83 Comments

• 

  Richard S on Jun 12, 2019

  The idea that TripAdvisor is less gamed by fake accounts than Twitter or Facebook and is a reputable company seems a pretty naive one. Really it’s the same model, pretty much you could throw it in the basket with Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Amazon & amazingly expensive electric scooters as things we don’t need, and in fact would be a lot better off without.

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Jul 01, 2019

    In the above investigative report, WKOG is not implying that Trip Advisor is “less gamed” than any the other groups. We are just using that company in a comparative aspect. And if you read the article closely, we never intimate that the groups you mentioned were more or less susceptible to any type of subterfuge. We simply made an analysis in comparing Trip Advisor to ONE company in particular, which was We Don’t Have Time. In your attempt to somehow negate our analysis, you utilized a falsehood in saying that we compared Trip Advisor to these other companies when in fact, we were focusing on the differences between We Don’t Have Time and its particularly shoddy way of doing business.

    Therefore to say that some companies aren’t anymore shoddy than others in a capitalist system is to say that you can get the same quality of food or shelter or water or anything else at any given place. Although capitalism puts profit above everything else, including life, there are still various entities that provide goods and services at different levels under that paradigm. Nothing and no one is monolithic as individual people and groups have different reasons and rationales for their actions. The end result is to garner profit. But how it is done varies like the direction of the wind.

• 

  David Blackall on Apr 29, 2019

  For forty-five years I ran a wildlife refuge in a rainforest in Australia. Biology and science were my first teaching subjects and this earned the money to pay for it. I have recently conducted fieldwork with university master of science students in determining biodiversity on my refuge. Carbon Dioxide has nothing to do with the loss of species; rather deforestation, in particular, has everything to do with it. Next is the increasing amount of pollution that poisons soils, water and ocean. The theoretical greenhouse effect does not have an effect on species diversity, they have survived temperature increases and decreases in many times before. This is evidenced in the rocks and ice cores and such temperature changes are driven by the sun. It is criminal to mislead the public on such important matters and those at the front of these campaigns are likely to be making profit or power gains. I have always supported clean energy production, free of the toxic gases like sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides that come from the burning of coal. It is time to get this straight – carbon dioxide is a trace gas that is not toxic, and it is the least worrisome of the greenhouse gases. Stop land clearing, especially in the Amazon, as large forests are critical for cloud formation throughout the world and we must reduce to nothing the pollution that poisons everything from microbes to man. It is the giant corporations that pollute in vast quantities, as does war.

• 

  Frank Green on Apr 29, 2019

  So far I have only read Act 1. I have now subscribed and will read through all of your offerings in due course. I read for my BSc Environmental Studies, graduating in 1991 and was well aware of man’s impact on the planet even before then. Now in my 60th year, what is left of this planet is of no consequence to me (this crusty old body) except insomuch as it impacts my children, Grandchildren, and humanity in general. That said, according to James Lovelock (Gaia hypothesis) it is of no real consequence to the planet either, only to the human species. For, those below us on the sentient scale, perhaps have no current understanding of the global threat to life. Ergo only humans are cognisant individually to a greater or lesser extent of what we, if it is us, and or the planet’s cyclical events have in store for us and our demise.

  Of course I would love to spend whatever time I have left in glorious and selfish enjoyment, providing that does not adversely impact on others. Furthermore, I would love the same to extend to my progeny. Sadly, I fear it will not.

  So whilst I agree with your synopsis of what is in part the wrong kind of green, and your (limited by my only reading Act 1) suggested solutions, I feel it is all too little too late. Because, every day we argue over who is right or wrong and the corporatocracy in stealth or otherwise, continue down the road to self destruction, we move one day closer to our species’ final armageddon.

  We (Humans) can change, of course. we can resolve the issue and possibly reverse the trend. But will we? I’ll leave that hanging.

  My final thoughts on your article are in respect to Greta Thunberg. I accept entirely your assertion that you neither meant nor indeed did, cast aspersions as to her intent, her integrity or her credibility. But, I suggest that using the term ‘manipulated’, to some extent does exactly that. at least in respect the her integrity and credibility. Had you said instead that her actions were being hi-jacked by the (hopefully) well meaning, if erroneous mainstream Climate Change movement organisations I would have been in much more agreement.

  You also fail to take account of her statement issued on 11 February 2019 where she states:
  “Many people love to spread rumors saying that I have people ”behind me” or that I’m being ”paid” or ”used” to do what I’m doing. But there is no one ”behind” me except for myself. My parents were as far from climate activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation.
  I am not part of any organization. I sometimes support and cooperate with several NGOs that work with the climate and environment. But I am absolutely independent and I only represent myself. And I do what I do completely for free, I have not received any money or any promise of future payments in any form at all. And nor has anyone linked to me or my family done so…

  I was briefly a youth advisor for the board of the non profit foundation “We don’t have time”. It turns out they used my name as part of another branch of their organisation that is a start up business. They have admitted clearly that they did so without the knowledge of me or my family. I no longer have any connection to “We don’t have time”. Nor does anyone in my family. They have deeply apologised for what has happened and I have accepted their apology.

  In the light of her statement, the point or at least very heavy inference in your article that she is intrinsically nestled in ‘We Don’t Have Time’ is simply wrong and disingenuous. A correction by yourselves would be honourable.

  Otherwise. Go raibh mile maith agat, maith thú.

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Apr 29, 2019

    Thank you for your comment. In response to “You also fail to take account of her statement issued on 11 February 2019 where she states…”

    Act I of our series was published January 17, 2019. ACT II would be published January 21st, and ACT III on Jan. 28th. Miss Thunberg’s much publicized statement was released February 11, 2019 – almost a full month after ACT I of the series was published. At this juncture, the series was gaining much traction.

    The Thunberg statement claims that that the CEO of We Don’t Have Time, Ingmar Rentzhog, highlighted Thunberg’s participation with his tech foundation, in his company’s *financial prospectus (published and made public in November of 2018), without Thunberg’s knowledge or permission. That’s fair enough. It still doesn’t change any of the facts presented in ACT I of the series. [*”Financial prospectuses must describe the company’s organizational structure and operations as transparently as possible, to provide decision-making data for potential investors.”]

    February 5, 2019 “We Don’t Have Time” newsletter:

    “As you undoubtedly know, Ms. Greta Thunberg has become one of this planet’s most sought-after people. She therefore needs to fully devote herself to the worldwide climate strike movement that she has started, and no longer has the time to commit herself to being an advisory board member of the WeDontHaveTime Foundation. She continues to believe in and support our organisation and we will, of course, continue to give her our full support in the future.”

• 

  L. Kach on Apr 27, 2019

  And even beyond the Non Profit Industrial Complex being paid by the plutocrats to serve their own interests, the strategies that focus on climate change inherenctly divert attention from the root cause of this and all other issues, especially in the context of the US empire: the systemic plutocratic corruption of politics. The following linked ebook provides an analysis that “professional activism” as such is the core reason why progressives lack a coherent strategy to recover democracy: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2904722
  This book takes a wider view of the same phenomenon uncovered by this excellent series.

• 

  denise ward on Apr 26, 2019

  Just know that anything sponsored by the United Nations has an underlying agenda. I see this “We have no time” mantra as massaging the public into thinking of rushing a decision and that decision my friends will be this you can bet your boots – to bring in some hairbrained scheme of the geoengineers. And all their schemes are hairbrained. All of them. Because for them it’s about spending wads of YOUR money on more damage to the environment. What we need to do is reduce our consumption and have a rewards system that encourages such actions, grow hemp and kenaf and use rapidly renewable resources to replace petrochemicals. This is not rocket science people! And anything that comes from a centralized agency such as the UN should be automatically dismissed. Local is where it’s at – what you do locally is where our efforts must go. Use citizen media to promote these ideas

• 

  A P Broomfield on Apr 24, 2019

  Excellent blog confirming thoughts I have been having for quite a while now, and certainly well before Greta came along.
  When the CEO/COO of one of these NGO’s takes home more money than the equivalent in a Multinational Corporation, you know the wheels have fallen off the wagon.
  Keep doing what you are doing please its vitally important

• 

  Drew on Apr 20, 2019

  Epic work. And tireless patience with those who appear to be skim-reading and/or trolling. Your research efforts and journalistic and analytical standards are incredible. And your publishing of these analyses is seemingly too difficult for many to grasp, yet most of these issues are so in all of our faces whilst we collectively choose to ignore or – as so many have been trained to do recently, brand as fake news. Being vegan, I sympathize with the mountainslide of hate and scorn just for wanting to help humans dig their way out of the global shithole we have handed all life on Earth. Subscribing.

• 

  Glenn Albrecht on Mar 24, 2019

  Emotional investment? A standard view is “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”). I think the opposite is true. Here is my reasoning.
  Emotions are an integral part of what makes us human. I have suggested, with respect to the current environmental and climate change issues, that there are two sets of emotions at play, terraphthoran (Earth destroying) and terranascient (Earth creating) emotions. The Earth creating emotions are supported by all that we currently know about biological and climate science.
  The terranascient emotions, when connected to science, form an objective foundation for personal and social commitment to certain courses of action, namely, avoiding the sixth great species extinction and catastrophic climate chaos.
  We have then, a foundation for hope as the causes we are committed to are not arbitrary or nebulous, they are the strongest possible reasons to do something positive. For life to continue on Earth, particularly human life, we must connect our terranascient emotions to the objective order of life as understood and described by science.
  Hence, I re-write the Phillips statement:
  “The more terranasciently emotionally invested you are in anything in your life, the more critical and the more objectively observant you become.”

• 

  Michele Fox on Mar 20, 2019

  Could you clarify your position and thoughts on the climate degradation caused by Animal Agriculture following on Earl’s comments and your response of 20th March? Some 2.7 trillion fishes and other marine life and 70 billion land mammals (estimated) are slaughtered annually. Then there is species extinction in respect of free living animals, also as a direct result of commodification and interference by humans. The requirement for everyone to adopt a plant-based diet and prioritisation of education on anti-speciesism is being ignored across the board, other than a little lip service here and there.

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Mar 27, 2019

    Response from Cory Morningstar:

    Very quickly & to the point, I think our dependence on and treatment of animals is tragic and grotesque. When I say “our” I’m referring to the West, collectively. I’m not referring to Indigenous peoples or subsistence farming in tribes, etc. This has been a part of my activism & my life for the last 2-25 years. I have never come across any other topic that creates such intense hostility from those who are not interested in discussing the massive ecological impacts from this cruel industry. From my past works:

    McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part XIV of an Investigative Report] [Environmentalism is Dead – Welcome to the Age of Anthropocentrism][April 22, 2016]

    “The acquiescence to the burning of billions of trees under the guise of environmental stewardship is both particularly disturbing—and revealing. Consider that bio-fuel, that is the growing of crops/grains/plants for fuel rather than food, was challenged by many environmentalists in the past. Yet the same argument, with the same key issues when applied to growing grain for direct human consumption, rather than growing grain for industrialized livestock, which is then brought to the market for human consumption, is avoided at all costs. Two questions must be asked. When did “environmentalists” stop caring about sentient beings, and, when did “environmentalists” stop caring about trees? The answer is 1) long ago, and 2) disturbing. Collectively, postmodern Western society has been acclimatized to believe/accept that anthropocentrism is environmentalism and anthropocentrists are environmental activists. This is an anthropocentrism that believes in, and caters to white supremacy, even if this belief is subconscious or subtle (aversive racism). This must be considered one of the best examples of successful social engineering to date, as financed by the world’s most powerful oligarchs.”

    McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part XIII of an Investigative Report] [The Increasing Vogue for Capitalist-Friendly Climate Discourse][September 24, 2015]

    “Klein’s partnership with the Guardian newspaper; her placating of 350.org’s foundation funding; her chosen decision to remain silent on warmonger NGOs such as 350.org’s strategic partner Avaaz (in large part responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands in Libya [4], which they seek to be repeated in Syria); her silence on the NPIC undermining of vulnerable states at COP15 (with Greenpeace, 350 and Avaaz being the first signatories of TckTckTck); her acceptance of 350’s undermining of a sovereign state and the world’s Indigenous peoples; her scant, almost non-existent references to the military-industrial complex in relation to its massive (and exempted) contribution to both climate change and ecological devastation (case in point, consider the US Air Force (USAF) is the single largest consumer of jet fuel in the world – the avoidance of this subject is even more unconscionable considering US President Barack Obama is one of the most (if not the most) militarily aggressive US presidents in history, authorizing various airstrikes and military operations in at least seven Muslim countries); her silence on industrialized factory framing (livestock stats); and her failure to disclose the relation between 350’s KXL campaign and Buffett’s 21st century oil by rail dynasty, etc. — all demonstrate Klein’s own “noblesse oblige.”

    McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part XI of an Investigative Report] [2 Degrees of Credendum][August 11, 2015]

    “Further, calculations by author/researcher Dr. Richard Oppenlander conclude that without using any gas, oil or fuel, ever again, the world would deplete the so-called 565 gigatonne carbon budget by 2030 – without the use of fossil fuels even factored into the equation, all simply by raising and eating livestock. [Read the suppressed stats on the impact of livestock on our climate and environment here.]”

    McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part V of an Investigative Report] [A Thinking Person’s Nightmare][September 5, 2014]

    “Included in such “green” portfolios will be massive land grabs and the appropriation of natural resources under the guise of conservation. “Sustainable” plantations (biomass/biofuels/agrofuels; feed for industrialized livestock), REDD+, Carbon Development Mechanisms (CDM) and so-called carbon sink projects comprise a green façade to justify the long-term objective of acquiring control of communally owned territory in the global South. In the long term, the goal is unbridled corporate capture of fertile land with access to cheap and plentiful water and labour, for producing export food crops that will deliver guaranteed high profits. Geo-engineering will place a further emphasis on food gentrification and large-scale monoculture industrial plantations – undoubtedly playing a pivotal and leading role in the accelerating obliteration of Earth’s natural biodiversity. Sovereign nations, peasants, farmers, campesinos, Indigenous Peoples and whole cultures will be annihilated in the process – a feat of 21st century corporate colonialism.”

    McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street [Part I of an Investigative Report][May 17, 2013]

    “One must take note of 350.org’s obsession with fossil fuels exclusively. With certainty, 350.org, in tandem with the non-profit industrial complex, is strategically preparing the populace to accept what Guy McPherson calls the “third industrial revolution.” This “climate wealth” agenda will include false solutions such as biomass, unbridled “green” consumerism, carbon market mechanisms such as REDD, etc. What it will not include is: the urgent necessity to destroy the expanding military empire, to transition from/dismantle our current economic system, to address the industrialized livestock industry, to massively scale back and conserve, to employ tactics of self-defense by any means necessary, nor anything else that is imperative to address if we are to mitigate full-out omnicide. In a nutshell, the agenda will not include anything that would actually pose any meaningful threat to the system. It’s always divide and conquer with the corporate/elite-funded NGOs. The point is to ensure the masses fight meaningless battles and never “connect the dots,” to use 350.org’s phrase. Just like the Avaaz founder MoveOn.org, 350.org successfully induces consent.”

    Keystone XL: The Art of NGO Discourse – Part II [June 4, 2013]

    “More than half (58%) of the total energy produced in the US alone is wasted due to inefficiencies (Phys.org – April 2011). The US military (alone) consumes as much as one million barrels of oil per day (source: author Barry Sanders) to steal resources from sovereign states while simultaneously moving trillions in tax dollars from hard-working people into the hands of global corporations. Millions of men, women and children have been murdered in the process. Approximately 51% of all GHG emissions are created from industrialized livestock. But whereas bio-fuel (aptly coined agro-fuel) is an acceptable topic within the constructed left paradigm, industrialized livestock is not. The blatant hypocrisies of the privileged once again shine transparent on this critical yet unspoken issue. Progressive greens correctly identify that running our cars, etc. on ethanol has already contributed to the world’s food shortages and that the consequences of converting forest land for growing corn for ethanol, etc. are profound. Most activists would agree with these excellent observations and argue against corn ethanol based on these facts and further damning facts simply because it is common sense. Yet, it is clear that the progressive greens are unwilling to collectively identify these very same arguments when it comes to industrial livestock. [4] What are our proposed solutions to the fact there has been a 158% increase in methane (72-100 times more powerful than CO2 in the short-term) as we approach and surpass accelerating feedbacks and irreversible topping points? Maybe the current NOAA methane graphs are terrifying only to the atolls slipping under the rising oceans. The root cause of climate disruption is our global, industrialized capitalist economic system. Yet on these issues, the most critical issues of our lifetime, there is no discussion within the non-profit industrial complex. There is a reason. The complex is financed to the tune of billions of dollars to ensure the right discourse in order to protect the system.”

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Mar 27, 2019

    The Most Important COP Briefing That No One Ever Heard | Truth, Lies, Racism & Omnicide [December 10, 2012]

    “Also Ignored by the Non-Profit Industrial Complex at COP15: That industrialized livestock contributes over 50% of all GHG emissions.”

    The Real Weapons of Mass Destruction: Methane, Propaganda & the Architects of Genocide | Part III [January 17, 2011]

    “What is rarely discussed is the fact that as much as half of the annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change are now being attributed to the lifecycle and supply chain of domesticated animals raised for food. The livestock industry also contributes to massive deforestation, causing further acceleration of climate change. Due to the fact previously stated, that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas 72-100 times more powerful than carbon in the short term (5 to 20 years), how can it be that this issue is barely being discussed? Like heart disease – denying this issue constitutes a silent killer.

    Livestock now accounts for up to 51% (Worldwatch Institute) of all greenhouse gas emissions. [19] Methane accounts for a vast amount of these emissions. Meat counts for more damage than all transportation combined on our finite planet. In June 2010 the United Nations issued a second urgent plea for a global united transition to a meat-free and dairy-free diet: “A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change.” Yet despite urgent warnings from the United Nations (the first in 2006) that countries must reduce meat consumption, this is just another lifestyle change the well-off would rather not discuss, even when this massive dent in emissions would cost nothing – we could all do it today, at our next meal. We could at least begin a transition today. Especially in light that this is one of the few solutions in the mitigation of climate change where citizens are free of government-asserted control over our decision of choice. The fact that it would be more effective in the fight to prevent catastrophic climate change to eliminate animal products from our diets than it would be to eradicate the entire globe of all vehicles of transportation combined is nothing less than incredible.

    The fact that we dismiss such a simple action at the cost of future generations is revealing. What it sadly reveals is an increasingly unenlightened society that is effectively becoming more and more corroded by unadulterated individualism.

    The Right to Destroy Ourselves

    “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” – Albert Einstein

    But why give fair and just transition programs and subsidies to independent farmers for making the critical transition to organic plant-based agriculture when we can just keep giving the billion dollar multinational corporations the vast subsidies to keep destroying our planet? And why give our children – who are at the mercy of our poor decisions – a healthy and compassionate diet when we can slowly kill them with an escalating epidemic of obesity and diabetes, costing the health care system billions? But hey, as long as the cost belongs to the taxpayers while the profits from disease line the pockets of the rich, what’s the problem?

    Let’s face it, there is too much money to be made by the multinational corporations, who view our families, and especially our children, as nothing more than neon-flashing dollar signs. There is just too much money to be made on drugs, treatment and disease. Prevention is the enemy of corporate profit. And why even consider transitioning to a healthy plant-based diet when, instead, corporations can set another unknown disaster into motion – in this instance, cloned meat. Our “brilliant” species can do anything – except change the very patterns that destroy our own habitat and ultimately ourselves. Burn baby burn. Drill till we’re dead. Message from corporations to consumers (formerly known as citizens): Stuff yourself with meat, hormones and additives until you explode (or the planet explodes – whichever comes first).

    As an exporter of meat, dairy and wool, New Zealand’s highest climate gas emission is methane, despite having a per capita car ownership that rivals California’s. How to fix this? Simple – like the IPCC, the government simply accounts for greenhouse gas emissions but doesn’t add in agricultural methane, even though methane is far more potent than CO2. Presto! Methane is no longer a problem.

    There is no choice – if we want to continue living, there must be generous subsidies to assist a global conversion from industrial livestock farming to organic, primarily plant-based, small-scale agriculture rich in biodiversity. Intensive livestock production and the intensive food production for livestock contributes to massive deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Much of the cleared land for livestock could be reforested or returned to grassland – becoming lush carbon sinks rather than degraded lands that emit deadly methane. Conserving biodiversity, as well as feeding humanity, must be a global priority over sustaining factory-farmed livestock.

    Like fossil fuels, states must eliminate the massive livestock and dairy subsidies. Such subsidies continue to be accepted and relatively unchallenged as states vie for export dollars by selling meat to other nations. Trade is set to be the number one sector of all fossil fuel consumption by 2030. Further, both the fossil fuel industry and the livestock industry must internalize the full costs of all pollution, including water pollution, CO2 from deforestation, methane from decaying animal parts (among other sources) and nitrous oxide from animal waste.

    Will governments create such legislation? Not likely. For behind the red velvet curtain, the corporations run the greatest puppet show on Earth. This certain cause of CO2 and methane is the easiest (and most affordable) one to tackle – yet, almost five years after the initial UN warning we are not even discussing it.

    October, 2010: Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food states unequivocally:”There is currently little to rejoice about,” and “worse may still be ahead…. Current agricultural developments are… threatening the ability for our children’s children to feed themselves,” he said. “A fundamental shift is urgently required….” He continued that “giving priority to approaches that increase reliance on fossil fuels is agriculture committing suicide.” Today agriculture continues to decline because of accelerating climate change. Feeding factory-farmed livestock rather than feeding people is just one more slap in the face to human rights and social equity.

    October, 2010: Scientists warn of a livestock greenhouse gas boom: “Soaring international production of livestock could release enough carbon into the atmosphere by 2050 to single-handedly exceed ‘safe’ levels of climate change.… The livestock sector’s emissions alone could send temperatures above the 2 degrees Celsius rise commonly said to be the threshold above which climate change could be destabilising.” They also make a more conservative estimate: “The sector will contribute enough greenhouse gas emissions to take up 70 per cent of the ‘safe’ 2 degree temperature rise.” The authors of the study called on governments to prioritize the reining in of the livestock sector, adding that “mobilising the necessary political will to implement such policies is a daunting but necessary prospect.” They suggest the world will have to reduce emissions by roughly 87 per cent relative to performance at a global scale in 2000.

    And again, remember that 2ºC was never considered safe. From the 1990 United Nations AGGG report: “Temperature increases beyond 1°C could trigger rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage.” The absolute temperature limit of 2°C in the same report was motivated as the limit beyond which the risks of grave damage to ecosystems and of non-linear responses are expected to increase rapidly.

    In the video below (2011:13:57), The Genetics Myth, Dr Robert Sapolsky, Dr James Gilligan, Dr Gabor Maté and Richard Wilkinson speak of how a society void of ethics, effects our behaviours and emotional health.”

    Post Cop15 | Time to be Bold [October 20, 2010]

    “There must be generous subsidies to assist a global conversion from industrial livestock farming to organic, primarily plant based small scale agriculture rich in biodiversity. Intensive livestock production and the intensive food production for livestock contributes to massive deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Conserving biodiversity, as well as feeding humanity must be a global priority over sustaining factory-farmed livestock and bio-fuel production.”

    10:10:10 – Marketing, Manipulation, and the Status Quo [October 8, 2010]

    “Pablo Eisenberg at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute has stated, “although we know that our socioeconomic, ecological, and political problems are interrelated, a growing portion of our nonprofit world nevertheless continues to operate in a way that fails to reflect this complexity and connectedness.” This unwillingness to confront the broader issues of climate change such as militarism, livestock, and the capitalistic practices inherent in the current corporatocracy, is at the heart of the crisis of the climate change movement. Behind closed doors, the organizations manipulating and exploiting 10:10:10 know and understand the dilemma created by their infatuation with the corporate power structure. Yet the big greens refuse to advance these fundamental issues. And to be fair, they can’t. For if they were to be effective, in a meaningful way that actually started a paradigm shift, they would quickly be cut off from their generous ‘partners’. These groups have become barriers to the movement. They no longer represent civil society, but stand as walls to protect the system. They utilize the coercive tactic of inviting supposed leaders of civil society into sanitized circles of power, and simultaneously repress the rank and file climate movement.”

    • 

      Mike Stasse on Apr 17, 2019

      It’s ignored because it’s not true. Cattle don’t create atmospheric carbon, they cycle it. It’s even called the carbon cycle.

• 

  stephen becker on Mar 20, 2019

  For those who are not fluent in Swedish. The aims and business model of WeDontHaveTime are available here: https://www.fundedbyme.com/en/campaign/8227/we-dont-have-time/

• 

  Earl on Mar 20, 2019

  You lost me in the first paragraph. War is not the biggest contributor to climate destruction. It is animal agriculture, by far. Clearcutting of forests for feed crops and grazing lands, poisoning of the riverways from factory farms, ocean dead zones from runoff, destruction of the oceans and release of ancient CO2, species extinction, release of methane(a greenhouse gas 100x more potent than CO2), and much more.

  And the human toll is equally as terrible. Mass starvation due to commodification of “feed crops” like corn and wheat, by Wall Street bidding up prices. Then those crops being fed to jailed and abused animals instead of feeding humans. A massacre from diseases (CV disease, cancers, diabetes) of excess caused by a rich western diet of meat, cheese, eggs, fish, milk that are almost nonexistent in poor countries relying on plants as food. Our healthcare costs are bankrupting our society.

  Obviously I am against war and violence. But we need to start walking our talk and be vegan. Even if you hold the speciesist and ignorant belief that animals are merely here for your pleasure and amusement, as I have explained, killing them is killing us as well. Compassion, nonviolence. For the animals, for the planet, for the people. Go vegan.

  Some great documentaries:
  Forks over knives
  Cowspiracy
  Earthlings
  What the Health
  Gamechangers

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Mar 20, 2019

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

    “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.”

  • 

    Nick Cotter on Apr 07, 2019

    Micheal Mann is one of the most respected climate scientists and he is clear on what the problem and solution is… spoiler alert, its not Agriculture https://t.co/thlaywqWky

• 

  Phil on Mar 19, 2019

  great work, thank you very much.

  I was never into this climate change thing and avoided discussions for not upsetting friends, but your analyses indicate that the problem – the financial, political, psychological, etc. problem – is far greater than I imagined.

  Besides, good idea in above comment about redirecting this climate change movement. We can simply insert some facts about wars and war industries, like in this article. Because this is in my opinion a real reason to do marches and protest in public places.

• 

  Mary Aratoni on Mar 17, 2019

  The part that made me think again about the “wedonthavetime” is that there is no word of “veganism” as we know 24% of the cause of climate change is animal farming. I did like your analysis of this movement. It has always been this way, capitalizing on a great idea without the realization of the original “great idea! ” we got fooled again!

  • 

    Nick Cotter on Apr 07, 2019

    14.5% of global emissions are from Agriculture as far as I can remember its the FAO figure?

• 

  Johnny Walker Read on Mar 15, 2019

  It’s all about the Benjamins baby, it always has been.

• 

  Michele Fox on Mar 15, 2019

  Thank you for your analysis. It has been very clear that Greta is being manipulated no matter how pure her own intentions. The lack of detail in the mainstream media about her background and the fact that she is, at best, fawned upon by so many disingenuous adults speaks to that. Also, that she doesn’t seem to be allowed to promote veganism as a major catalyst for change. Even without her influence and the fact she is being positioned as a figurehead, your insights make perfect sense.

• 

  Chris Harries on Mar 02, 2019

  It could be inferred from this that every movement that gets legs, no matter how genuine in intent, will be coopted by the market in some ways. From this we then would have to conclude that no identifiable movement should be promulgated. Just amorphous discontent.

  • 

    Diane on Mar 17, 2019

    I agree. This article is blatantly manipulative too. It’s not offering alternatives it’s just criticizing things becoming big about climate.
    It’s pretending to be eye opening but it’s not.

• 

  Susan Foster on Feb 26, 2019

  Her paternal Grandfather’s relative was a founder of the Nobel Prize who researched CO2 in the atmosphere. Her Grandfather himself was a well known Swedish Theatre Director and her father and mother also Swedish Celebrities.

• 

  loic Desiron on Feb 20, 2019

  The only time I heard about the supposed “trustees” behind greta is by the articles that are against her. How is this? I think those people are missing the point and are turned against the wrong enemy. We can’t afford internal fighting and bickering.
  Your words are going to profit only doubt merchants

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Feb 21, 2019

    First off, thank your for commenting and reading our analysis. We appreciate the support from all of our readership.

    In regards to your response to the above work, we would just like to say that WKOG as an organization does its best to document each and every one of its articles. WKOG does a tremendous amount of research and zealously attempts to ensure in no uncertain terms that it administers a critique based on verifiable, irrefutable evidence. In terms of the evidence provided and the veracity of it, WKOG will always defend it since it is the result of a vast amount of time and energy to sift through the minute details of information that is not readily available.

    As such, WKOG feels that if any person reads the series with a totally unbiased mindset, he or she will realize that at no time does WKOG say anything disparaging towards Greta Thurnberg personally. Rather, WKOG analyzes the people and organizations in her sphere that are promoting her, the history of those people in terms of the timeline of their entrance into her life, the ulterior motives they possess in said relationship and, most importantly, if the answers they are providing her and the rest of us are addressing the ultimate question as to preserving a planet that can sustain life, be it human or anything else.

    WKOG’s objective is not to sow seeds of dissension among the people at the grassroots level who have accepted that humanity is in truly dire circumstances at this juncture. In regard to those circumstances, WKOG feels that it would be disingenuous to sugarcoat the truth as WKOG is an organization that attempts to the best of its ability to be at the forefront of this ongoing quagmire and provide the necessary information to anyone seeking truth. As there is much disinformation prevalent in society regarding the extreme conditions in which we reside presently, WKOG’s goal is to provide a haven to any person who is seeking an unfiltered analysis of the various entities that are allegedly providing us with solutions to all of the problems outlined in the series.

    As WKOG is not profiting from this to any appreciable degree (we are funded to the tune of approx. 100.00 per month), its only intention is to give readers the researched data and a cogent analysis. This is unlike the moneyed interests surrounding Greta and using her actions and the youth movement as a whole to benefit themselves financially in a capitalist system, the same one that has placed us as a species on the brink of disaster.

    Once again, WKOG appreciates your comment and we will always try our best to address any legitimate concerns post haste.

    Thank you.

• 

  Marcella on Feb 09, 2019

  Thanks for all the info you shared.
  Could you please give a source for this statement
  “We Do Not Have Time is mainly active in three markets: social media, digital advertising and carbon offsets. ” Thanks

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Feb 10, 2019

    Please see the pdf embedded in the article by clicking on the link below.

    Title: We Don’t Have Time (in Swedish)

    http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/We-Dont-Have-Time-Business-Plan-Swedish.pdf

• 

  Mark on Feb 07, 2019

  It comes as no surprise that the usual suspects are trying to capitalize on Greta’s passion, and to turn the whole ‘save the climate’ movement into another gigantic capitalist opportunity.

  But will they have the last word? Whether or not we like their motives and methods, they are amplifying a real concern and desire to act to reduce/mitigate climate change: so for me the question is, can WE effectively promote other solutions – degrowth, doughnut economics, zero carbon economies, lifestyle change… to the people THEY are sensitizing to the need for change – perhaps even using their platforms and networks? Can we subvert the ‘We Don’t Have Time’ platform into a movement for actual change?

  • 

    Diane on Mar 17, 2019

    That’s exactly the point !

• 

  Glena on Feb 02, 2019

  correction to above. I meant thousands of years, not millions. That’s what happens when you juggle 2 languages. Also, I mean WKOG, not WGOG. sorry.

• 

  Glena on Feb 01, 2019

  Excellent series–you’re articulating a lot of what I’ve been thinking for a while about “green” capitalism, and just how sad the whole thing is–that a lot of white, upper middle class folk still really think tech is going to be the way “out.” As if there’s an “out.” Maybe Elon Musk will take all the libertarians and techies to Mars with him. I didn’t pay much attention to the Greta thing, because I’m pretty jaded. But it’s also kind of sad to turn her very youth into a brand. I’m so tired of feeling that everything is a brand and that I’m a potential “consumer” for everything.

  With respect to Jasmine’s comment, it’s also worth noting that while hunter/gatherers may well have been destructive, (and I don’t think we really know that–at least not to make a universal statement) that “destruction” was probably, as WGOG notes, localized, AND took place over a long enough period of time such that the local environment recovered. (Incidentally, other animals also change their environments–including ants, and any idea that “NATURE” is monolithic or static is wrong.)
  But back to H/Gs or G/Hs. They were around for millions of years–modern industrial culture is 200 years old. Rapacious or not, there was no such thing as the mass destruction made possible by technology–be it capitalist or communist fueled, which came about largely as a by product of wars, which didn’t get going until relatively late in our history. By way of argument, even now there are uncontacted tribes in the Amazon who still live the way they’ve lived for millenia. Although they’re being killed off at a rapid rate, and now that Bolsonaro’s in office in Brazil they don’t stand much of a chance to survive. So they obviously didn’t destroy their environment. My point is that the whole “There’s no alternative” argument because humans are f**ked is pretty suspect to me. As far as I know, John N Gray (and I’ve read Straw Dogs & Black Mass) is not a paleobiologist.

  Anyway, great blog, I’m going to read the next acts now.

• 

  Cindicus on Jan 28, 2019

  Fantastic blog!!!! How very sobering.. Thank you.

• 

  Jg on Jan 23, 2019

  Fantastic article on the “greening” of empire. Thank you.

• 

  Jasmine Karam on Jan 21, 2019

  Sorry but Greta has a geniune interest for the enviroment and this blog is wrong. Then media have given her attention yes, but her interest is genuine. Nor do I Think this blog genuinly represents Greta.
  Sure some of these organisation and media and so one can question but I feel this blog does no good job.

  If you wish to stop global warming, what we need is technology and not ending all growth. We need more for an example nuclear power and GMO so we can produce alot of electricity without green house gas and grow our food with less area and thus preserve more forest. Problems is that many greens have luddite fear of any technology.

  Second problemf is that indiginous people or any people also destroyed their enviroment, humans have never lived in harmony with their enviorment. This include hunter gatheres as well, already in the paleolithic humans had already exterminated more plants and animals than any other species. While philosophy can influence even cultures that woreshipped nature in the end showed human folly.
  We are the worlds most dangerous species. It is time to look at us in the mirror.
  Being human is to use change ones enviroment for ones needs. That has been the rule.

  ”The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, ‘Western civilisation’ or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human advance has coincided with ecological devastation. ”

  John N Gray, Straw Dogs

  “The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life.”

  Yuval Noah Harari Sapiens.

  The argument that the market economy has caused our ecological problems is for me interesting because the biggest enviromental destruction in history happened in marxist-leninist regimes that lacked any market economy expect a black market. They were planned economies but thought humanity should become the masters of the planet. In 1989 East Germany was in worse enviromental shape than capitalist West Germany. Romania and the USSR were ecological disaster as was Mao’s China.
  Maybe the real problem is human psychology and we have to work around human psychology to deal with enviromental issues. Rather than a tug-war between economic systems.

  ”Federov’s view of humanity as a chosen species, destined to conquer the Earth and defeat mortality, is a modern formulation of an ancient faith. Platonism and Christianity have always held that humans do not belong in the natural world.When they imagined that humanity could rid itself from the limits that surround all other animal species, the thinkers of the Enlightenment merely renewed this ancient error.

  Federov was undoubtedly extreme, but he was only the most intrepid exponent of a view of things that animated much of the Enlightenment. Henri de Saint Simon and August Comte looked to a future in which technology would be used to secure dominion over the Earth. This fusion of technological Gnosticism with Enlightenment humanism inspired Karl Marx, who transmitted it to his followers in Russia.

  The practical effects of the Marxian-Federovian cult of technology were ruinous. Inspired by a materialist philosophy, the Soviet Union inflicted more far-reaching and lasting damage on the material environment than any regime in history. Green earth became desert, and pollution rose to life-threatening levels. No advantage to mankind was gained by the Soviet destruction of nature. Soviet citizens lived no longer than people in other countries–many of them a good deal less.

  Resistance to Federovian policies was one of the forces that triggered the Soviet collapse. The explosion of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl galvanised protest all over the country. Much of the opposition to Gorbachev focused on his scheme for redirecting some of Russia’s rivers, which would have flooded large parts of Siberia and–as a consequence–altered the world’s climate. Mercifully Gorbachev was toppled, and this grandiose folly never came to pass. Even so, the Soviet legacy to post-communist Russia was a devastated environment–a legacy that its semi-criminal, slash-and-burn capitalism has only made yet more catastrophic.”

  John N Gray, Straw Dogs

  To this day Russia has the most polluted city in the world, but at least some improvlments have been made such as filters in the factories.

  • 

    Wrong Kind of Green on Jan 24, 2019

    Thank you for your response to the series since WKOG welcomes all rejoinders, be they positive or negative in nature. In that vein, we always like to reply in kind. As the response was lengthy, WKOG would like to give a brief, general counter in regard to all of the various points.

    First, WKOG has gone through the painstaking task of not demonizing Greta Thunberg in this series since we are cognizant that she is a child who had the best of intentions in her crusade. In that regard, WKOG asks anyone to find one utterance or written word where we denounce her or her actions. The only thing WKOG is doing is basing and methodically supporting a premise as to the manipulation of her work by the mainstream NGO system to direct it towards reinforcing the false panacea of green technology, which is at the foundation of the Paris Accords.

    As you wrote a voluminous amount about the culpability of other people in history and contemporary states on the environmental firestorm we have inherited, WKOG will just respond with the following:

    1) The previous civilizations that made the mistake of destroying their particular land base only relegated the destructive capacity of their decisions to their particular region and didn’t infringe upon other societies. The only question is whether or not these civilizations would have continued down their path of destruction if they had the capability of disaffecting other people and places globally. We can’t assume since those are assumptions and not evidence.

    However, what we do know without a shadow of a doubt is that the current and ongoing environmental issues are decimating the Global South quicker and faster than anyplace else. This is where the LEAST guilty reside and the ones who have no way of defending themselves from our daily actions. So, the evidence is clear in terms of where the Global North and specifically, the United States resides, as far as a determination of the collective acceptability on the right to harm other places regarding our environmental destruction. We are more than willing and continue to export it across the globe on every form of life.

    2) Although the abundant evidence of the destructive industrial practices of various economic ideologies is not worth arguing since there is ample evidence to support this throughout history, the social and cultural issues are what at odds here in terms of both whatever possible infinitesimal chance of an available solution, as well as a communal way of living for people regardless of the timeline of history. WKOG is a group that supports leftist principles because the inequalities of humanity preceded industrialization and will continue after it has finally collapsed in the relatively near future. Hence, WKOG advocates for following certain principles socially which are answers to issues and concerns that stretched back in history before the momentary bonanza of carbon resources and the proliferation of technologies invented that utilized them, which has been to every living creatures overwhelming detriment.

    Although as we said and we appreciate any feedback, the introduction of these various points of conversation by the reader is an attempt to use this series as a springboard to attack the entirety of legitimate and fact-based concerns regarding the veracity of green technology to address the ongoing environmental catastrophe. WKOG suggests that the reader browse through the archives of our catalog of work or even through the pages of our list of suggested websites.

    Once again, WKOG appreciates the feedback.

    Thanks as always.