How the green agenda is being used to fleece the naive
By: Rachel Marsden
‘Greenwashing’ has gone mainstream, with both governments and corporations profiting without taking any real steps to protect the climate
Banks and corporations making pledges of ‘net-zero’ emissions are taking the
public for a ride, according to a new United Nations reportreleased at this
week’s COP27 climate change conference. “We must have zero tolerance for
net-zero greenwashing,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, in reference
to the concept of virtue-signaling a green agenda for marketing purposes as a
strategy to gain more business, all while failing to back up the claims in
practice.
Oh, so the airlines asking whether you want to freely donate extra cash when
buying a plane ticket to offset the carbon footprint of your flight aren’t
technically achieving much beyond making the insufferably sanctimonious feel
good about themselves? Or that the energy companies using renewables as window
dressing are nonetheless continuing to invest in fossil fuels? You don’t say! In
case the idealists haven’t noticed, there’s currently an energy crunch in the
West due to Western sanctions on fuel from Russia – and renewables aren’t
anywhere near ready for prime time as a replacement.
Germans are turning instead to coal and firewood, while France is scrambling to
ramp up nuclear power. The EU even backpedaled at the beginning of the year in
labeling gas and nuclear ‘green’ – which now conveniently allows its leaders to
run around to fossil fuel pariah countries asking for desperately needed energy.
Might as well, though, for all the good that this pricey and pretentious charade
is doing. The UN says that more financing, to the tune of up to $340 billion per
year by 2030, is the key. Anything less is apparently futile. The notion of
massive funding being necessary to prevent Earth’s temperature from increasing
by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is a tough sell, particularly in the absence
of any logical explanation of how the cash would credibly be used to
realistically adjust the thermostat, so officials now seem to be trying a new
sales pitch. “The world must step up and protect people and communities from the
immediate and ever-growing risks of the climate emergency. We have no time to
lose,”Guterres said, with the UN citing things like flooding in Pakistan and
multi-year droughtsas justification for the funding.
Greenwashing is just another way of scamming the hopelessly naive. And no one
does it better than governments themselves, who have managed to relieve
taxpayers of countless billions to fill slush funds under the guise of saving
the world.
And now US President Joe Biden is using a green pretext to protect US economic
interests to the detriment of European allies – even as the US ramps up fossil
fuel liquefied natural gas exports to the EU. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is
conveniently framed as a green energy initiative, offering US consumers tax
incentives to buy American electric cars with batteries that have at least 40%
of components from the US or a country with which it has free trade. Germany and
France view the measures as blatant protectionism.
“We must react fast. I’m calling for a united, strong and coordinated response
from the EU to our American allies. There is a risk of a major shock for French
and European industry. Either they will be resolved there, and we hope they
will, that’s why we have the task force to discuss this, or we will have to go
to the WTO and envisage retaliatory measures,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le
Maire said. “I have not been assured that the American side has completely
grasped how great our concerns about the consequences are,” German Economy
Minister Christian Lindner added. Japan and South Korea are also protesting the
new move, demanding equal treatment for their products.
It was only a matter of time before a Western government would use an
environmental pretext for self-serving economic reasons. “The Americans are
buying American and pursuing a very aggressive strategy of state aid. The
Chinese are closing their market. We cannot be the only area, the most virtuous
in terms of climate, which considers that there is no European preference,”
Macron told Les Echos last month, suggesting that the greenwashing of the
protectionism scam is something that the EU should be copying. Macron even
greenwashed his anger and frustrations at the Cop27 conference, with a jab at
the US and China to “pay their climate fair share.”
Is there any limit to greenwashing? Apparently not. Ukrainian President Vladimir
Zelensky said in a recorded message to the conference that “there can be no
effective climate policy without peace.” Since Zelensky apparently considers
peace to be won only through endless cash and weapons, it looks like he’s now
greenwashed those, too.
Why should the elites have all the fun? The average person might want to try
greenwashing their life by projecting environmental virtue everywhere they go in
order to extract a few extra bucks out of folks on a daily basis – like from the
taxi driver who spent too long idling in traffic, or from the houseguest who
opened the window and made you have to use that much more heat, or from the
friend who ordered the meat dish at dinner responsible for the most
Earth-killing flatulence while it was alive.
Anyone who hasn’t caught on to the green scam by now would likely welcome the
increased citizen policing and be only too happy to comply with demands that
they empty their wallet – into your hands, into a lake, or a toilet, for that
matter – to compensate for their transgressions.
COPYRIGHT 2022 RACHEL MARSDEN