Can you believe big investment companies who claim they care deeply about the environment? What about the loudest activist voices who say they care, like Al Gore and Greta Thunberg? Or the Biden Administration, which claims “We’ve put environmental justice at the center of what we do”? The people who live in East Palestine, Ohio, don’t believe all that rhetoric, because of what happened after they suffered one of the worst environmental disasters in recent history. A Norfolk Southern train derailed in their backyard and left a mushroom cloud of toxic gas covering their town. After the accident, the Norfolk Southern railway line requested a controlled burn that filled the air with vinyl chloride gas, which led to reports of headaches, nausea, and even dead family pets. When residents met with local leaders, they had plenty to say. But while the residents demanded answers, some usually loud environmental voices were notably absent. In the first weeks after the disaster, national environmental activists and the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency were silent. Big investment companies like Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street -- who love to push environmental regulations on American businesses -- were mute. The entire climate change industry was nowhere to be seen. George Soros, a massive funder of environmental activists, spoke about the existential threat of climate change just two days after the Palestine residents met to discuss the fate of their town. (https://twitter.com/georgesoros/status/1626243611489882112?s=46&t=cm9HQJyfaN83c1ssDuKiBQ) Greta Thunberg hawked her new climate book the day that (https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1625575675888295955) Norfolk Southern railroad representatives and environmental gadflys snubbed the people of Palestine. To their credit, the Environmental Protection Agency did quietly show up, but the silence from world-famous environmental activists like Al Gore was shockingly loud. News soon broke that helped to explain the silence of the big, supposedly environmentally conscious investment firms Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street. On the one hand, those financiers like to push so-called ESG activism -- but on the other hand, they are the largest shareholders in Norfolk Southern, the railroad responsible for the accident. (https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1625666427809144832?s=20) Influence Watch describes the environmental prong of ESG as supporting “environmentalist activism on pollution, climate change, conventional energy, the use of pesticides or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the extraction or use of raw materials.” It’s a highly controversial set of criteria for business decision-making, and has led some large states to divest from firms pushing it (Florida and North Carolina images). All told, 19 state attorneys general have openly questioned the practice. (https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/executive-management/BlackRock%20Letter.pdf) But ESG investing involves big money. ABC News reports that “Sustainable investment based on ESG criteria has grown to a $35.5 trillion industry.” (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/esg-investing-republicans-criticizing/story?id=97035891) With all that money and power, maybe it’s not surprising that companies and celebrity activists aren’t very interested in the well-being of Americans who are actually affected by a real environmental disaster. Learn more at www.capitalresearch.org ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_h0TVbCtOk

I spent the last decade as treasurer, then president of AFT Vermont (the state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers). For three of those years, I served as president of the Vermont AFL-CIO. Surprising to some, perhaps, I now support Right to Work nationwide. Full Article: https://capitalresearch.org/article/one-the-insiders-tale/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=javbk8PbZB0