RE:American environmental movement dealt a blow to AB Oilpatch Vivian Krause sees it differently. The Canadian has earned a name writing and lecturing critically about U.S. financing of Canadian environmental charities and says the protests have done nothing to help the planet and lots to enrich the protest movement as an industry.
Krause, who maintains a blog called Fair Questions, said she's compiled tax records showing that one organization alone, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, has spent $4.5 million in grants since 2007 on the Tar Sands Campaign and that money flowed to the NGOs opposing Keystone XL.
She said she began compiling the financial data as a hobby but now gets paid to deliver presentations to companies in the energy, banking and business sectors, among others.
If environmental groups cared about greenhouse gases, Krasue said, they would have moved on from fighting Alberta after the provincial NDP government of Rachel Notley implemented emissions caps.
"Why are you still pounding Alberta?" she said. "It hasn't kept oil in the ground. … I think it's a flawed strategy."
She said the main effect of the fights over pipelines has been to encourage energy investment in the United States rather than Canada.