Green groups no longer promote a cleaner environment

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

The late, great comedian PJ O'Rourke used to joke that everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to wash the dishes.

Now, that can be said of traditional environmental groups that seem to have lost their way.

Green groups are supposed to be for keeping our rivers, lakes and streams clean. They are supposed to try to fight trash and keep toxic chemicals out of the air. Their job is to maintain the beauty of our national parks and save elephants and tigers.

Not anymore. The New York Times recently reported in a disturbing headline: “Environmental groups cut programs as climate change funding changes.”

In other words, the left's hysteria over climate change and its campaign to end fossil fuels is interfering with a common sense green agenda. Worse than that, the climate agenda is somehow making the state of the environment worse.

According to the Times story: “A significant shift in donor contributions to nonprofits fighting climate change in recent years has left some of the nation's largest environmental organizations facing critical deficits in programs on toxic chemicals, radioactive contamination, and wildlife protection.”

All of this is driven by a mad quest for billions of greenbacks to stop global warming. That is, they are chasing and spending money on a cause, changing the temperature of the planet, on which they can have almost no impact.

How much money are we talking about? By 2022, environmental groups spent and raised $8 billion on climate change activities. This does not fully include the tens of billions of dollars that central governments are spending on climate issues. All this money has funded numerous conferences on climate change around the world, as well as virtue signaling protests, propaganda campaigns in schools and a war against oil, gas and coal, cars, stoves and air conditioners. And now eating meat is verboten.

Yet the climate agenda often drives policies that destroy the planet rather than save it. In poor countries, the war on fossil fuels has led to people burning wood, or even dung. Instead of spending money to ensure the world's poor have safe drinking water, we are spending billions of dollars powering windmills and solar power.

These “green energies” use 10 times more land than a coal or gas plant. America's landscape is being paved and industrialized by our pursuit of zero-carbon policies. How is this an environmentally friendly policy?

Also, increasing the cost of energy makes people poorer, which is counterproductive if we want to keep the planet clean. The richer a country is, the more money it spends on cleaning the air, water and preserving wildlife.

The biggest question environmentalists should be asking is: What has the half trillion dollars spent on climate change bought? No measurable results.

Fossil fuel use reached an all-time high in 2022 and 2023, and carbon emissions have been rising rather than falling. The more governments spend, the more money the United Nations insists we have to spend. The latest UN report says more than $4 trillion must be spent every year until 2030 to stop global warming.

With that much money we can end world hunger and illiteracy.

Instead, the zealots in the Biden administration and the billionaire donor class are demanding that we save the planet from carbon emissions at any cost, and if that means cutting funds to fight the real pollution that kills people, so be it be it

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist at FreedomWorks. His latest book is “Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Eating Our Economy.”

Stephen Moore is a journalist, author, and economics columnist who served as a senior economics writer on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page and as a member of the Journal's editorial board.

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