Earth Hour: Sock it to WWF

The Earth Hour campaign that began in Sydney in 2007  is organized by the World Wildlife Fund; now known as simply WWF with their panda logo unchanged. Since then, they have succeeded in making Earth Hour an annual ritual . And today's the night they expect us to turn off our lights for an hour.

The main logic behind Earth Hour is that if everyone could put in a little effort and participated by turning off their lights for one hour, they could help raise awareness of global warming or show world leaders that people care. But the hidden agenda is to use it as a fund-raising event. And boy the WWF has successfully exploited such an event to receive free publicity from every conceivable news-maker possible - actors, politicians, media, corporate giants and even Google to build up their image.

It’s such free publicity that enabled the WWF to raise $3.1 billion in just six years (2003-2008) or half a billion dollars a year on an average. This feat accords the WWF the status of one of the largest non-profit fundraiser in the world. But they are also the sleaziest one too. They project themselves as animal rights defenders and committed particularly to the protection of endangered species. Using this carefully crafted brand image, they milked the issue of declining population of polar bears to the last drop. WWF attributed this decline to global warming by arguing that it restricted polar bear hunting of seals through a lack of sea ice which they use as a platform to hunt.

Their hysterical campaigns are based on such arguments that however undermined the findings of their own research. According to the WWF, about 20 distinct polar bear populations exist, accounting for approximately 22,000 polar bears worldwide. As the figure shows, population patterns do not show a temperature-linked decline.

This is besides the reality that though polar bears are uniquely adapted to the Arctic region, they are not wedded solely to its coldest parts. Nor are they restricted to a specific seal diet. Their normal diet include a wide range of fish, kelp, caribou, ducks, sea birds and scavenging whale and walrus carcasses, though seals undoubtedly remain their favourite delicacy.

If Darwinian evolutionary theories are to be believed, polar bears were around hundreds and thousands of years before the advent of Homo Sapiens. That's us - the human race. If so, polar bears survived temperatures even higher than present - such as those experienced during the Medieval Warm Period or during the 1930s, where temperatures were comparable to the present. This makes polar bears' climate adaptability much higher as compared to humans.

There could be many threats to the future survival of the polar bear, but global warming is not primary among them. If at all their global populations dropped to 10,000 by the end of the 80s, it was because they were indiscriminately and mercilessly hunted by humans. Once polar bears were declared protected species, their population spiked to over 22,000 as of today. In Alaska, their population have increased to such a scale that the state government appealed their federal government to withdraw the protective status to polar bears, as they pose a danger to Alaskan citizens. But the worst damage WWF inflicted on themselves was not refuting Al Gore's propaganda of the polar bears unable to swim. Instead WWF went the extra mile to perpetuate this myth. The fact is that polar bears can marathon swim 100-200 kms.

However, the polar bear was not only the scam the marred the image of WWF since it was set up by Prince Bernhard from the Netherlands some 25 years ago. There have been many others that WWF was involved. Its 9/11 advertisement tried to convey that more people die from effects of global warming than they do from terrorism. That global warming is more dangerous than terrorism. That perhaps more money should be spent on fixing global warming instead of blasting civilians with unmanned drones.

It's simply not the financial scams the WWF that gives it notoriety. Many of its programmes have been anti-people, particularly displacing defenceless tribal. Some examples:  

-In Zaire the Barhwa Pygmies were driven out of their ancestral land in order to establish the Kahuzi-Biega National Park

- In Cental Africa, the WWF's Dzangha-Sangha Project has resulted in the destruction of the livelihood and loss of dignity of the Baka Pygmies in this area and in the loss of their ancestral homeland.

- In Rwanda the Batwa Pygmies were driven out of the Nyungwe Natural Forest in 1994 to make way for a Nature Conservation Site. The Sanye have been severely prosecuted as poachers on their own land. As a result the Sanye peoples have been virtually destroyed as a society of hunters and gatherers.

- In South Africa the 40 last remaining Bushmen have been chased out of their ancestral land which is now largely used as the Kalahari Gemsbock National Park. 

- In India the Gujjar nomads in Uttar Pradesh are victims of a Nature Conservation Project, where WWF is directly involved. Also the last few aborigine peoples, belonging to the Negrito race, have been victimised by National Park projects in the Nilgiri Mountains where WWF was and still is active.

The most recent scam exposed of WWF was Amazon-gate. They first published an advocacy report that was used by the IPCC to conclude that 40% of the Amazon Forest will disappear by 2030 due to climate change induced drought.  The IPCC whose rules stipulated that they need to use peer reviewed scientific research, bent its rules to include this WWF study though it was simply gray literature. WWF then used their financial clout to instigate NGOs and environmentalists to get agitated over the issue. The public support generated by their advocacy was then exploited  to solicit millions of grants from the World Bank to ostensibly  protect and rejuvenate Amazon Forests. This project is estimated to generate $60 billion  to WWF as income  by way of carbon credits. Neat except recent peer review studies using satellite imagery suggest this WWF study as being based on total falsehood. Rain-forests unlike Savannas actually thrive on enhanced sunlight.

Earth Day is all about the symbolism of curbing individual consumption. If you are one that have already put this practice in your daily life, there is no need to go the extra mile. The fact is that symbolism is practiced only by fakes to either to feel good of them or to up their social approval ratings. One hour of such exhibit, they go back to their high consumption ways for rest of the year.

On the other hand, if you do not belong to either of this category, why opt for empty symbolism? Remember you are only aiding corrupt environmentalists like WWF to earn the mega bucks. Sock it to WWF as they feel that they succeeded in misleading you. By increasing your energy consumption during tonight's Earth hour, you will be making a statement - that WWF have grossly misread YOU and that YOU will not permit WWF to make money out of YOU. If we do not tolerate corrupt politicians and their politics, let the likes of WWF know that we do not tolerate scam ridden NGOs and their bogus issues!