It’s Easy Being Green

Kermit the frog was wrong. It’s easy (and profitable) being green. Witness the $75,000 fee that Tom Friedman of the NY Times pulled down for spouting the Gore text recently in San Francisco. See: Green Fee. Even Al Gore himself has turned being green into greenbacks … his speaking fees of $150,000 per sermon … his half of the $1.5 million Nobel Prize … his movie and book royalties. See: The Money Spigot. Surprisingly, the money-grubbing Clintons have had to take backstage to Gore’s post-administration greenmail juggernaut. Gore even has effortlessly transitioned from profiting from his investment in big oil (Occidental Petroleum) to his insider dealings with the greenies. See: Gore’s Investment Portfolio

But this is just a start. There are enormous monies to be made messaging the egos of eco-friendly plutocrats who want to hide their profligate energy-consumption ways behind the purchase of carbon credits. See: Carbon Credit Scams. And climate researchers have learned that, in order to get project funding, it is more sensible to hype some new calamity that is to befall the world unless we stop spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. See: Science Funding. And to top this all off, governments are also desirous of fleecing this same golden sheep by imposing a cap and trade policy … basically an enormous tax on corporate and individual activities that used to be freely practiced.