It's long been obvious to me that the environmental fear-mongers are chiefly interested in power — their solution to every perceived problem, whether it's overpopulation, pollution, cooling, warming, or whatever, is always less freedom and more government compulsion. And it's been equally clear that many of them are hypocrites, lecturing us for not being green enough while they live in humongous mansions and jet to their second and third homes in their private Gulfstreams.
It turns out that some of them are also greedy money-grubbers using climate-change hysteria to enrich themselves (emphasis added):
The two cherub like choirboys singing loudest in the Holier Than Thou Global Warming Cathedral are Maurice Strong and Al Gore.
This duo has done more than anyone else to advance the alarmism of man-made global warming.
With little media monitoring, both Strong and Gore are cashing in on the lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming.
Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as "the world's first and North America's only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil."
Gore buys his carbon off-sets from himself–the Generation Investment Management LLP, "an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C." of which he is both chairman and founding partner.
There's a fine compendium of information about Gore, Knight, and the GIM carbon credit scam at The Global Warming Hoax. Interest in Gore's carbon credit firm grew after the Tennessee Center for Policy Research discovered that Gore's 10,000-square-foot mansion near Nashville used $30,000 worth of electricity and natural gas in 2006. Here's a photoshop picture of the mansion (from FreakingNews.com; used with permission):
This isn't the first time Gore and Strong have cashed in on the environment. Back when Gore was Veep, he praised and promoted Molten Metal Technology Inc. (MMTI), which supposedly was developing innovative recycling technology. MMTI got over $30 million in DOE grants, and its stock soared to $35. The company was largely owned and run by Maurice Strong and several Gore associates. Just before news that the technology didn't exist and that the DOE was cutting off funding, Strong and his pals cashed out to the tune of $15 million.
Strong is a piece of work. A wealthy Canadian businessman, U.N. diplomat, and father of the Kyoto Protocol, he was lined up to become U.N. Secretary General before being implicated in the Oil for Food scandal. In 2002, Canadian papers carried a book excerpt profiling Strong and his desire to change the world:
He told Maclean's magazine in 1976 that he was "a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology." He warns that if we don't heed his environmentalist warnings, the Earth will collapse into chaos.
…Strong has always courted power – but not through any shabby election campaign. He was a Liberal candidate in the 1979 federal election, but pulled out a month before the vote.
How could a mere MP wield the kind of international control he had tasted in Stockholm? Journalist Elaine Dewar, who interviewed Strong, described why he loved the UN.
"He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda," wrote Dewar.
"He told me he had more unfettered power than a cabinet minister in Ottawa. He was right: He didn't have to run for re-election, yet he could profoundly affect lives."
Strong prefers power extracted from democracies, and kept from unenlightened voters. Most power-crazed men would stop at calling for a one world Earth Charter to replace the U.S. Constitution, or the UN Charter.
But in an interview with his own Earth Charter Commission, Strong said "the real goal of the Earth Charter is it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments. It will become a symbol of the aspirations and commitments of people everywhere." Sounds like Maurice was hanging out at his spirit ranch without his sunhat on.
…In 1990, Strong told a reporter a fantasy scenario for the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland – where 1,000 diplomats, CEOs and politicians gather "to address global issues."
Strong, naturally, is on the board of the World Economic Forum. "What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?…
In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?"
Strong may still want to bring down the rich Western industrial democracies. He and George Soros, with whom he's worked on both political goals and business ventures, are pouring money into the Chinese automobile industry, with the goal of flooding the U.S. market with cheap Chinese cars. Strong lives in China these days, and he wants to help China overtake the U.S. economically and become the world's dominant superpower. Never mind what that does to China's "carbon footprint."
They’re having fun at Al Gore’s expense over at