Why are corporations the mainstay of today's business world? Because they are tools to make money without risking any liability. The only risk on the table are the current assets of the corporation. As such, they exist to avoid responsibility for their destructive actions. While they may not all be inherently evil, this lack of liability shifts the burden of proof: rationally, a corporation is a means of profiting while doing harm. If the activity could be profitable without harming others, there would be no need for liability protections.

Thus, Ms MacDonald does not need to show smoking-gun new harms by the infiltration of environmental groups by corporatists. If the leadership of these groups rubs shoulders with corporate leaders, they will get head-lice.

Of course environmental groups are controlled the same as everybody else, for they don't stress obvious things. For example: when titanic glaciers melt or slide from land to sea, the earth flexes from the weight now dispersed. Earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions result. This has happened several times for very long periods, and is standard geology.

 For prehistory repeating itself, search: "Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away " (LA Times 6/25/06). Note seismic activity at end and idea of Greenland possibly being 3 islands under the 2 miles thick ice , so the center area is 1000′ below sea level (from other source). No discussion of the sea water thus running under and up into the glaciers and the potential for unseen draining via the reported drill-like beneath the  "unblemished surface".

A week later appeared
"Climate Change Could Cause Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions, Scientists Say" (Ottawa Citizen 7/3/06). ("Could" as in "Gravity could cause unsupported objects to fall."  

In neither article is any discussion of possible effects of earthquakes on glaciers sliding, ignoring the inevitable sequence: less weight triggers earthquake, quake causes slide, repeat until arctics are cap-less.

"Greenland's Ice Cap Is Melting at a Frighteningly Fast Rate" (S.F. Chronicle 8/11/06) says said ice is 3 miles thick, and also that it's melting thrice as fast as 5 years gone (LA Times 6/25 said twice)

Also see "Glaciers Are Flowing Faster" Nature 9/23/04,  
"A Bit of Icy Antarctica Is Sliding Toward the Sea" Science 9/24/04, "Dramatic Change in West Antarctic Sea Ice Could Produce 16ft Rise in Sea Levels" Independent/UK 2/2/05. (By the way, this explains the Dubai ports deal in Spring '06, contracts bought from the former owners of the Penninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.)

Yet Greenpeace remains headquartered in Amsterdam and stresses loss of sea ice and endangered polar bears, walruses, seals, only mentions land ice tangentially.

UK Observer 9/8/07 ran
"Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes" about NW Greenland in summer '07 getting first, 1-3 Richter so far, earthquakes on record, for ice lightening reasons.

UK Independent 10/3/07 ran "Record 22C temperatures in Arctic heatwave" about the previous July, past July's in that part of Greenland usually being about 5C. Article mentions rain at the North Pole, a great hook for newspapers and late night comedians, yet stressed by no one. "Wet Santa" would be great for circulation and yucks, yet subject is ignored.

UK Independent 10/3/07 also ran "From the air, the evidence of climate change is striking",  mentions moulins (melt-holes) big enough to fly a helicopter into but is written like a travel article, all about light and beauty.

MSNBC 12/13/07 reported "Magma may be melting Greenland ice", about magma close to surface of NE Greenland and NY Times 1/21/08 said "Scientists Find Active Volcano in Antarctica" about magma close to surface of West Antarctica. (Which is nice, because they didn't report the hurricane in the South Atlantic 3/27-28/04, an unprecedented event. I confirmed the non-reportage with the Assistant Public Editor.)

UK Independent 9/23/08 ran the horrid title and better subtitle "Exclusive: The methane time bomb:
Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide".

This at least is getting a little play on environmental blogs, but so far not as much  as deserved, and I haven't seen it in US newspapers.

Has anyone seen any of the above stressed by the supposed doomsayer Gore, by Greenpeace, Sierra Club, any group?

Ms MacDonald focuses part of her wrath on the Nature Conservancy. While I have not observed any corporate corruption of the Nature Conservancy in Ohio, what I have seen is their alliance with state agencies who put more importance on serving the needs of extractive logging and mining interests than they do protecting the environment.

I have always tried to follow the maxim I plagerized from Ronald Reagan: Thou shall not speak ill of other environmentalists. When I became active on forest issues with the Buckeye Forest Council, I encountered people who did not even consider the NC to be an environmental group.
I dismissed it as organizational jealousy or green sectarianism. Having come up in the sectarian left, I had little use for separating sheep from goats.

Then I started seeing a disturbing pattern with the NC. Whenever the Buckeye Forest Council would lock horns with the Ohio Division of Forestry over clear cuts or prescribed burns in the Hocking or Shawnee State Forests, you could bet the farm that the Nature Conservancy would come running. Not to back you up, but to provide cover for the DOF. They were not watch dogs, they were lap dogs. I regret to say that I now agree with those whose judgements I first thought were overly harsh.

Another issue is the role of non-profits in either inhibiting or promoting social change. The problem with non profits is that corporations have profits, governments have taxes, and non-profits have begging cups. Non-profits can do a lot of good. They work their hearts out and the world is a better place for them being around. I have worked for them myself for most of my working life. But they are on a short leash, and have to stay constantly aware of the wishes of their funders. Over the past twenty years "corporate envy" has taken over far too many groups. There are only a few groups that still cling to the old movement ethos. I think the non-profit world needs to open up a discussion on what we want to be: pimps for the status quo, or activists who will boldly go where the brave dare not go. It is a constant issue, that good people in non-profits continually live with, with varying degrees of discomfort.

Finally, let us pause to praise the little green groups. They are underfunded and staffed. They don't have a pot to piss in. But they have very sharp teeth which they apply to the back sides of despoilers and two timing bureaucrats. They are where the new issues are developed, and new campaigns launched. They are the soul of the environmental movement and as long as they are around we have hope.

Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH

Even if a few huge non-profits are as self-serving as she is trying to say they are, that has no effect on the rest of the environmental movement as a whole. Only a small-minded person would try to claim that.