It’s 18 months ago since I revealed that the investment strategy of the BBC pension fund is run on a day-to-day by Peter Dunscombe, who was then the chair of the steering committee of the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGC) an allegiance of climate change fanatics who now boast that between them, they manage $12 trillion of assets. Mr Dunscombe openly flaunts his own climate change credentials, as here:
In 2000 he joined the BBC Pension Scheme to head up their small in-house team to oversee investment strategy and investment manager relationships. Over the last 9 years the Scheme has developed a significant exposure to alternative assets and has been active in the areas of responsible investing and climate change.
The one ray of good news for BBC pensioners is that Mr Dunscombe (info in latest BBC pension fund report here) has since resigned that IIGC post, but – surprise, surprise, – the BBC Pension Fund Trust still boasts openly that it is a member of the IIGC and meanwhile, the IIGC itself is pushing flat out to force its climate change policies on government and investors alike. Its efforts, outlined in a press release issued this week, include trying to jackboot Australia into carbon taxes, as revealed in this chilling phrase from their Australian spokesman:
We will strive to make thematic allocations but reallocation of substantial investment to the low-carbon economy requires policy makers to step up with certain and long term investment signals.
The IIGC is also pressuring our own government to adopt ever-more-stringent green policies as this patronising release from last month shows:
The new carbon budget set out today by the UK government demonstrates determination, is ambitious in scope and sends a signal to the UK public, financial markets as well as the wider international community. We hope that the ambition shown by the UK government sets a benchmark and has a wider impact at international level. However, the suggestion that the UK could review, and potentially weaken, its own commitments depending on progress elsewhere needs to be clarified to ensure certainty forinvestors beyond 2014.
So let’s get this clear. The BBC pension fund (on which Helen Boaden, its head of news, sits as a trustee) openly supports an organisation that is brazenly using immense financial muscle in pressuring governments round the world and here at home to adopt mad greenie policies.
Call me cycnical, but Richard Black’s efforts to stongarm us all into supporting climate change agendas assume a very, very sinister and conflicted light in this context.
But it doesn’t stop there. The BBC pension fund has now also openly signed up to another international greenie organisation to guide its investment strategy, the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI). This – masquerading, of course, like all UN activities, under a deluge of Newspeak – is another front organisation for greenie jackbootery. Its agenda is to attack every element of industrial activity. And, of course, it holds regular jollies around the world to discuss how better to enforce climate change fascism.
This, like Richard Black’s reporting efforts, stinks to high heaven.
It all sounds a dodgy. A government funds a broadcaster to push its ‘green’ views. That broadcaster invests its pension cash in ‘green’ schemes. The government makes sure those economic basket case ‘green’ schemes give a good return on investment by giving them lots of our tax cash in subsidies.
No need to worry though.
Luckily for us, the BBC charter is a cast iron guarantee of its independence, not matter how close its financial ties the government and its total dependence on the government for every penny it gets.
I wouldn’t wipe my arse with a copy of that charter.
Given the massive interests that have clustered around climate change, it is no wonder that the ‘settled science’ cudgel is wielded with such tenacity.
The ultimate let out, is, of course, the precautionary principle. If and when the ‘science’ is found lacking, the cover will be, it could have happened, we had it on the best authority.
As the climate change hypothesis will and can only be proven many decades in the future (the signal is a statistical ‘moving target’ trending in and out of Sigma 2 significance), a huge amount of profiteering on the back of the tax payer and energy consumer can be made. All on a ‘just in case’.
As consumers/taxpayers have to be ‘encouraged’ to participate (see Stephen Schneider’s infamous ‘scary scenarios’,) the hammer blows of doom and disaster continue after 20 years and will continue. More’s the pity.
It’s also a significant part of how people self-identify. To them, it’s part of their character, how they view themselves. Just like a deeply religious person believes that they are “good” or “saved”, etc., because of their belief, a Warmist feels good about themselves for caring so deeply about Mother Gaia. Only bad people, tempted by dark forces, don’t believe, and only bad people, temped by equally dark forces, don’t care about the planet we all must share.
It’s has the same effect as religious belief. Take it away and their self esteem would plummet. How can they think of themselves as good people if they stop caring about the environment/planet?
You don’t believe in Climate Change? Don’t you care about the planet? And so on.
A couple of years ago, I came across an article which makes exactly your point, David.
Please allow me to quote it. It identifies, to my mind, the powerful appeal of the green religiosity to seemingly varied psychological types.
“Environmentalism offers an alternative account of the natural world to the religious and an alternative anti-capitalist account of the political world to the Marxist. The rise of environmentalism parallels in time and place the decline of religion and of socialism.
Anthropologists have established how different cultures independently evolve similar myths – familiar stories, such as the myth of the Fall and the myth of the Apocalypse, which meet deep-seated human needs. The Christian tradition describes the temptation of Adam and Eve and warns of the Last Judgment.
In Europe, these stories no longer have the impact they did. Environmentalism now fulfils for many people the widespread longing for simple, all-encompassing narratives. Environmentalism offers an alternative account of the natural world to the religious and an alternative anti-capitalist account of the political world to the Marxist. The rise of environmentalism parallels in time and place the decline of religion and of socialism.
Environmentalism embraces a myth of the Fall: the loss of harmony between man and nature caused by our materialistic society. Al Gore recounted the words of Chief Seattle, as his tribe relinquished their ancient lands: “Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother?”
Original article (at length):
http://www.johnkay.com/2007/01/09/green-lobby-must-be-treated-as-a-religion
Very interesting, and well put. Thanks for the link. I think he’s accurately described what can only be called “Watermelonism”. Watermelonity?
Citrullus lanatus, so…. “Lanatians”? That has a nice Sci-fi/fantasy ring to it.
“Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGC) an allegiance of climate change fanatics who now boast that between them, they manage $12 trillion of assets.”
Well that puts a few million in research grants from those evil “oil companies” into perspective doesn’t it?
12 TRILLION dollars in assets? You can buy a hell of a lot of dodgy climate science for that money!