More Greenpeace Hypocrisy

Yesterday we noted that Greenpeace turns out to be really bad at currency trading.  Turns out the full story is much worse.  According to a story in The Guardian, Greenpeace suffers from multiple defects in its financial controls (“disarray” is the bland term The Guardian uses), such that if it were a bank or a U.S. for-profit corporation, the SEC might well slap it with fines or sanctions:

The handling of Greenpeace International’s £58m budget has been in disarray for years, with its financial team beset by personnel problems and a lack of rigorous processes, leading to errors, substandard work and a souring of relationships between its Amsterdam headquarters and offices around the world, documents leaked to the Guardian show.

Leaked documents, eh?  Hmmm, what does this remind me of?  I suspect the next shoe to drop will be revelations of embezzlement or misappropriation of funds.

Well, whoa, we may not have to wait long.  What’s this?  The same Guardian story contains this little nugget buried several paragraphs in:

The Guardian has also learned that one of the group’s most senior executives, Pascal Husting, Greenpeace International’s international programme director, works in Amsterdam but flies between the city’s offices and his home in Luxembourg several times a month.

The Telegraph has rightly made this its own stand-alone story:

Greenpeace Executive Flies 250 Miles to Work

Environmental group campaigns to curb growth in air travel but defends paying a senior executive to commute 250 miles to work by plane

By Emily Gosden

One of Greenpeace’s most senior executives commutes 250 miles to work by plane, despite the environmental group’s campaign to curb air travel, it has emerged.

Pascal Husting, Greenpeace International’s international programme director, said he began “commuting between Luxembourg and Amsterdam” when he took the job in 2012 and currently made the round trip about twice a month.

The flights, at 250 euros for a round trip, are funded by Greenpeace, despite its campaign to curb “the growth in aviation”, which it says “is ruining our chances of stopping dangerous climate change”.

One Greenpeace volunteer on Monday described Mr Husting’s travel arrangements as “almost unbelievable”.

Another said they were cancelling their payments to support Greenpeace in the wake of the disclosure and series of other damaging revelations of disarray and financial mismanagement at the organisation, in documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper.

As we mentioned yesterday, always keep in mind Eric Hoffer’s great axiom that “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”  They get a whole package of Green Weenies for this.

(Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, who rightly adds: “I don’t want to hear another goddamn thing about my carbon footprint.”)

And never forget who these guys are–the environmental equivalent of Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters:

Greenpeace racket copy

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