There just might be 74 million reasons environmental charities ignore eagles and whales, and reject zero emission nuclear

Corruption, graft, grift, money laundering cartoon.

By Jo Nova

Renewable billionaires would be crazy if they weren’t funding “Environmental Activists”

Nick Cater points out one mysterious charity, the Sunrise Project Australia had a “revenue” of $73.8 million* dollars last year and we don’t know where that came from.

Let’s say you made a fortune from Big-Government subsidies and rigged market rules — what would stop you pouring some of those parasitic profits right back into fake environmentalists groups to help “your favourite” politicians win? It has the added bonus that when your wind turbines chop up eagles or deafen the dolphins no one says a word. The same sell-out environmental groups would .. do nothing at all. Mum’s the word! Which is exactly what Greenpeace and the WWF seem to do — nothing.

Let’s just say hypothetically, that you ran a company completely dependent on politicians to create rigged market rules — like banning your main competitor? (Nuclear power). What would stop you funneling some of those profits into environmental cover groups to whip up “grassroots” whinges into a fully mature political campaign with digital databases and social media tracking?

And conveniently for them, as Nick Cater points out, the Australian Electoral Commission doesn’t classify environmental charities as “political” even though the Greens are a party. That means the chumpy tree-huggers who don’t mind chopping down trees for some kinds of industries — don’t have to declare their donors. How convenient?

And so the positive feedback loop would roll on year after year — the more the market was rigged, the more the parasites could pay.

And the more it would appear our wilderness groups are industry fronts and our politicians serve someone else:

 

The Australian Newspaper

Surely this is the most powerful interest group we’ve ever seen?

Nick Cater, The Australian

If WWF had accepted money from a mining billionaire, fossil fuel company or tobacco manufacturer, the woke media would have been on to it in a flash.

Australian registered environmental charities receive hundreds of millions in revenue each year. This tax-advantaged honey pot is fuelling the rapid expansion of ecological activism and lawfare, making it nearly impossible to open a new coalmine or drill for gas. As for nuclear, forget it.

…we are left with only the vaguest impression of who is bankrolling the anti-nuclear cause by channelling funds through charities such as the ACF…

 

WWF received funds last year from the European Climate Foundation, one of Europe’s biggest bankrollers of climate activism. Other organisations, such as the Queensland Conservation Council, receive money from the Sunrise Foundation, which originated in the US and is now registered as a charity in Australia. Sunrise Australia’s income last year was an astounding $73.8m. The source of those funds is a mystery.

The activity of a group called Environmental Leadership Australia illustrates how this works. ELA, a registered charity based in Paddington, NSW, reported an income of $4.2m last year and handed out $1.5m in grants and donations. ELA has spawned a host of other charities, including Farmers for Climate Action, Veterinarians for Climate Action and Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action.

Yet the renewable industry investors need Albanese to win. Lifting the ban on nuclear would send their portfolios into meltdown. Wind and solar generators would no longer be protected from competition from a form of technology that is not only carbon-free but actually works.

 

Nick Cater is senior fellow of the Menzies Research Centre and a columnist with The Australian. He is a former editor of The Weekend Australian and a former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph. He is author of The Lucky Culture published by Harper Collins.

 

Imagine you were President Xi wanting to sell more slave made solar panels to Australia, to sabotage their grid and force companies to move to China so you could steal their IP and get them dependent on your supply lines? What stops that money filtering through a chain of philanthropists and into saboteurs hands? The ABC?

Image by Gordon Johnson

 

  • “Billion” corrected to million. Apologies. – Jo
9.9 out of 10 based on 108 ratings

56 comments to There just might be 74 million reasons environmental charities ignore eagles and whales, and reject zero emission nuclear

  • #
    Peter C

    Serious cause for concern.
    Why do we allow so many charities anyway? Who has heard of Sunrise Project?

    74 billion in first paragraph should be 74 million. But still a lot of money.

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    • #
      Gerry, England

      Perhaps more scrutiny of their activities in relation to their founding aims is in order. Didn’t India ban Greenpiss as a charity as it was declared to be operating against the interests of the nation?

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      • #

        Thanks Peter C. I have corrected it. In the context of a debate where one side is almost entirely run by volunteers, a $74 million dollar fund is a vast well….

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      Steve4192

      This article misses the biggest concern.

      It’s not just corporate subsidy farmers funding these NGOs/charities. It’s adversarial state actors too. China and Russia both have national interests in harming western economies and fund these organizations in order to further that goal. Russia also has a specific economic interest in crippling western fossil fuel production in order to make it’s own fossil fuel exports more valuable and to increase it’s dominance in the fossil fuel markets. Ze Russians are definitely big funders of anti-fracking movements throughout the west, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they are trying to undermine Australian coal and Uranium as well.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2015/03/12/russians-financed-the-u-s-anti-fracking-movement-oil-tycoon/

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      • #
        Steve4192

        Ha!

        After reading comment 16.1, I realize I forgot to add Uncle Sam as one of those foreign actors working against Australian coal. Don’t trust any competitor, even a ‘friendly’ ally.

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  • #
    KP

    “ELA… reported an income of $4.2m last year and handed out $1.5m in grants and donations. ”

    Love that gap! Who pocketed the other $2.7million I wonder?

    At least it all destroys the naive idea that Central America is full of corrupt politicians and drug warlords, SE Asia is corrupt from the top to the bottom, China is of course completely corrupt and Russia is full of corrupt oligarchs, while the West is pure as driven snow with honest politicians doing their best for the people. “Aren’t we lucky we’re not like them”..

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  • #
    Kalm+Keith

    A quick reading of this post describes an extraordinary amount of money being moved around. Is it subject to scrutiny by our government or do tax laws turn a blind eye to Charitable organizations?

    BLM is an example of a vibrant community movement that was astounding in it’s organization.

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    • #
      Pete of Perth

      Let’s not forget turdball’s $440,000,000 donation of our money to save the GBR.

      60

  • #
    Ronin

    As always, follow the money.

    Also, ‘It’s a big club and you ain’t in it’.

    310

  • #
    Ardy

    Fake “charities” like the WWF are well worth a closer look. After some digging, you find their financial report online – which they have no choice but to reveal. Buried deep, around page 104, is the remuneration of its top executives. It has no less than three executives on more than $750,000 a year. This, from a “struggling charity” that uses gormless, witless student types to beg for donations in the streets (they get to keep 60% of every donation mind you), by pretending it’s for the Koalas.
    And let’s take a look at the big Koalas scam another day.

    440

  • #
    Philip

    There’s a trough with a lot of money in it. Get your snout in there!

    It’s not just environmentalists knowing where the stash is. The Police these days, it’s basically par for the course to end up on a compo payment to pay for that new backyard pool. I know of a few personally.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Just imagine how much more wealthy and happy Western countries and people would be and how much more science would advance if so much money and effort was not getting siphoned off by the subsidy harvesting billionaires.

    Things would also be much better for the main victims of these environmental scams, the lower and middle income communities.

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  • #
    Graham Richards

    Request to Mr Nick Cater :-

    Please name All the green leaning Climate Change supporter’s & activists who are embedded in the LNP party room.

    It’s obvious this “ green “ propaganda & activism is not just a one party scam.

    Mr Cater must know who they are. Start with Simon Birmingham, Matt Kean……..

    340

    • #
      David Maddison

      At the last state election in Vicdanistan the pretend conservative Liberals had even more extreme policies than Green Labor.

      They are clueless.

      They want to get to Year Zero (or part way there) 20 years before Labor.

      https://vic.liberal.org.au/news/2022-07-18-real-solutions-to-lock-in-climate-action-and

      Currently, Victoria has a legislated net-zero by 2050 emission target but the interim targets are not legislated and therefore not binding in law.

      Therefore, to give the Victorian community the certainty it deserves, a Matthew Guy Liberals and Nationals Government will legislate an emission reduction target of 50 per cent by 2030.

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  • #
    Ross

    Maybe Sunrise Project has funds donated to it from conflict of interest eg. renewables investor. Maybe not. Probably just cash from one or all of the mega-billionaires who have so much money, they don’t know what to do with it. Zuckerberg and super yacht anyone? Here’s a partial list – Soros, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates. Then a whole host of others we never hear about. They all need to wash money in some fashion. Their accountants and financial advisors would do the donating and all you need is someone with a climate alarmist bent. What’s a measly $10m anyway to those guys. But what amuses me is the names of some of these charities. ” Farmers for climate change”, “Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action”. I’ve seen some of those climate change farmers in the media. They’re what my late farming father would have called “Collins St farmers”. Names of those charities sound like they’ve been constructed by some advertising agency. Like all the stupid terms dreamt up during COVID by the likes of the Andrews Victorian government.

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    • #
      AlanG

      Charities need to be audited for activities and not just ATO/Accountant certifications of financial operations. For example, charities probably should not be allowed to fund activists protesting as that is not a charitable function.

      180

    • #
      Ross

      For more on this, go to comment #16 by MP.

      20

    • #
      Ted1.

      Mega yachts? Who pays for them?

      Owning? Hiring? Hiring out?

      They are businesses in their own right. Along with business expenses.

      The bloke with his name on the rego might not be the bloke who is using it.

      30

  • #
    Neville

    Yes the liars and con merchants couldn’t care less about the climate or whales or eagles or bats or the environment etc, but they just love those millions of $ to look the other way.

    180

  • #
    Penguinite

    Tax-free status is bestowed far too easily! Did anyone see the list of Islamic groups that claim TFS? I estimated over 2000 organisations. No doubt there are many more that exist in the shadows and under the banner of https://afic.com.au/. If only the Christian society was as active our country may have been able to survive the usurpation that has been surreptitiously introduced under “multiculturalism” by Labor/Whitlam in 1973.

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  • #
    aspnaz

    President Xi wanting to sell more slave made solar panels

    Maybe Israel is missing a trick there, they could get their Gazan slaves to make solar panels, allow them to leave a solar panel legacy before being murdered.

    235

    • #
      Steve4192

      Sadly, Gazans aren’t capable of making anything of value as long as their homicidal government continues to provoke wars with their more powerful neighbor, hide underneath civilian infrastructure, and steal international aid for their own nefarious purposes. Hamas has repeatedly turned down peace proposals that could have led to a two-state solution because it runs counter to their stated purpose to implement a one-state solution where Israel no longer exists and no Jewish foot ever trods upon the Levant again. Unsurprisingly, Israel has a problem with that purpose.

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  • #
    Raving

    $74 million. Out by a factor of 1,000.

    Given how our Canadian governents hand out billions like it was candy, this matters. Sorry.

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  • #
    Old Goat

    Nice one Jo . Always follow the money . The truth is that some of the people who are heading us towards the cliff are finally getting the light focused on them . We end up with the old question “who benefits”? If everything crashes and burns no one is safe from the consequences , especially the environmentalists as they will become targets for those seeking retribution . You can’t eat money and bitcoin isn’t edible either . Without energy civilisation will collapse and the four horsemen will have free rein again. We already have War and pandemics and famine is not far away if supply chains break down . Plan accordingly .

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  • #
    Skepticynic

    Also in this morning’s The Australian an excellent and topical Spooner cartoon here (probably paywalled).

    80

  • #
    MP

    https://www.influencewatch.org/organization/the-sunrise-project/
    The Sunrise Project was founded by John Hepburn, an engineer who had formerly provided services for the coal, oil, and nuclear industries. After becoming an environmental activist in the 1990s, Hepburn founded a recycling company in Brisbane and became a staff member at Greenpeace. He occupied several roles at Greenpeace, eventually becoming the organization’s senior climate campaigner. 1
    Hepburn and Sam La Rocca are co-executive directors. La Rocca is the former chief of staff for Adam Brandt, a Member of the Australian Parliament and leader of the Australian Greens party. 2 The Sunrise Project’s board chair, Claire Mallinson, is the former CEO of Amnesty International Australia. Director Giles Gunsekera is the founder and CEO of Global Impact Initiative, a global Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) investment firm focused on pressuring companies to adopt the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 3 4

    The Sunrise Project is funded by a variety of sources, including foundations, individual donors, and other organizations that support its mission of addressing climate change. Some of the known funders of the Sunrise Project include the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Wallace Global Fund, and the ClimateWorks Foundation. Additionally, the organization receives funding from grassroots fundraising efforts and partnerships with other environmental organizations.

    Apparently the Sunrise project and Sunrise movement are not linked, just have the same donors.

    https://www.fairfieldsuntimes.com/news/state/new-reporting-sheds-light-on-who-is-funding-sunrise-movement/article_865a6f88-1b76-11e9-9e7d-4710bf137f79.html
    A recent profile of Sunrise shows that the group received much of its initial financial support from the Rockefeller Family Fund and Wallace Global Fund. Sunrise was founded in 2017 and emerged from a coalescence of alumni from several previous anti-fossil fuel activism efforts like the divestment campaign and protests against energy infrastructure.

    Oil Billionaires fund anti oil. (The thesis and the anti-thesis)

    Sunrise Foundation is also not linked.

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    • #
      MP

      Funding
      The Sunrise Project limits disclosure of its donors and grantees, claiming the “hostility shown by opponents of climate action to some philanthropists” as the reason. However, the organization does identify the major foundations that support the Sunrise Project. The benefactors include a variety of major left-leaning organizations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Oak Foundation, the Laudes Foundation, and the KR Foundation. 10 The Denmark-based KR Foundation reported over 8.2 million DKK (approximately $1.2 million) in contributions to the organization from 2020 to 2022. 11 12 13

      Controversy
      The Sunrise Project became embroiled in a battle with the Australian coal industry when emails hacked from the account of Democratic operative John Podesta obtained by WikiLeaks revealed that the U.S.-based Sandler Foundation had contributed to the Sunrise Project’s campaign to shut down coal mining operations in Australia, and that top Hillary Clinton campaign advisors were highly supportive of the effort. The leaked emails also revealed that the Sunrise Project’s executive directors were actively seeking ways to keep the identities of their financial supporters a secret. 14

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    • #
      Steve4192

      Oil Billionaires fund anti oil. (The thesis and the anti-thesis)

      Generation guilt from the descendants of great men who built fortunes and created the modern world, but used harsh methods in doing it.

      Surprisingly though, none of those descendants are willing to give up their palatial estates, trust funds, and other perks of being wealthy scions of 19th century robber barons. They may throw a few dollars at their pet charities, but they won’t give up their bourgeois lifestyles and mingle with the proles.

      50

  • #
    CO2 Lover

    “Let’s say you made a fortune from Big-Government subsidies and rigged market rules — what would stop you pouring some of those parasitic profits right back into fake environmentalists groups to help “your favourite” politicians win?”

    Dan Andrews’ surprising new career move as he teams up with one of Australia’s richest billionaires
    Dan Andrews links with Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest
    The two will sell 100m tonnes of ‘green’ iron to China

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13410565/China-Dan-Andrews-Twiggy-Forrest-green-iron.html

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    • #
      Ross

      Oh god! We Victorians have never really been told why the Dictator decided to resign. Now it’s all making sense. Got an offer he couldn’t refuse and realised it was time to get out. He’s another one deep into the Green blob. One of his first actions as Premier was to slap a tax on brown coal. He’s the sort of person the Sunrise Project would also love to have on their payroll.

      160

    • #
      TdeF

      The question is whether Andrews works for Forrest or still for the Chinese Communists?

      80

    • #
      David Cooke

      Sounds like blue sky (or is that green sky?) They hope to sell 100m tonnes, but Australia isn’t going to be producing much iron of any colour with our ageing blast furnaces going out of production. And as for iron made with hydrogen that was made by solar power… I don’t expect to live to see it.

      Communist China probably prefers to buy the iron ore and the coal necessary to smelt it.

      60

  • #
    TdeF

    Why don’t the coal, gas,petrol,electricity distributors fund anyone? Everyone who disagrees is accused of lying for cash. Where do I apply? Or conversely why am I not receiving huge offers to say nothing?

    160

  • #
    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    About forking out for solar panels: you have some choice. Panels made in South Korea like like Hanwha Q Cells are better quality than the Chinese panels and are definitely not made using slave labour which means you’ve got an ethical choice that way. The South Korean panels are usually a bit dearer but well worth the choice. Reasearch what your installer recommends and check for alternatives that suit your conscience more than your hip pocket.

    40

  • #
    John Hultquist

    The ClimateCult™ is a religious group and the billionaires are tithing.

    80

  • #
    Penguinite

    CAUTION DEMOCRATS AT WORK
    California has instituted another carbon tax of $0.50/gal on fuel under the guise of a clean air levy and it’s legislated to increase every year!

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/05/13/nolte-democrat-run-california-about-get-hit-50-cent-gallon-gas-tax/

    HAVE NO DOUBT AUSTRALIAN LABOR WILL FOLLOW SUIT

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  • #
    John in CQ

    Time To Start a new charity,The Sunset Foundation !

    90

  • #
    gazzatron

    Another great article Jo, with more insightful info in the comments. It seems to me the Climate cultists /renewables advocates /green groups are a very well organised movement that have been chipping away for decades setting up their players to dominate the narrative etc, while the sceptics/ conservative /realists movement is a fractured bunch. While Jo, Nick Cater and others do great work in highlighting the hypocrisy and lies it reaches a limited audience while the other side have captured the majority media groups to spread their deceit.
    The amount of corruption and pork barrelling going on in the political /corporate world is astounding and they barely bother to conceal anything today with an arrogance that shows they are confident there is little to zero possibility of consequences if their corruption is called out.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Perhaps the reason the coal, oil and gas people don’t care or even attempt to debunk fake Climate Science is that with the exception of the brown coal people, everyone else is selling as much as they can dig out of the ground as fast as they can get to it.

    And if the Australian people have to pay through the nose for what they already own, even having to import their own gas from Singapore at top dollar prices, what is the problem? The Australian government too is loving billions in credit from excise duties in the budget. Everyone’s a winner. Except the public and who worries about them? Splash the cash in the election year.

    120

  • #
    Mike Haseler (Scottish Sceptic)

    Nuclear is not zero emissions … it produces enormous amount of CO2 during construction and the mining and refinement of the fuel.

    The best rule of thumb … is the more it costs, the most CO2 is emitted.

    16

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    The real problem is humans trying to see in the dark.
    Gaia is against this.
    It started with fire.
    Which led to candles.
    Both produce massive amounts of CO2.

    All of this of course, is the result of opposing thumbs and language, the true origin of anthropogenic stuff.

    We must de-evolve back to tree dwelling, it is our only hope.
    As long as we maintain a large government structure to regulate trees.

    We have now evolved enough to know it is a mistake.
    Which is true enlightenment.

    60

  • #
    UK-Weather Lass

    What we see is what happens when micro brained politicians (even right winged ones) play at capitalism with money that isn’t theirs in the first place.

    The UK’s civil service was corrupt before the end of Thatcher’s time no matter how she tried to make it better and it has steadily got worse. There were plenty of people in the late eighties and early nineties who told stories of corruption in academia in spite of Thatcher’s careful selection of ministerial ‘types’. If Thatcher was the best an electorate could do in the 20th Century then what hope is there in the 21st when it is harder to find democrats truly interested in finding out what the public really wants and not what the ‘party’ wants to give them regardless?

    Starmer was worse than BoJo but only because he argued the toss with his opponent rather than have fresh ideas of his own to give voters something to think about. Even Blair didn’t have any fresh ideas of his own but what he did have is a Tory brain (e.g. personal money and status was important). What he lacked was intelligence around him in both Westminster and Whitehall. And things have not improved one little bit – they are much, much worse because none of these people wanted to expose the corruption around them as long as they benefited.

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