Dec 11
20152
350.org / 1Sky, Articles, Avaaz, Carbon Markets | REDD, Indigenous Environmental Network, International Forum on Globalization, Neo-Liberalism and the Defanging of Feminism, Non-Profit Industrial Complex, NoVo Foundation, Pacifism as Pathology, Purpose Inc., Purpose [Public Relations Arm of Avaaz], Rockefeller Foundation, Social Engineering, TckTckTck, United Nations, USAID, Whiteness & Aversive Racism
"New Ecomomy" 350 Avaaz Carbon Markets Carbon War Room Ceres Heimans Klein Natural Capital Purpose The B Team The Climate Group WBCSD We Mean Business World Bank WWF
The “Purpose” of “Consumer Activism” & COP21 – “We Mean Business”
Wrong Kind of Green
December 11 2015
“The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.” — Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
The most critical of ecological nightmares – the key driving forces of climate change, those being first world consumption:
- resource/lifestyle wars
- industrialized livestock
- a capitalist economic system absolutely dependent on infinite growth
Interwoven with exploitation of Earth and her most vulnerable citizens and sentient beings, the continued genocide of Indigenous peoples as the caretakers of our lands and forests, the continued meltdown of Fukushima, are problems from a different world, a different lifetime.
They have no place amongst the negotiations led by 1% of the Earth’s population creating 50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.
The ultimate goal of course has now been achieved, the non-profit industrial complex (and those it feeds) having not only succeeded in establishing the global acquiescence for a third industrial revolution under the guise of “clean energy”, it manufactured a global demand – saving a suicidal economic system teetering on the verge of collapse. Rather than recognizing this is a unique and rare opportunity in our history to allow and ensure this lethal economic system fails, all radical resistance (as activism) is now passé. In vogue is “activism as choice” for what technological solutions (i.e further consumption/growth) can “save” the humans species (of privilege).
On September 15, 2014, one week prior to the People’s Climate March in New York, Inside Climate News published the article Only $1 Trillion: Annual Investment Goal Puts Climate Solutions Within Reach. From the article:
“Leading up to the UN Climate Summit next week in New York, business groups and investors who manage trillions of dollars published reports and held meetings to call for action. Last week, investment groups publicized the creation of We Mean Business, an umbrella organization of investors urging world leaders to agree on a plan for fighting climate change.”
From the Climate Group (incubated by Rockefeller as in-house project that later evolved into a free-standing institution) website:
“The Climate Group is a proud partner 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)
- CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project)
- Ceres
- The B Team (founded by Richard Branson)
- The Climate Group
- The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group (CLG)
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) [Further reading: http://bit.ly/1lBgbU0]
Together these organizations represent thousands of the worlds most powerful corporations and investors.
We Mean Business Network partners:
- Asset Owner Disclosure Project (AODP)
- CEBDS
- Climate Leadership Council (CLC)
- WWF Climate Savers
- EPC, Japan-CLP
- National Business Initiative
- Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)
- The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
- United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)
We Mean Business working partnerships were formed with the following organizations:
- Carbon Tracker
- Carbon War Room
- Climate & Clean Air Coalition
- Climate Markets & Investments Association
- E3G
- Forum for the Future
- Global Alliance for Energy Productivity
- International Emissions Trading Association
- Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC/Ceres)
- Rocky Mountain Institute (now partnered with the Carbon War Room)
- The Business Council for Sustainable Energy
- The New Climate Economy
- The Shift Project
- United Nations Global Compact
- World Bank Group
- World Resources Institute
[Further reading: Building Acquiescence for the Commodification of the Commons Under the Banner of a “New Economy”]
Ceres, a founding member of We Mean Business is a key partner of the 350.org divestment campaign which was created in consultation with the organizations “friends on Wall Street“. Ceres, 350,org, B Team, Avaaz, The Climate Group, We Mean Business and CDP are all “Earth to Paris” partners. (“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.”) [Source]
The ideologies espoused by “We Mean Business” are transparent in the following (01:40) interview with Avaaz & Purpose co-founder Jeremy Heimans by We Mean Business.
“We’ve been talking in a broader way about the future of consumer activism, of organizing people not as citizens but as consumers.” — Jeremy Heimans, Purpose, 2011
https://vimeo.com/118485719
September 15, 2014, This Changes Nothing. Why the People’s Climate March Guarantees Climate Catastrophe:
“What you are about to witness is the global mobilization of “consumers” to be ushered into the green economy, without SAYING it is the green economy. The climate parade in NYC, coinciding with the release of 350’s Naomi Klein’s new book, is the launching pad.
The kings and queens of hegemony have rolled the dice and placed their bets on Avaaz, 350.org and Naomi Klein (350.org board member) to usher in the illusory green economy under the guise of a so-called “new economy.” Their winning bet is that author Naomi Klein’s latest book will be the vehicle that ignites their new economy, and thus “changes everything.”
It is not by accident that foundation-financed “progressive” media and those within the non-profit industrial complex are heavily promoting Klein’s upcoming book release with multiple side events. It is not by accident that Avaaz’s latest petition titled The Global People’s Climate March has strategically modified the This Changes Everything book title to “Join to Change Everything” and “To change everything, it takes everyone.” Note the similar language employed by WWF: “To change everything, we need everyone.”
The fact that the Peoples Climate March was designed and orchestrated as a mass mobilization social engineering experiment financed by the oligarchs to”change everything” (expand capital and existing power structures) is captured in the (01:40 minute) video titled We Mean Business Momentum:
“And hundreds of thousands of people marched in New York City and all across the world. The momentum became contagious.”
https://vimeo.com/140569902
The dystopian focus on perpetual growth via consumption as the solution to climate change is clear in the following We Mean Business video (3:40). Also note the reference to “Natural Capital” which is code for the global privatization of nature via payments for ecosystems services (PES) which is currently being implemented into policies behind closed doors.
“It won’t be about sacrifice. It will be about a new era of clean abundance.” — Steve Howard, Ikea
https://vimeo.com/106813873
Activist Kevin Hester writes: “It is always worth looking for pearls of truth where the hubris and arrogance of the spin doctors lets them down… ‘the future of consumer activism’ … there you have it, the scam laid bare, they can never disown the market.”
This begets the question: is “the future of consumer activism” (under the guise of a “new economy”) already here?
Photo: 24 November 2015: Naomi Klein (left) and Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In January 1998 Mexican President Zedillo appointed Jose Angel Gurria as Minister of Finance. “One top official at Nomura Securities summed up Wall Street’s euphoria upon hearing of Gurria’s appointment. ‘He’s one of ours.’” Gurría also negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which came into force on January 1, 1994. [Further reading: Our “Man in Mexico” and the Chiapas Massacre]
Indeed the foundation has been laid. After all, Naomi Klein’s book and film project (financed by the same oligarchs who bestow billions of dollars upon the non-profit industrial complex) was not made available for free in an exclusive online format. The book, a #1 international bestseller is being translated into 25 languages. Millions of books, driving and flying to international climate events/parades, social metrics, and a multitude of other foundation financed “activist” activities, all assist in the propping up of a capitalist economic system that is “flying at close to stall speed“.
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[Further reading: The Increasing Vogue for Capitalist-Friendly Climate Discourse]
October 24, 2015
by Maximilian Forte