefit whatsoever – but only the severest of repercussions. Hence, we are sacrificing all life on Earth, including our own, to serve an economic system that benefits a very small percentage of people (a mere 1-5%) – the same people responsible for the bulk of ecological devastation and the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions. (The approx. 45% that do actively participate do not so much as reap benefit, but are merely and most effectively trapped.)

In the Ford Foundation interview series “#InequalityIs”, Rajiv Joshi speaks to “how inequality hurts business.” This statement is inane – yet in a world now completely conditioned to steady-state insanity, such a ludicrous statement is not only questioned, it is even presented as genius. The capitalist system is built upon, and dependent on the exploitation of those most vulnerable. Exploitation & capitalism – one cannot exist without the other. Joshi’s corporate ideology is so strong, he views short life spans of those most disenfranchised not as unjust in a social justice context, but rather as an impairment to corporate profit. His observation that business cannot thrive in a planet whereby those most affected by inequality have life spans that “are so short that they’re not able to provide the value companies need” is refreshing in its brutally honesty although chillingly cold. Note that in the same Ford Series we find other alleged luminaries, such as May Boeve (Avaaz, Res Publica, 350.org, ), Richard Branson (B Team), and Paul Polman (Unilever, The B Team, We Mean Business, chair of The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), co-founder of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission), and Gloria Steinem (C.I.A.) in amidst Hollywood celebrities and global institutions.

The Ford Foundation (incidentally, one of the main financiers of Naomi Klein’s documentary film This Changes Everything) and the hegemonic realm it resides in, does not give a flying fuck about environmental protection, ecological preservation, mitigation of climate change or social justice. What they care about is creating new avenues whereby they can successfully exploit those not yet fully exploited – under the guise of sustainability and alleviation of poverty. Targeting and preying upon those not living up to their “free market potential” in a global economic system in crisis – a system that continues to barely sustain itself as it is on the brink of collapse.

This “new economic paradigm” extolled by the NPIC is also the very reason for the recent and feigned new “concern” over equality for women – and the manufactured movement designed to access women’s labour for global economic growth and new markets for the expansion of consumer goods. [“Keeping women out of the workplace costs the global economy around US$17 trillion, the head of a leading NGO in Canada has told the International Monetary Fund.” Source] Women represent another source not yet tapped to their full exploitation potential. Another recently identified and now sought solution to expand a suicidal economic system so intertwined and dependent on infinite growth, it will eventually fail at the very moment such growth comes to a grinding halt.

“Furthermore, it seems there exists a significant cognitive dissonance between liberal universalism proclaimed through cosmopolitan humanitarianism, and liberal imperialism expressed through high-sounding principles of humanitarian intervention that, in reality, functions as a vehicle through which all forms of life that do not conform to liberal ideals are eradicated or expelled (McCarthy, 2009: 166).” [Source]

Further, and perhaps even most important, is the recognition that 3.5 billion people “are not currently participating actively in the economy”. This means that all the hype for so-called “green” consumerism, eco-tourism, electric cars, wind turbines, solar, etc. etc. – serve only half the global population –  with only 1% of this population (anyone that can afford to get on a plane) creating 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. Meaning – our race to “save” the Earth today, must be considered “anthropocentrist economics”. We give a fuck about no one and nothing if it should interfere with our privilege in any way, shape or form. The economic system, for which a tiny portion of people are willing to trade nature, all sentient and biological life, and the lives of entire non-Anglo populations – inclusive of children – is sacrosanct. Appointed, falsely labeled environmental leaders that assure us more growth is necessary and can also be “green”, are our gods who conveniently cleanse away the guilt. Those who dare speak out against a fourth industrialization are divisive iconoclasts. In the age of acquiescence and apathy, our collective priorities constitute phones, cars and flat screen televisions . Eco-luxury homes and wood-fired Jacuzzi tubs for everyone. We want it all and more. We want shiny, beautiful, and perfect at any and all cost. Plastic opulence for plastic people. We stare hypnotically into the gleaming screens, in love with our own reflection. Fuck nature, fuck the Congolese, fuck the Earth’s last vestiges of sand and the sand wars we hear nothing about.

Payback is going to be a bitch.

 

End Notes:

[1] “Co-chaired by Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz, the Board of 20 Leaders provides the overall governance for The B Team and sets the high-level strategic direction. An Executive Committee, comprising the Executive Chair Jochen Zeitz, three Senior Partners, Jean Oelwang, Joanna Rees and Keith Tuffley, and Managing Director Rajiv Joshi,

oversees the organisation’s strategy. The Managing Partner & CEO, Keith Tuffley, manages the day-to-day operations of The B Team.”

[2] Robert Gass is co-founder of the Rockwood Leadership Institute, where he designed and delivers “Leading from the Inside Out,” a year-long leadership training for top social change leaders. Graduates of this program form the core of STP’s network. He is the former President of ARC International, a global consulting and training company specializing in transformational change with Fortune 500 companies. Robert has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Organizational Development from Harvard University. [Full bio]

[3]Judith Ansara:  A former facilitator for the Rockwood Leadership Institute’s The Art of Leadership trainings, she has facilitated organizations and leaders including Search for Common Ground, Center for Community Change, Global Fund for Women, Avaaz, Witness, Just Vision, Spitfire Strategies, UNICEF, the University of Colorado and the City of Boulder. Judith has taught Transpersonal Psychology at Naropa University and Strategic Communications at the University of Massachusetts. [Full bio]

[4] Maura Bairley: Leads the Organizational Development Team for Move to End Violence, a project of the NoVo Foundation and serves as a Plan Consultant with Flexible Leadership Awards Program of the Haas Jr. Fund, the 21st Century Fellows Program of the Pipeline Project, and on CoreAlign’s consultant design team for the Speaking Race to Power Fellowship. [Bio]

[5] Ian Bassin Former Associate Counsel to President Obama, Ian Bassin is General Counsel and Campaign Director at Avaaz, Current director of United to Protect Democracy [“United to Protect Democracy, which draws its name from a line in President Barack Obama’s farewell address that urged his supporters to pick up where he was leaving off, has already raised a $1.5 million operating budget, hired five staffers and has plans to double that in the coming months. They’ve incorporated as both a 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), allowing them to operate as a nonprofit but participate in some forms of political advocacy as well.”][Source] Signatory to the Economic Security Project. “[M]ost recently a member of the education policy working group for the transition team. He earlier served as the Florida policy director for the Obama Campaign for Change.”[Source]

[6] Paul Hilder bio: Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II, Section III

[7] Joanna Kerr: Greenpeace Canada (GPC) as Executive Director. Former  Chief Executive of ActionAid International, a global development organization based in South Africa and operating in 45 countries. Policy Director at Oxfam Canada. Executive Director of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development. Senior Researcher at The North-South Institute. [Source] [Source]

[8] Esra’a Al-Shafei is a Bahraini civil rights activist, blogger, and the founder and executive director of Mideast Youth and its related projects, including CrowdVoice.org.  Recipient of the Berkman Award for Internet Innovation from Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in 2008 for “outstanding contributions to the internet and its impact on society.” In 2012, she received a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship for her work on the open source platform CrowdVoice.org.Recipient of the Monaco Media Prize, which acknowledges innovative uses of media for the betterment of humanity. In 2014, she was featured in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list of social entrepreneurs making an impact in the world. The World Economic Forum listed her as one of “15 Women Changing the World in 2015.” That same year, she won the “Most Courageous Media” Prize from Free Press Unlimited.Selected as a 2017 Director’s Fellows at the MIT Media Lab. [Wikipedia]

[9] [Tracy Raczek, Climate Policy Advisor, Secretary-General’s Climate Change

Support Team, United Nations and Dan Thomas, Senior Communications Officer, Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, United Nations]

[10] Elaine Schilling, Program Assistant, Jennifer Smyser, Director of Policy Programming, Richard H. Stanley, Chair, Board of Directors

[11] Callum Grieve is global director of communication for The Climate Group (co-founder of We Mean Business) and Communications Director at Sustainable Energy For All – ?Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL).

[12] “Participants agreed they could expand their current partnerships, reaching out to an increased variety of international actors (e.g., trade unions). They recognized that public-private partnerships in particular can leverage a great deal of influence in the decision-making process to affect policy change.

[13] “Ribbon Tree: What is your red line? We all have things we are not willing to compromise on, we all have things we love too dearly to let be lost to climate change without putting up a fight. Inspired by the Climate Ribbon Project, organize an event where you invite people to answer the question: “What do you love and hope to never lose to Climate Chaos?” Invite them to write their response on a strip of red fabric and hang them on a tree in a public space. Invite people to read out what others have written out loud, to share the sense of what we risk losing if our planet’s ecological limits are crossed. People can also tie the ribbons around their wrist as a reminder of their commitment to organise for climate justice. Invite press, and invite kids ­ they often have the best sense of how big this crisis is and the details we risk losing. Be sure to upload your photos to TheClimateRibbon.org” [Source.]

[14] “This film was supported by major grants from: JustFilms|Ford Foundation, The Seth MacFarlane Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, 11th Hour Project, The Park Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Wallace Global Fund, Vivienne Westwood, Pamela Anderson Foundation, Chorus Foundation, Oak Foundation.” [Source]

[15] “The B Team has played a lead role in making the business case for beneficial ownership transparency, and their strategic interventions have bolstered international efforts to combat corruption at a critical time. Their leadership has been a vital element of our combined efforts to ensure transparency and accountability become the guiding standards for business and  governments around the world.” — Gillian Caldwell, CEO, Global Witness

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green Collective.