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This essay contributes to the environmentalism-as-fascism thesis
by exposing the British Columbia eco-scene's financial dependence upon,
and ideological subservience to, certain wealthy, ultra-imperialist, American
dynasties. This essay will not try to give a full accounting of
elite patronage of the environmental movement in BC or elsewhere. To undertake
such a large project would also require an investigation of the Canadian
and European oligarchy's substantial private contributions to environmentalism-a
contribution that rivals that of the Americans. This larger project would
also require a detailing of the equally huge sums entering the coffers
of environmental NGOs from state departments like Environment Canada and
the provincial Ministry of the Environment, etc. The extensive, favourable,
and free mass media coverage granted environmentalism by the owners of
the western world's dominant media corporations would also have to be
accounted for. Hence, those still clinging to the utterly non-historical
myth of a "grassroots environmentalism" should be forewarned that vastly
more evidence of elite control of their movement than is displayed
here could easily be marshaled. The focus on the foundations of the American
oligarchy is particularly instructive because even though all elite
support for environmentalism is reducible to the same list of about three
dozen dynasties, it is through these family foundations that one sees
the clearest and most direct involvement of the eco-billionaires. American Oligarchy's Foundations
and Environmentalism in General
Estimates of the total amount given by America's wealthiest to the environmental movement vary from $1 billion to $4 billion per year. (All dollar amounts in this pamphlet are in US currency.) If the sums given to the population control movement are rightfully included, the overall private sector "neo-Malthusian budget" would clearly be nearer the latter figure. A decisive chunk of the money given by the rich to the green movement comes in the forms of disbursements from huge chartered institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, W. Alton Jones Foundation, Turner Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Alfred W. Mellon Foundation and so on.
The David and Lucille Packard Foundation was created in 1965 with a transfer of capital from the estate of manufacturing tycoon David Packard. Today, Susan Packard Orr is chairman of the foundation's board, with Nancy Packard Burnett and Julia E. Packard serving as co-vice-chairmen. As of December 31, 1999, the foundation owned $13 billion in revenue-generating investments. As with all American foundations, they are required by law to disburse an amount equal to 5% of total assets in grants to causes related to the foundation's charter. In 1999 the Packard Foundation handed out $411 million in grants, while the plan for 2000 is to go over $500 million. There are several causes dear to the Packards but none so much as "population" and "environment." In 1999 they gave $87,495,556 to the environmental movement and another $79 million to the population control campaign. The environmental grants were distributed to over 180 non-profit societies in several countries. Curiously, they appear not to have ventured into BC's eco-battles save for a single $50,000 grant to the David Suzuki Foundation to stir up trouble between fishers and foresters.
The Ford Foundation was founded in 1936 to carry on the legacy of Nazi-sympathizer and over-the-top anti-Semite Henry Ford. The Ford Motor Co. is 40% owned by the descendants of Henry, with a significant portion of the remaining stock being owned by the Ford Foundation. William Clay Ford is the Ford Motor Co.'s current board chairman. Both the Ford Motor Co. and the Ford Foundation are conducting major environmental campaigns. The Ford Foundation as of the end of 1999 had assets of $11.8 billion. Their total annual program expenditures were $578 million. These monies were spread out over the arts, medical research, education, social-justice activities, and, of course, environmentalism and population control. The Ford Foundation began cultivating what has come to be known as "environmentalism" in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They trained legions of environmental analysts. The foundation played a decisive role in founding and/or sustaining the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, and the EarthJustice Defense Fund-all of which have grown into large outfits with multi-million-dollar budgets and scores of support staff. The Foundation also created and continues to heavily subsidize Island Press Inc.-a publisher of 30 to 35 eco-books per year. The Fords' grand enviro-pop strategy does not seem to recognize BC as especially interesting. There is little in their data banks about grants to BC enviro-groups except for a $200,000 grant in 1998 to the San Francisco based Tides Foundation to undertake anti-forestry work in BC.
No discussion of US environmentalism would be complete if it did not mention the contribution of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and its now-departed longtime senior strategist, Paul Mellon. The Mellon Foundation was created in 1969 as a result of the merger of the Avalon and Old Dominion foundations. These two foundations were created in the early 1940's by banking magnate Andrew W. Mellon's two children, Paul and Aisla. Paul ran the amalgamated foundation until his death in 1999. Paul was also head of the National Gallery of Art for over 17 years and personally paid for massive additions to the building and its collection. Over the years Paul Mellon gave enormous sums to Yale University, often for establishing professorships in Forestry, Divinity, and Environmental Studies. In 1998 the Mellon Foundation gave out $144,691,669 in grants. Of this, $14.8 million went to environmentalism and $11.04 million went to population control. What makes the Mellons' involvement in "environmentalism" most notable is that it started much earlier (1940s) than most foundations and hence can claim a seniority in, and sense of accomplishment about, this social movement which is now hundreds of times larger than when the Mellons first embraced it.
Other institutions and individuals within America's super rich who are also avid patrons of environmentalism are: Bill and Melinda Gates, the Heinz family interests (over $10 million a year to the environmental movement), the Carnegie Corporation, Richard and Rhoda Haas Goldman (recent annual grants of $2.07 million to population control and $8.3 million to environmentalism, including annual awards of six prizes of $100,000 each for creative new environmentalist activity), Gordon E. Moore, and Edward P. Bass, to name but a prominent few. In all, several hundred businesses and foundations have institutionalized their bankrolling of the environmental movement.
Although there is no institutionalized structure governing the environmental movement, there are several organizations whose chartered mission is to unite and coordinate the tens of thousands of NGOs, funding agencies, and government departments and sub-departments that make up the modern environmental movement. One centralizing institution, the Environmental Grantmakers Association, was founded in 1991 to unite the various enviro-donation fund managers of America around coordinated strategies of giving. The EGA tends to be secretive, with closed-door retreats and members-only websites. Somewhere between 128 and 200 major eco-funding agencies are members of the EGA and thus send representatives to EGA conventions etc. The collective contribution of EGA members alone to the great green crusade would exceed $1 billion per year.
The Foundations Behind British Columbia's
Environmental Movement
The Rockefeller family is also a major centralizing factor in
the environmental movement. The heirs to ruthless oil monopolist John
D. Rockefeller now number around a hundred adults. To say the descendants
of John D. were, and are, avid and influential eco-freaks would be an
understatement. His son John D. Jr. (1874-1960) is said to have donated
some $75 million to nature preservation and related causes and was dabbling
in "eugenics"-based population control as far back as the 1920s. He had
legendary battles with ranchers and resource extraction capitalists in
his ultimately successful efforts to take large tracts of Wyoming out
of production. Laurence S. Rockefeller's (1910- ) lifetime gifts to his
favorite social causes has been estimated at $386 million, and he's still
going. His main passion is for environmentalism/population control. In
1990 Congress passed special legislation, proudly signed into law by President
Bush, honouring Larry's unique contribution to environmentalism. "Jay"
Rockefeller (1937- ), the two-time Governor of West Virginia and perennial
Senator thereafter, was given an approval rating of 100% by the influential
League of Conservation Voters. Steven C. Rockefeller, a Divinity Professor,
former dean, and author of three books, including Spirit and Nature:
Why the Environment is a Religious Issue, is currently Chairman of
the Earth Charter drafting commission that has produced a grandiose eco-rights
document soon to be placed before the UN and virtually every government
in the world for acceptance.
The Rockefellers do not merely have of a family foundation; they have
a family of foundations. According to one list (which was short
by at least three) of the Rockefeller family of philanthropic endeavours
enumerated 31 surviving endowments. The full list would include the University
of Chicago, Rockefeller University, the National Institute of Mental Health,
the Museum of Modern Art, and so on. Projects like the Population Council
(set up in the 1950s to suppress Third World population growth in the
1950s) have grown into large bureaucracies in their own right, relying
on state financing for the bulk of their budgets while remaining well
within the orbit of the Rockefellers.
The main grant-giving foundation these days is the Rockefeller Foundation. Founded with $250 million of old John D.'s money, it has grown into a colossus currently owning $3.8 billion in assets. With its assets having experienced five years of annual average market-value growth rates of 19.1%, the foundation is just now recovering from substantial declines in the real value of its assets during the inflationary 1960s and 1970s. In 1999 the Rockefeller Foundation disbursed $177 million to over 800 separate organizations. Its "Environment" portfolio is now more shuffled amongst various sub-departments, but in 1998 the "Global Environment" department disbursed $13.1 million to enviro-NGOs. Of this, $6.2 million went to promoting small-scale, low-efficiency energy systems and $6.3 million went to LEAD International.
Since 1991 LEAD International staffers have been missioned to scour the bureaucracies, universities, and NGOs of the globe in search of suitable persons who are: aged 40ish, employed full-time in their chosen careers, and who have demonstrated excellence in their field. These individuals are enticed to participate in a 16-week foundation-designed motivational-indoctrination program. Here the "associates" are expected to begin a lasting community with one another. From the pool of "associates," the executives of LEAD select "fellows" who have careers planned for them running some of the tens of thousands of enviro-NGOs. There are now over 1,000 LEAD fellows at work in over 40 countries, notably Russia, China, Brazil, and India. The LEAD fellows are kept in touch with one another through LEADnet (a members-only internet communication system) and through a steady diet of propaganda from LEAD and through an endless series of conventions and conferences also organized by LEAD staffers. LEAD's stated goal is to "create and sustain a global network of leaders who are committed to promote change towards patterns of economic development that are environmentally sustainable." LEAD International's 2000 budget has been upped to $12.6 million.
(Also on the subject of centralizing institutions, note should be made of the Rockefeller's annual $550,000 Philanthropy Workshop wherein the managers of all the major gift-giving entities in the United States are invited to an annual get- together calculated to assist the Rockefeller Foundation executives in playing a leadership role in the multi-billion-dollar world of big-money philanthropy.)
Next brightest in the Rockefeller galaxy of giving is the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, with assets over $670 million. The children of John D. III formed
the fund in 1940. There are currently four Rockefellers on the board,
with eco-spiritualist Steven C. having the chairmanship. In 1998 the Fund
spent $19 million on hundreds of separate grants and projects. Included
in their recent lists of grants are some of local interest:
The Rockefeller Family Fund is interesting not because of its size (it has
grants of only $2.5 million per year) but because of the centralizing
role it plays within the Rockefeller clan. Whereas the Rockefellers shy
away from sitting on certain boards, virtually the entire living family
has sat on the board of the RFF, with many playing a keen role in its
daily management. A recent gathering was summoned to celebrate the work
of the fifty-three Rockefellers who had served on the RFF. (Not
surprisingly, the RFF gives a disproportionately high percentage of its
total grants to environmental groups.) Incidentally, the RFF offices are
also the offices of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.
The Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts are comprised of
seven separate charitable funds set up between 1948 and 1979 by the late
J. Howard Pew, founder of the Sun Oil Co. The funds are managed by his
two sons and two daughters. Total assets of the funds now exceed $4.7
billion. Grant commitments for 1999 were $190 million, of which $35,054,400
went to Pew's environmentalist program. The highly effective California-based
EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund received a one-year grant for $5.52 million.
With regard to British Columbia, the Pews gave a two-year $1.14 million grant in November 1995 to the Washington, DC offices of the World Wildlife Fund to continue efforts to achieve a minimum of 12% preservation of BC's forested wilderness areas. This grant was supplemented with an additional $288,000 in 1997. The Natural Resources Defense Council of New York City was given $400,000 in 1998 for a two-year program to prevent harvesting of BC's old growth forests. In 1999 the Pews announced a $2.13 million grant to the University of BC to establish a scientific group for work pertaining to fisheries and marine ecosystems.
Media mogul Ted Turner has become perhaps the leading figure
in US environmentalism both for his massive donations to the cause and
his relentless preaching about and organizing around the issues of population
control and wilderness preservation. His philanthropy is channeled through
the Turner Foundation and the UN Foundation. The latter
of the two was established in 1997 and has since given out over $300 million,
with at least $130 million going to population control and other eco-issues.
While the UN Foundation's focus is on the Third World, the smaller Turner
Foundation's (annual grants $25 million in 1998) focus is primarily on
US and Canada.
BC eco-groups benefiting from Turner's largesse include: Canadian Rainforest Network, Clayoquot Rainforest Coalition, David Suzuki Foundation, Earthlife/BC Wild, EcoTrust Canada, Forest Action Network, Gowgaia Society, Great Bear Foundation, LandTrust Alliance, Lands Council, Lighthawk, Sierra Legal Defence Fund, and the Valhalla Wilderness Society. All of these groups are engaged in suppressing forestry and mining in BC by means of organizing boycotts, "public education campaigns," and "grassroots organizing." Precise dollar allotments for each group are not available, but an educated guess, based on the foundation's budget and Turner's other giving, would be that about $500,000 per year is flowing from Ted to the BC environmental movement.
According to those who knew him, industrialist W. Alton Jones "cared not" for things environmental; but his descendants have embraced the cause with a singular fervor, redrafting the "goals" of the W. Alton Jones Foundation (established 1944) to include: "to build a sustainable world by developing new ways for humanity to interact sustainably with the planet's ecological system." At last count, the Charlottesville, Virginia headquartered foundation had assets of $426,171,583, annual income of $65,022,256, and a grant-giving portfolio of $31,035,477.
The Jones Foundation's contribution to BC eco-activism is extensive:
The Mott family, originally from New York, have been involved in a variety of enterprises from beverages to axle manufacturing. C.S. Mott folded his manufacturing concern into General Motors in exchange for a large block of shares in GM. He sat on the GM board for 60 years. The C.S. Mott Foundation has assets of about $1.5 billion. In 1999 the foundation gave out 580 grants totaling $113 million. (Many lesser Motts have lesser foundations, albeit with a similar focus.) In 1995 the Mott Foundation began a multi-year funding initiative in BC, giving $225,000 to Earthlife Canada, $100,000 to the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, and $75,000 to Ecotrust Canada. In 1997 these were topped up with an additional $180,000 to Ecotrust Canada and $120,000 to the Sierra Legal Defence Fund (to work with "grassroots groups").
The Bullitt Foundation of Washington State, while not being near the size of some of the aforementioned funds, is of interest because of its exclusive focus on the "restoration of the environment of the Pacific Northwest." In 1999 the Bullitt Foundation spent $4.8 million towards these ends in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and, of course, BC (which received grants totaling $604,500). In 2000 they will spend some $3.3 million, with $456,000 going to BC. Recent BC grants include:
It needs to be stressed that the above-listed $5 million or so (over $7 million in Canadian currency) annual contribution to the BC environmental movement is only a portion of money moving directly from the US oligarchy to the local eco-scene. Furthermore, the US oligarchy represents only a portion of the elite financing and support of BC environmentalism. Nevertheless, the above-listed grants translate into hundreds of full-time and part-time jobs, scores of well-equipped offices, tons of propaganda, and innumerable rallies, protests, press releases and the like. The BC environmental movement is big but it is not so big that the above contributions from America's ultra-rich, imperialist dynasties can be described as anything less than its central raison'd'etre. When one subtracts the full amount of elite support from the local green crusade, one is left with nothing but a mash of low-functioning hirelings, cringing mercenaries, and gormless suckers.
The above information should lay to rest the bogus notion popular in the blonde-dreadlock crowd that being an "Environmentalist" means being an anti-capitalist or a fighter against the establishment. Being an "Environmentalist" means you are a brainwashed grunt in a vast crusade dedicated to preserving the privileges of the most bloated and parasitic sectors of the ruling class. Being an "Environmentalist" is about as radical as saluting the flag or reciting the Lord's Prayer. Being an "Environmentalist" means being an enemy of the working class.
Progress and prosperity in BC means the full development of its natural resource industries: its forests, its ores, its natural gas (on-shore and off), its rivers for hydroelectricity and aquaculture, its mountain slopes for skiing and so on. To suppress these industries is to commit an act of violence against the working class of British Columbia. It is easy for the trust-fund kids of New England billionaires to write off BC as some giant wilderness theme park they might visit by helicopter once or twice a decade. But for the people of BC, this will mean grinding poverty and degradation - Bangkok West. Only the independent direct action of the working class can turn back this fascist green tide and protect the prospect of a healthy and wealthy future.
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The American Oligarchy's Economic Warfare Campaign on British Columbians
