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Cost vs Benefits Of Environmentalism

(This topic is a split from the Global Warming thread, because the fiscal issues are not really on-topic with whether or not it's a man-made or natural event. This subject was brought up in the other thread, but I feel it's a sufficiently distinct topic.)

Who profits from global warming, and environmentalism in general? Why, the green funds themselves.
www.conservationfund.org
This is the financial statement of one of the largest environmental organizations in the USA, and maybe the world. Combined statements from 2004 & 2005, reviewed by independent auditors. HUGE money at stake in environmentalist causes (first number is 2005, second is 2004, my comments in parentheses):

This is just ONE of the myriad organizations that promote environmental causes. Where is the majority of their money spent? Salaries and services. Where is the least of their money spent? Public education and research.

Edited: FarSeer on 20th Nov, 2006 - 9:06am

Environmentalism Benefits Cost

Farseer, which organisation is this and where did you get this information from?

I personally believe this whole notion that environmentalism only exists to serve greedy lobbyists is nonsense. The overwhelming majority of people who care about the environment are common folk. Sure, some charities such as Greenpeace will be making a lot of money. But these are multi-national scale not-for-profit organisations.

I am not sure what accounting or auditing standards they are bound too. I personally believe all charities, including religious-based charities, should be publicly accountable and be subject to the sort of transparency of listed companies within reason.

But to say that people are involved in conservation to make money doesn't sit well with me. It sounds like a very typical pro-business conservative response to tarnish the image of green groups rather than disprove what they stand for with actually fact.

I would wager a bet that there is more money to be made by big business in environmental ignorance than there is in trying to clean up our act. Almost all the opponents of climate change are either being backed or are linked to big business.

I"ve just written a 2000-word report on how climate change will affect business and the price of action vs inaction.

I can tell you with some authority the world's leading economists and sustainability advisers all say the price of a business as usual approach will cost 5 percent global GDP by 2050 PLUS the cost of any social costs that arise out of climate change. The range is between 5 to 20 percent of global GDP. The lower end of the scale is hard economic modelling, while the scale becomes more hazy as it approaches the 20 percent. These predictions are being made by economists and accountants, NOT green groups.

The price of action to tackle climate change varies between -1 to 4.5 percent of global GDP. A sensible estimate, the head of Macroeconomics at PricewaterhouseCoopers told me, was 2-3 percent. This is about one year's growth. It's not a massive burden as the Bush and Howard Government's would try to have us fooled. The variance of this cost between sectors and nations is quite high and they are likely to hurt greedy consumer rich countries most. But so are the opportunities for business to embrace a low-carbon economy. The opportunity for business in services and goods is about $500 billion globally each year. I would hazard a guess this is more than what green movement is worth.

Cost vs Benefits Of Environmentalism History & Civil Business Politics

First, the information came from The Conservation Fund website, the link for which is in the original post. Specifically, from that organization's audited financial statements posted on their website.

Second, I never said anything about greedy lobbyists. The title of this thread is "cost vs. benefits of environmentalism." What do they spend? How much is actually spent on public education and environmental research? How much is actually spent in actively doing anything about the environment? In this particular case, the majority of their funds are spent on payroll and employee benefits, and very little on public education or research.

This fund generated revenues of $72 million dollars in 2004 and $68 million in 2005. I'm merely pointing out where it's being spent, according to their own publicly available records.

Edited: FarSeer on 27th Nov, 2006 - 2:31am

Environmentalism Benefits Cost

Environmentalism, and changes that work towards its end, cannot be measured in dollars. Over the last twenty years, upper respitory diseases and illnesses have simply sky rocketed. They have sky rocketed because of the amount of pollution in the air. The effects are primarily on children. To me, that alone is evidence that environmentalism will benefit our children infinitely. Its not all about global warming.

There is the constant thought that environmentalism exists to create a profit for certain groups. Well of course it does. Just because it makes money doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. If we spent the money to help out our environment, and proactiviley stayed on that course, these groups would cease to exist and their profits would dry up. The money would go towards companies trying to help the environment.

Helping the environment also is not nearly as expensive as people believe. It is less about spending the money and more about the people that will lose the money, namely big oil companies, mostly over seas. But they could get in on the alternative fuels market and make money that way, people still have to travel in something. In fact, most studies show that a massive shift to being environmentally safe would be costly at first, but cause a tremendous market burst in other areas that would suddenly be big. Some lose, some gain, thats they way capitalism works. But in the end, energy would be cheaper, so we would have less money going out of our pockets every month for gas, electricity, and gasoline.

Environmentalism Benefits Cost

So, tell me: How is this gigantic money-making machine helping the environment? Where is the benefit to the global community in the fact that they have spent less than $100,000 of their $68 million in revenue on public education and publications?

Or, how about Greenpeace? They are famous for standing in the way of corporate environmental chicanery. Here's their tax return for 2004:
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binar...npeace-inc-2004

Total revenue: 15,913,343

More than half (8,603,261) goes to personnel costs and fundraising!

Edited: FarSeer on 27th Nov, 2006 - 5:09am

Cost vs Benefits Of Environmentalism

I"m not sure about the Conservation Fund, but if you look at the Greenpeace report that you posted it shows they are running at Net Loss: $1,893,548 in 2004.

A breakdown of their spending reveals there was a total of $11,883,327 spent on Greenpeace projects. The rest was spent on fundraising and management costs, whatever that means.

The breakdown of program spending is as follows:

Forests Campaigns: $4,206,182
Public information and education: 2,398,454
Action resources: 1,629,636
Worldwide activities: 1,500,000
Climate campaign: 1,404,217
Outreach campaign: 481,811
Toxics campaign: 135,395
Oceans campaign: 122,143
Disarmament Campaign: 4,745
Other programs: 744

Greenpeace US made nearly 16,000,000 from donations that year and still ran at a loss.

I do not know if Greenpeace are the most efficient charity, but they spend a fair whack of their money on campaigns. Of course they are going to have high staff costs, which organisation doesn't? You can't run charities without manpower. I would be interested to know what the breakdown is for other types of charities.

In truth, I am not a massive fan of everything Greenpeace does. I often find their distruptive methods counter-productive and a waste of money. But on this evidence, a $1.8 million loss, you wouldn't think individuals within the organization are making a great deal of money.

I don't believe there is a great deal of money to be made by fighting for the environment. The same can be said about fighting for poverty, the prevention of disease and many other streams of charity.

There value is often hard to place a monetary value on. What you have to ask yourself is would the world be a better place without these charities? Would we know about some of the environmental, social and other injustices that are taking place without charities to champion a cause? We can hardly rely on the media to tell us everything.

Cost Benefits Environmentalism

This is the intro statement on the Greenpeace annual report for 2004/2005. So their main function is to campaign, and this is reflected in the numbers quoted above. "Climate campaign," "Forest campaigns," "Outreach campaign," etc.

I'll ask the question again: Does all the cost of their efforts actually produce a measurable benefit to the environment? What exactly is the benefit of these campaigns?