JOEL KOTKIN: The coming revolt against woke capitalism.
The ultra-rich have been particularly drawn to draconian climate positions. Leading billionaires like Tom Steyer have collectively sent hundreds of millions to leading environmental groups. The Rockefellers, heirs to the Standard Oil fortune, have become some of the fiercest advocates of radical climate policies. They even favour punishing corporations that make money from fossil fuels like their own forebears once did.
Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, have received huge donations, often as high as $100million, from wealthy moguls like Ted Turner and Michael Bloomberg. Jeff Bezos announced $10 billion in gifts, mostly to green nonprofits, in 2020 alone. The oligarchs’ philanthropic efforts are also now paying the salaries of ‘climate reporters’ at Associated Press and National Public Radio (NPR) to encourage the media to toe the party line.
This all constitutes what analyst Robert Bryce has labelled the ‘anti-industry industry’. Indeed, green lobbyists outspend so-called Big Oil by more than four to one. The recent drives to ban new natural gas stoves and liquefied natural gas (LNG) come directly from these billionaire-funded campaign groups.
The clear hypocrisy of the greens does not go unnoticed by the masses. Those same elites who demand climate austerity for the many are widely known to enjoy the use of private jets, build $500 million yachts and own numerous, often enormous mansions. The fact that the most recent climate confab, COP28, had a session on ‘responsible yachting’ tells people all they need to know about the hypocrisy of the super-rich.
QED: Bezos pays US$90M for third mansion in Florida buying spree.
When Al Gore emerged from his energy-guzzling mansion to address the Senate in 2007 only to refuse to take his own energy reduction pledge from An Inconvenient Truth when presented to him by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Ann Coulter quipped, “I kind of respect him more, it shows he is not stupid enough to believe all this global warming nonsense. He’s trying to get us to believe. Okay, fine, he may be a hypocrite but at least he’s not a moron.”