I’ve heard it said somewhere that environmentalists are like watermelons: green on the outside but red on the inside. Many people in the environmental movement use the “climate change” narrative to push for outright communism or socialism. Others profit off communist investments to fund their climate initiatives as well as their wallets.
Al Gore is one of those making money off of China to push a green agenda. According to a report from the Washington Free Beacon, Gore’s $36 billion investment fund, which touts its goal to “seek transformational change needed in climate and social action” in the world, has significant investments in China.
“Generation Investment Management, which Gore formed in 2004, has stakes in Tencent, Anta, and Alibaba, according to its investment reports,” writes Chuck Ross at the Free Beacon. “Tencent, a tech conglomerate, routinely censors the internet at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party and has surveilled foreign users of its WeChat messaging app. Anta, a sports apparel company, has faced accusations of using cotton sourced from labor camps in Xinjiang. Alibaba, which operates China’s equivalent to Google, has links to the People’s Liberation Army.”
The only statement in Generation’s report that makes reference to any human rights issues in China is a reference to “challenging issues” at Anta Sports. But it’s all just fine because Anta has fooled Generation into thinking it has the intention of changing its labor practices.
“In these situations, there can be a temptation to divest and move on,” Generation has said of Anta. “We believe this is the wrong thing to do with a management team that is engaged and well-intentioned, and where we feel our ownership can help to deliver change.”
Otherwise, Generation has done little to criticize China for its human rights abuses, even though doing so would be the perfect way to “seek transformational change” when it comes to “social action.” The reason for that is clear: for Gore and others on the left, all they really want to do is call out the U.S. and the West.
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There’s one glaring example in Generation’s report, which crows that Alibaba and Tencent “have leapfrogged Western peers” with their pledges to go net-zero on carbon emissions by 2030 — declarations that we all know are meaningless. But what really matters is that China is better than the U.S. and other Western nations on environmental issues, which is yet another falsehood.
The former vice president’s kowtow to China on environmentalism is similar to that of “climate czar” John Kerry.
“Gore’s compromise on Chinese firms for the sake of environmental sustainability bears similarity to another failed Democratic presidential candidate,” Ross points out. “John Kerry, the Biden administration’s climate czar, has refused to criticize China over human rights abuses out of concerns it would derail climate talks with Beijing. And like Gore, he has investments in controversial Chinese firms, including one linked to labor abuses against Uyghurs.”
Gore has also joined the chorus of criticism of American policy based on untruths. Like so many corporations that invest in China without batting an eye, Gore called out voter integrity laws in Georgia and other states based on the ridiculous lie that they would disenfranchise minority voters. He referred to these laws as “truly un-American,” but at least in Georgia, we know that those who made and supported the laws that made it harder to cheat in elections had the last laugh in Atlanta’s mayoral election in 2021 and in the primaries in 2022.
Al Gore’s hypocrisy when it comes to China is par for the course with environmentalists and other leftists. That shouldn’t surprise us at all.
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