In late May, Al Gore collected $1 million for winning a Dan David Foundation award for his environmental work. In his acceptance speech, Gore repeated his long-familiar sentiment, "We do face a planetary emergency."
The prize is just the latest honor for Gore, who in 2007 won an Oscar, Emmy, and Nobel Peace Prize (which he shared with the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Gore's share of the Nobel Prize was $750,000.
Gore said his prize money-the Nobel purse and 90% of the $1 million-would not go into his bank account. Instead, it would support his nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection. The alliance also received Gore's proceeds from An Inconvenient Truth, his Oscar-winning film about global wanning.
Gore's gestures are presented as acts of generosity, but one wonders how much he stands to profit from his non-profit activities. The alliance plans to spend $300 million over three years on its "We Can Solve It" ad campaign. All that tax-exempt tax-deductible money is aimed at raising public awareness of global warming so that Americans will demand lawmakers take action.
Visit the "We Can Solve It" website [www.wecansolveit.org] and you can watch a video comparing your commitment to solving the climate crisis to the World War II Normandy landings, the civil rights movement, and putting a man on the moon.
The "We" campaign also features magazine photo layouts and videos of some strange bedfellows. One features a chummy twosome, clergymen Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton, who rib each other about their political differences but agree that we all need to "get involved" to solve the climate crisis. In another. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich offer up a similar message.
The feel-good campaign seems to solicit everyone's participation, but the star of the show is Gore, who has managed to transform himself from Bill Clinton's pompous second banana into a heroic crusader, a reallife Captain Planet. After winning the trifecta of an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel Peace Prize, the once uptight Gore has become a rock star, above the political fray. Why risk that by running for office?
One-Man Conglomerate
Since leaving public office, Gore has become a one-man conglomerate: He writes books, stars in a movie, commands massive speaking fees, and sits on corporate boards. Gore had under $2 million when he left the vice presidency in 2001 but today his fortune exceeds $100 million and his climate crusade will likely make him even richer.
Gore has cast his net in green technology. He is a partner in venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which this year formed two funds that will invest $ 1.2 billion in environmentally friendly companies. Gore is also co-founder and chairman of Londonbased Generation Investment Management (GIM), which collaborates with Kleiner Perkins to find investments in "sustainability." He's also invested $35 million in a hedge rund, Capricorn Investment Group. Founded by former eBay president Jeff Skoll, Capricorn invests its clients' funds in makers of eco-friendly products.
Gore has been very open in admitting that he will profit from the success of Kleiner Perkins investments.
In March, weeks before announcing the Alliance for Climate Protection's extravagant ad campaign, Gore was in Monterey, Calif., where he hosted yet another of his now-familiar slide-show presentations about global warming. It was for the computer industry elite who attended the annual TED-Technology, Entertainment, Design-conference. TED is a project of the Sapling Foundation (assets $43 million), founded in 19%. Its president is former computer magazine publisher Christopher Anderson and its advisory board includes Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, and Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Gore told his audience where to put their money. Where should you invest once government starts regulating the economy and telling companies how much greenhouse gas they will be permitted to emit?
"There are a lot of great investments you can make," Gore told 1,000 investor/philanthropists. But he warned, "If you are investing in tar sands, or shale oil, then you have a portfolio that is crammed with sub-prime carbon assets. And it is based on an old model. Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and their legs collapse. Developing tar sands and coal shale is the equivalent."
Gore then offered his alternative, recommending little-known companies such as the bio-fuel and fuel cell firms Amyris, Altra, Bloom Energy, and Mascoma. There were the solar cell firms Miasole and Ausra as well as Smart, which makes electric cars, and the geothermal power company Alta Rock Energy. Gore disclosed his personal financial stake in these companies.
Untested high-tech startups require large-scale capital investment, which is why Gore's involvement in the Menlo Park, Calif., firm Kleiner Perkins is significant. Such venture capita] firms make money by investing in fledgling companies with growth potential. In exchange for funds, the venture capital firm gets a say in the governance of the budding company. The seed money lets companies grow to the point where they can be publicly traded or sold to a larger firm, at which point the venture capital firm hopes to reap a big return on its investment.
"There are a bunch of folks who stand to make real money," says Christopher C. Horner, senior fellow at Competitive Enterprise Institute. But their investments in green-tech companies, Homer observes, "are not worth real money until the agenda that this [We Can Solve It] ad campaign is advocating is achieved."
Gore's Connections
When Gore joined Kleiner Perkins, the firm entered a partnership with GIM. Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr joined the GIM advisory board.
While the two firms have similar goals, GIM focuses mostly on public equities, while Kleiner Perkins focuses on startup or expanding companies that haven't gone public yet. In May, GIM said it raised $683 million for a "Climate Solutions Fund" which it closed to further investment.
Gore co-founded GIM in 2004 with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood, who is the company's managing partner.
Goldman Sachs has a sizable footprint at GIM. GIM's other founding members include Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris of Goldman Sachs Assets Management. In 2006-after the release of Gore's blockbuster film, Goldman Sachs paid $23 million to buy 10% of the Chicago Climate Exchange, or CCX, the leading U.S. provider of "carbon offsets." ("Al Gore's Carbon Crusade: The Money and Connections Behind It," by Deborah Corey Barnes, Foundation Watch, August 2007 and HUMAN EVENTS, Oct. 3, 2007).
The dubious concept of carbon offsets is key to the climate campaign. Advocates propose individuals, businesses or institutions responsible for high levels of CO2 emissions buy "offsets" on a market exchange like CCX. They pay a levy that is supposed to go towards supplying renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power or to plant trees that soak up carbon emissions and thus make energy users "carbon neutral," because they make up for the amount of carbon dioxide they produce by funding eco-friendly projects elsewhere that get rid of CO2.
You might remember Gore said he bought carbon offsets to make up for his energy-hogging Tennessee mansion: In 2006-the year his movie was released-Gore's house used about 221,000 kilowatt hours of power, more than 20 times the national average, and his electric bill was $12,000 per month.
The prospect of carbon regulation is why major corporations have latched onto Gore. He is the environmental movement's bullhorn to the world, proclaiming the crisis of planetary warming. But the truth is that Gore also has become a bullhorn for corporations that are ready to cash in on the hysteria.
The Money Rolls In
A report last March showing that Gore made a $35 million investment with Capricorn Investment Group opened some eyes to the former vice president's growing wealth. The business deal appears to have been forged through Gore's relationship to its billionaire founder Jeffrey Skoll, the eBay veteran who was executive producer of An Inconvenieni Truth. Skoll is also chairman of Participant Media, the producer of such politically correct films as Good Night and Good Luck (McCarthyism), Syriana (Big oil corruption), and Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains.
To be sure, the stratospheric increase in Gore's net worth since leaving public office is not based on his climate crusade alone. The self-proclaimed father of the Internet left office enjoying the favor of Silicon Valley executives and he has served on several corporate boards, including Apple and Google.
Gore also started Current Media, a TV station geared toward a younger audience. He stood to gain $50 million from the $100 million IPO (initial public offering) the company announced in January. Both Gore and partner Joel Hyatt, founder of Hyatt Legal Services, collected $550,000 bonuses and currently receive $600,000 annual salaries from the company.
Like Bill Clinton, Gore has also hit the speaking circuit. Gore's speaking fees are reportedly $175,000, which is less than Clinton who can demand $250,000, but more than other former vice presidents. Walter Mondale and Dan Quayle can command only $20,000 to $30,000 for a speech.
Gore, with his long history of climate alarmism appears to be a true believer, but no one can deny that his advocacy hasn't contributed to his growing fortune. He has a financial stake in what Congress decides about regulating greenhouse gases and is every bit as self-interested as an ExxonMobil lobbyist.
Gore and his allies are usually quick to attack any scientist, climatoiogist or policy organization skeptical of man-made global warming. They call skeptics "shills" for Big oil or, worse, "deniers," invoking the term used against anti-Semites who deny (he Holocaust. But they refuse to acknowledge their own growing financial interest in the carbon control industry.
Barack Obama has said if he is elected President, he will be sure to find a prominent role for Al Gore in his administration.
If that happens, will anyone raise questions about Al Gore's conflict of interest?
© 2008 Human Events Publishing, Inc. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Source: Human Events
