If you have to ask… 
Sorry for not responding sooner. I was doing something useful–waterproofing the foundation of my house. 
Speaking of things that are not useful—whether it’s non-salaried or salaried NGO workers in the first world, I think they are both overpaid and grossly over-represented in the government sector and the parasitic social agencies/sectors that often have a symbiotic/dependency relationship with the nanny-state (but without the accountability of the private sector or even government).
Whether it is a climate change policy analyst making $88,000 dollars a year or a naive green peace canvasser making $20 dollars an hour for harassing people with his/her sophomoric beret-wearing worldview, they are all about feeling good rather than thinking about things logically and rationally. Climate change people travel all over the world to attend conferences, publish glossy pamphlets, and to defend systems such as cap and trade that often cost more to implement, staff, track and subsidize than they benefit society (they’ don’t). The whole industry around climate change is no different than crocodile tear social workers that profess to want to end poverty but make their living off the poor and they would be unemployed if poverty ever was alleviated. The same goes for overpaid Range-Rover driving NGO workers that work all their lives overseas with little accountability. They too profess to want to help the locals but are nothing but paternalistic flakes. Same with eco-freaks that know that pollution will never disappear but see another gravy train that they can exploit for a long time. To me, all are parasites of the worst kind.
In fact, i have more respect for English teachers in Taiwan. At least, for the most part, they are only doing damage in certain Asian locales that will take them (how much damage can Saffies and Canucks really do anyways despite their illusions of grandeur?!) and their “feel-good” politics/worldview often the reflect the fact that they’ll never be in positions to enact change of any kind So I’m more content to let them stay in their backwaters and their circle of dreamers. 
It’s the climate change people and the fact that they exert influence in certain industries/government structures that make them dangerous. But in the end, people will see them for the frauds they are!!! That is if they use their brain rather than their heart. Unfortunately so many on the left think with primal emotion and never develop. They are content to re-live their university years during their working lives and never awake from the slumber.
I believe this thread has now officially jumped the shark.
Amen. Could not have said it better… though I probably have
How many of them have you met??? WHo are ‘Climate change’ people???
Chewy at this point, I am tempted, sorry I need to ask, what do you do?? As in work?? Like what?? Are you a scientist?? An engineer? Geography Teacher???
Who are they? People that often work in international government organizations/NGOs on climate files. I’ve worked enough in government in Taiwan (working in a Ministry that was charged with all overseas missions/collaboration with international NGOS) and outside of Taiwan to see them in action, as well as traveled enough in the developing world (traveled to over 50 countries for almost half my life living overseas) to see their privileges/arrogance while surrounded by poverty
While you of course lived in austere, spartan digs and donated most of your salary to charities to educate local orphans?
WTF are you talking about? What you said could apply to any foreign businessperson, consultant, project manager, or aid worker. WTF does that have to do with GW?
Ah… au contraire… it is not the businessperson, consultant, project manager who is out to “save the world.” Even worse, none of them are hyping projects or products that MUST be adopted or the WORLD WILL END… THAT is the difference… Successful businesspeople are successful most often because they produce or deliver something of value. Note that this is not always the case… one pictures the Chia pet… In 30 plus years of climate change alarmism, what have these "individuals’ and NGOs contributed except “raising awareness” or “empowering people to adopt green lifestyles?” What has changed? the temperature? the levels of CO2? What? and how exactly does going to Rio help? Would not the appropriate “green” solution be for them to stay home and videoconference? Why is it that the climate change crowd loves to travel so? and how really are they “offsetting” their CO2 contribution? by sending a few dollars to the NGO run by another friend or acquaintance who is supposedly “reforesting?” and why would the NGO be the appropriate person to do this as opposed to a successful, “sustainable” forestry program run by say a lumber company? Who ultimately is planting more trees?
Fred, get over it. That’s the way the world works. It’s one big Old Boys’ Club, nudge nudge wink wink here’s a few grand for your new green ‘project’. I’ve spent hours in meetings with government pen-pushers, grant fund administrators, consultants, etc etc etc., all purportedly with a mission to change the world. All hot air and no action. The bottom line is, they know a good scam when they see one. We were once offered a grant to hire a consultant who would help us apply for a grant. We went for it, just out of pure curiosity. Consultant got his money (GBP2000 of taxpayer’s cash, iirc), a sheaf of paperwork was submitted to some gov’t black hole, and nothing more was ever said. It’s far worse than even you or Chewy could possibly imagine.
But so what? That doesn’t stop you, or anybody else, investing in a worthwhile business that’s doing some good (maybe climate-change related, maybe not) and making a profit. I don’t have any time for the characters who swan around in dirt-poor Indian villages setting up boreholes and handing out a few rupees. They’re not helping - they’re just feeding their own egos. On the other hand, there are hard-headed businessmen doing the rounds in those same Indian villages setting up rainwater filters and charging money for them. The money is sometimes provided by other hard-headed businessmen offering loans at high interest rates. And it works. And you could do that too, if you wanted.
To add some fuel to the ever growing fire…
Most charities/NGO/NPO fundraise, the figures that are alarming are how it costs, most of these charities have a deal with a third party company that fundraises for them. In some cases the margin the charity gets is so low (like $5 out of $100). So those who believe the money is going to the causes they care about, think very carefully.
Fred, I’m talking about Chewy’s assertion that the “Global Warming people” were arrogant as they lived in a state of privilege while in their developing world posts or meetings against a backdrop of poverty. This is clearly true for almost any expat worker of any stripe, and not at all specific for NGO people. That was my point.
I am not addressing the general usefulness of NGO’s.
I think Chewie is an Englsih teacha, but I hope I’m wrong. He teached to people in govenment, and just look what has happened to all of them!
The ones that I have met are very arrogant, stridently anti-corporate and dismissively sniffy of anyone who is not a priest in their religion. Yet, they are happy to take corporate money and then badmouth them and they are happy to work with government to coopt them and they are happy to hang around with each other where the conversation is a game of one-upmanship on who has traveled more and which Master’s or Ph.D program and what “research” the individual in question has performed. It is invariably all worthless, less than useless bullshit and this is why those of us who deal with them abroad have given the climate change crowd the derision that it deserves. Worse than useless AND pretentious hypocrites… why I have not dealt with such a smelly, offensively stupid crowd since before the Cold War ended and all the same useless idiots were either Communists (haha) or Third Worldists traveling the world, enjoying the benefits and shrieking about colonialism and neoimperialism.
The 1990s gave us the first onslaught of NGO and UN do gooders and well, they were bad and they still are and for the most part quite bureaucratic and useless but NEVER as arrogant, hypocritical and pretentious as this climate change fungus. I think that I am coming down with a case caused by bad mold and I know where it comes from.
And another thing… while I am on my rant… what is with Chevron and all these oil companies with these absolutely poncy commercials where a Chevron employee and his comments are interspersed with some fast-talking, fast-questioning dipshit hippy “teacher” or “NGO employee” or “small businessperson” whereby the latter three get to pepper “hardball” questions at Chevron about their “concerns” and the need to be “smarter” and to “save the earth” which ultimately leads to both sides nodding in smug satisfaction that the job is being done and … all because of their concerns, their feelings, their need to express themselves. God. I reach for the bottle every time I see one of these. If the TV in question were mine, I might even throw said bottle (when empty of course) at the TV in question with every hope of not only breaking it but also the sheer and utter narcissistic onanism of these fuckwits… Rock on OWS!!! Let’s fight to keep the same policies in question in place which are not bankrupting Europe, most particularly Greece. The money will come from somewhere, it always has! This is about fairness and about doing something good not necessarily productive or worthwhile… I need to feel validated… like I am a parking ticket or something? Jesus H Christ!!!
Have to agree on that one. Utter shite.
Fred you’ve got it on wrong backwards, govt. officials, NGOs, etc. don’t set the agenda atleast not on the world stage atleast. Govts. bring it there. Not the bureaucrats but the politicians. Like wars, the soldiers don’t plan wars, they do not have agendas, govts. do. The Politicians order war, the generals do best to get their strategies right, the soldiers do their best to win…so people in Rio make the most noise, use their best guns, but policy?? That belongs to the people who got elected.
Chewy, what do you do??? It’s so easy to ridicule Engrrish teachers and the peoples of the govts. and NGO’s and housewives and pop and mom store owners and the guy at the Chinese customs and what nots but lets see how your profession scores on the ‘do good to the world’ stage.
Reading this, one would hope that you are not a native speaker of English. That was the most convoluted paragraph of convolutions (um) that I have seen in quite some time.
No, politicians respond (some would say) pander to populist movements. Global warming and the alarmism is part and parcel of the hyped hysteria of NGOs in search of more money and more power. This, they then parlay into regional and international conferences that politicians may eventually attend if it raises their profile or appeals to a potentially large mass of voters. Global warming alarmism is not driven by governments but by NGOs. This whole dog and pony three ring circus of a shambolic shitfest is akin to that of the May Day marches in Western European capitals during the 1970s and 1980s when everyone (and pardon the addition) and his or her dog should have known better and understood the travesty and economic and political and hell social failure that communism was but did they? No, it was a pretentious posturing of polluted politics and excitable elliptically eccentric egotists on a rampage of competitive commitment.
My advice is not to bait Chewy. I don’t think that you are up to his ripostes. You will lose this battle. Better to just slink away now before dignity does not demeure.
No I ma not a native speaker, hence, therefore and that’s why, my argument makes no sense to you. Classy!!
I am not baiting Chewy, I don’t know him IRL and it really intrigues me, how he earns a loving.
But now you are making perfect sense and expressing yourself fluently and with gramatical correctness. What happened in the previous paragraph?
It’s grammatical :raspberry:
You want to know how I earn a loving? You’ve got a really dirty mind! If I tell you my secrets, I may be suspended for crudeness. It has, as you know, happened in the past.
What do I do in real life? I run a peanut stand. And that occupation gives me a much better understanding of economics than most climate change people worldwide and their hangers-on in tissue-paper government/liberal arts circles. If I fail to sell more peanuts than I buy and make a profit, I go out of business after a few months.
Systems such as cap-and-trade, devised by climate change Mandarins, are completely foreign to anyone with common sense or any kind of business practicality. For example, climate change programs that try and reduce GHGs are failing around the world. 
Look at the systems in the United States where state after state in the Northeast and West have withdrawn from various initiatives.
These systems, like the UN schemes at the world wide level, have spent millions and millions of dollars giving free allowances, hiring gold-plate-benefit bureaucrats to validate/monitor offsets and allowances, and sending people to conferences again and again. One would expect some sort of control system as shareholders/Board members exert in the private sector. But no, climate change involves pseudo science, the incestuous relationship between academia, NGOs and the government, overspending, little accountability, and the nastiest tactics to people who disagree. Some private sector companies have tried to take advantage of climate change for purely selfish reasons and this only further illustrates the cronyism (e.g., Solyndra) between government, NGOs and their selected favorites.
I wouldn’t trust these fuckers and leeches to run a peanut stand.