CHAPTER 35: The World In Which We Live

In the General’s bunker in the UK, Grace said, “I’m starting to see the global picture.” Ian and the General looked pleased.

“Beyond land acquisitions, investments, and commodities,” explained the General, “Frédéric Trinité’s father serves on Assurance Services Worldwide’s board of directors. ASW GmbH is a for-profit incorporated in Bonn.”

“Not insurance,” said Ian. “Assurance—audits. Beyond government oversight, provides trust, another layer to assure the marketplace that all is well.”

“ASW began tracking trade in animals under CITES,” said the General. “Global governance data, the early years.” He scrolled down ASW GmbH’s website. “They advanced to fisheries, jumped from palm oil to timber and, more recently, into tourism, jewelry, etc. They ignore industrial windmills and solar panels, the grid and its transmission lines and cables. They ignore industrial pollutants.”

“Conflict over production?” asked Ian. “Think of assurance as risk management for loss of trust. NGOs target and erode trust in businesses and government institutions. Then certification bodies swoop in with their product—trust in their brand and its credit card-sized logo. ASW adds another layer, global assurance via auditing of the work of the downstream certification bodies, relieving them of culpability.”

“We’re taxed to pay for government to ensure compliance with laws and regs, and then we pay again and again,” said the General, shaking his head. “Ultimately, the ASW overlords own the metadata. One Ring to rule them all,” he said quietly.

“So,” said Grace, “ASW oversees hundreds, maybe thousands, of certification bodies working globally? ASW then retains the data, gets a cut of everything they certify?”

“Yes,” said Ian. “It’s a true multi-national specializing in opening and closing doors, with the data and paperwork to make that happen.” He rose, filled the tea kettle, set it to boil on a stove in the corner, sat back down at the table with Grace and the General.

“The theory is,” said the General, “that the certification bodies upload the on-the-ground research to ASW where, in bulk, it is transformed into metadata. ASW then taps into the UN’s sustainability and climate projects, its sovereign debt agreements and carbon credit markets as mandated by the various UN treaties. That’s where the real money is—billions racked up in national debt, pulled from the pockets of we overworked, overtaxed peons, and transferred to a select few.”

“That is why,” said Ian, “the Global Empire and its minions are bullish on measuring and tracking everything on the planet including greenhouse gases and why ASW is a private for-profit corporation.”

“Back to timber,” said the General. “You are familiar with the nonprofit Sustainable Forests Seal, SFS?”

“Yes, of course,” said Grace.

“SFS was established in 1994, essentially repackaging the old Soviet-style ‘look for the union label’ program and changed it to fair wages, added environmental protection. More recently, as awareness about corruption has increased, they’ve committed to addressing that. If you see some, you’re encouraged to report it.” The General smiled.

“To them,” said Ian. “Report it to them.” He laughed.

“Old mafia trick,” said the General. “If it’s your competitor, let the cops know. If it’s your people, give them a heads up, bury the complaint.”

“Or the complainer,” laughed Ian, offering a plate of biscuits. They each took one and ate quietly, thinking.

“So,” said the General, “SFS started in the US but it’s headquartered in Mexico, represented at the UN by a Mexican rep.“

“Just people trying to make a difference?” asked Grace.

“Or those tied to drug cartels, illegal logging and greenwashing,” said the General. “You read the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ series?”

“‘Deforestation, Inc’? Yes,” said Grace. “Well researched. Accusations that some third-party certification bodies were greenwashing unsustainable practices.”

“Here’s where it gets interesting,” said the General. “In 2015, Assurance Services Worldwide, ASW, and the Sustainable Forests Seal, SFS, signed a Control Transfer Agreement. That document delivered full business control from SFS in Mexico to ASW’s Board in Bonn, Germany.”

Ian pulled up SFS’ US nonprofit tax returns on GuideStar. “It’s reporting about $10 million in revenue, mostly from certification fees. The Mexican SFS nonprofit’s tax returns are here,” he said, scrolling down the screen. “It reported annual cash flow of $36 million, and paid fees to ASW plus about $4 million in taxes on revenue that was not tax exempt—we see no taxable expenses such as lobbying listed, so let’s assume the $4 million was paid on revenue transferred to AWS, the for-profit corporation in Bonn, Germany. If we assume a 20% tax rate, that means about $20 million of SFS Mexico’s revenue moved from Mexico to ASW in Germany. To put this in perspective, ASW generates €160 million annually, controls €3 billion in net assets.”

Grace gasped. “All that money came from certifications? That can’t be right, can it? And ASW is a for-profit layered under a nonprofit?” She shook her head. “A for-profit German subsidiary of a Mexican nonprofit—over which the German subsidiary has full control? Very odd.”

“Indeed,” said the General.

“The Mexican government must have thought so too,” said Ian, “because it revoked the section of their tax code that made this structure legal. The Mexican nonprofit is currently operating without nonprofit status.”

“It’s left holding the bag,” said Grace.

“Correct,” said Ian. “No one seems to have noticed, probably because SFS doesn’t have public donors who need tax deductions. They’re getting the bulk of their income from private companies that write these payments off as a business expense. I am unsure what it means to the SFS nonprofits in other countries, all paying fees for using the logo to SFS in Mexico—a non-profit that’s lost its exemption.”

“So certification bodies and ASW,” said Grace, “claim they’re creating markets for certified products, but one could argue they’re closing markets to uncertified products. Isn’t that illegal in the US under anti-trust laws prohibiting any effort to reduce production, limit consumer choice or engage in infringement of trade?”

“Should be,” said the General, finishing his tea. “Another cuppa?” he asked.

“Please,” said the General and Grace. Ian refilled their mugs and placed a plate of biscuits on the table. The group sipped their tea and thought.

“Maybe,” said Ian, “it’s just old-fashioned extortion—repackaged, hidden under a layer of green. Eco-extortion?”

“These people would know if a company is about to lose its certification?” asked Grace.

“Absolutely,” said the General. “Some of ASW’s reports on suspensions are public but not many.”

Ian showed Grace where to find them on the Internet and they studied the detail in several. “It’s a global market for commodities, so loss of certification equals market closure and can, depending on the market or volume, result in price collapse,” said Ian.

“Blacklisted product has to go somewhere,” said the General.

“Like what happened when the lobstermen lost their certification,” said Grace.

“Spot on,” said the General. “Pariah status. Market closure, price crash.”

“The EU checked over 200 eco-labels and found their claims to be weak or unverifiable,” said Ian. “The EU’s considering banning many due to fraud.”

Grace nodded. “It’s been reported that control of Mexican fisheries by organized crime has resulted in abuse of workers, arson, corrupted supply chains, bogus certifications, chaos.”

“I recall a little Mexican certification group with a good rep and a nice stable of clients,” said the General. “They landed a contract with a regional seafood supplier and were on their way. A cartel-controlled certification body offered to buy them out. They rejected the offer and moved on to planning their company retreat. They were offered a great deal at a small but somewhat dated beach resort on a lake next to a lovely forest—”

 “Don’t tell me,” said Grace.

“Twelve people in the certification group plus four tourists, twenty employees,” said Ian. “It’s actually the perfect murder.”

“I read about it,” said Grace. “Chiapas, right?” The General and Ian nodded. “The articles said nothing about an offer,” said Grace. “Nothing about arson.” She shook her head. “Who owned the resort?” she asked.

“Now that is the right question,” said the General, “but no one ever asks it. The little resort was owned by a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a conglomerate…” He paused.

Grace shook her head and added, “…with ties to one of Trinité’s companies.”

“Correct. Of course the widows signed on the dotted line,” said the General, “handing over the fisheries certification body; the corporation and its clients—the fishermen, wholesalers, retailers and consumers—all went to the cartel. They can apply pressure, up and down the chain—any place they want. A win-win in Trinité’s book.”

“And, yes, the resort was insured,” said Ian. “They rebuilt and got great press for being so plucky.”

Grace shook her head. “Layers,” she said. “On-the-ground certification, ASW assures conformity of standards globally and by audits,” she said slowly. “It uses that data in multiple ways, like in carbon trading? A Guardian investigation reported that over 90% of certified rainforest carbon offsets are worthless.” 

Ian looked at the General who smiled. Grace smiled. “Oh, good heavens. You helped the reporters find the bodies,” she said.

“A few,” said the General. “Real money, government and business money, is exchanged for carbon credits; UN meetings require the purchase of carbon offsets. Big business embraces it. Bill Gates brags about his offsets. Google states it’s been ‘carbon neutral since 2007’. It’s all nonsense. Circular. Wealth for a select few, debt for everyone else.”

“Inedible canned sardines,” said Grace. The two men laughed.

“The Environmental Investigation Agency raised issues on certification of illegal logging,” said Grace, “and the Guardian said threats to rain forests were overstated by 400%.”

“My favorite personal find was a report that overstated greenhouse gas emissions from small scale and local Bangladesh brick making by 300%. The solution it supported was a centralized model, but the report ignored transportation costs. Easy to show improvement if you overstate the problem at the start and understate the costs of your solution, right?” He laughed. “They tapped into the UN’s carbon credit market, and the project was paperwork profitable without ever making a single brick. Money left over so they did some gender equity training.”

“Again, inedible canned sardines,” said Grace. They all laughed.

“No one compares the reports to the actual science on which they’re based,” said Ian. “No one comes back asking questions years later. It’s buried. If some little clerk points it out, they just shuffle him over to another department, put him on another project. This nonsense has slowly moved from treaties to big business to the smaller players, trickling down, corrupting everything it touches. The Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, are an attempt to embed the philosophy into P&Ls all over the planet.”

Ian pulled up the UN’s treaties at un.org and searched by keyword “forestry”. “375 hits,” he said, “including the big ones like CITES, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Climate Treaty. You’re familiar with this world, Grace? With Maurice Strong, Al Gore, the Earth Summit in Rio, etc?”

“I am,” said Grace.

“Then you are familiar with how treaties transfer money, technology and control from developed to developing countries—which include communist China,” said the General.

“Yes,” said Grace.

“If ASW’s income is treaty-generated, it will be very difficult to track,” said Ian. “There is no public ledger of checks cut to vendors. We have no ability to FOIA so once funds cross borders—supposedly for good projects in obscure parts of the planet—it’s a black hole.”

“Ian,” said the General, “Pull up the 2022 Declaration from the G77.” To Grace, he said, “The G77 was a group of 77 developing countries, a voting block established in 1974 under the New International Economic Order, NIEO, an attempt to solve the sovereign debt trap created in a post-colonial world, a ‘trade-not-aid’ approach. It was met with disdain by the Global Empire and collapsed. The G77 decided to use their numerical superiority—now 134 countries out of the 183 at the UN—to pursue a more direct approach. Ian,” he said, “scroll down to Item 12 in the Declaration. Yes, that’s it. Stop there! Read that, please.”

Ian read:

The Ministers reaffirmed the need to ensure that developing countries have the necessary fiscal space for recovery and achieving the SDGs, noted the increasing financing gap and underlined that bridging this gap is essential to move towards recovery. This would require, amongst other measures, debt treatment, enhanced financing mechanisms including innovative financing, fulfillment of ODA commitments, access to concessional finance by all developing countries in need, as well as larger greater FDI. In this regard, they reaffirmed the essential need to channel unutilized quotas of existing and newly allocated SDRs from developed countries with strong external positions to the developing countries most in need of liquidity and regional development banks. The Ministers took note of the G20 commitment to step up efforts to implement adequate mechanisms such as the Common Framework in a timely, orderly and coordinated manner.

The General threw up his hands. “Fiscal space, financing, liquidity, banks. Money,” he said. “FDI is Foreign Direct Investment. Money. ODA is Official Development Assistance. Money. SDRs, Special Drawing Rights, are IMF money. Money. Money. Money. It’s a massive transfer of equity, wealth and prosperity. Retribution for colonial wrongs? I don’t know. Wealth continues to be concentrated in the hands of a select few.”

“The Commonwealth of Nations has grown,” said Ian, “from 1 billion people in 1985 to encompass 2.5 billion people and the UN covers almost 100% of the world’s people—in a convergence of data, AI, insurance, fintech, and debt. With war, disease and economic inequity plaguing the planet, one has to question exactly who this Global Empire benefits? Wealth is uncommon, consolidated—it’s clearly not a world of common wealth.”

Grace thought, Green grift? “Global carpet baggers?” she asked

“Good phrase,” said Ian.

The General said, “Armed with UN grants, mission statements, the Global Empire’s foot soldiers develop objectives, set goals—analysis, educational outreach, advocacy, data, data, data. With PowerPoint presentations, buzzwords and big dreams of capacity building, they sally forth to tell the world what to do. The Global Empire’s capitol is Geneva, governance. The UK is its legal and financial center. The US, with 750 or so bases in 80 countries, is the Global Empire’s military might.”

Grace shook her head.

“The Global Empire,” said the General, “is a multi-national nation of NGOs and public/private partnerships. This is where the debt for nature concepts incubated, the sanctuaries and set-asides were generated, the 30x30 urbanization plan with no access to 30% of the land and sea by 2030.”

“Why do you disagree with this goal?” asked Grace.

“Ian,” said the General, “pull up the OSU site, you know the one, the one with the overview, the FAO, Table 1.” Ian opened a site. Grace studied it.

She read the legend beneath Table 1:

Table 1 presents some statistics that are ignored by those who would suggest that we can no longer afford the luxury of animal foods. Only about one-third of the land area of the world is classified as agricultural. Thus, roughly two-thirds of the land area of the world is not suited for any sort of agricultural use because it is covered by cites, mountains, deserts, swamps, snow, etc. Of the 35 percent that can be devoted to agriculture, less than one-third (or about 10% of the total land area) can be cultivated and produce plant products that the human can digest. The remaining two-thirds of the world's agricultural land is covered by grass, shrubs or other plants that only ruminant animals can digest. Thus, the inefficiency of animals is not a major concern since they represent the only way these plants can be converted to human food. As the human population of the world increases, it is likely that we will be forced to depend more and more on ruminant animals to meet the increased demands for food.

“The oceans are critical for food production and pastoralism is the dominant land use on 25% of the world’s land. If you look at this globally, with 75% of the planet covered by oceans, only 10% of the land supports crop production for food and fiber–just 2.5% of the planet. So, the key question about the 30x30 lockup is?” asked the General.

“Which 30%,” said Grace. The General and Ian both smiled.

The General said, “Spend some time on USGS’s PAD-US map of land closures—doesn’t include ocean data yet.”

The General continued, “If the human race is to be herded into urban centers—the gates locked behind them—we need to understand why the 30x30 battle is so important. We’re completely dependent on food producers who are protesting en masse over soaring inflation, burdensome regulations, loss of local control, and attempts to trade locked up regions via Natural Asset Companies, NACs. Anyone who eats and doesn't think this conversation concerns them is beyond foolish."

The General sipped his tea, thinking, then said, “Ian, pull up TheGEF.org. You are familiar, Grace, with the Global Environmental Facility?”

“Yes,” she said. “Dates back to the 1990s. Administered by the World Bank and the UN.”

“Out of 183 member states at the UN, only 32 fund it,” said the General. “So the UN is transferring wealth from 32 states to 151 via projects driven by treaty mandates like biodiversity and climate. Projects range from ideas recycled from the former Soviet Union, China, UNESCO—centralized brick-making facilities, massive installations of hydro, solar and wind, restrictions on access to land and sea. Here is where you get subsidies for carbon markets and burying carbon dioxide—carbon capture and storage.”

“Big Energy’s all in on CCS,” said Ian. “I have to wonder if it’s a way to reuse exhausted drill sites. Perhaps, one day, the GEF will be funding a nuclear waste storage project?”

“Ian,” said the General, “filter the GEF Trust Fund’s Projects database by Focal Areas. Show Grace.”

Ian said, “Here, see? The Biodiversity Treaty is running over 2,000 projects, Climate Change Convention another 2,200. Chemicals, Waste and Persistent Organic Pollutants, POPs, have less than 800 between them.”

The General said, “Again, we must narrow our focus. Ian, check the Biodiversity box, then search by Forest. Open whatever project pops up, please.”

Ian did as directed and read, “GEF Project ID 11052, a $58.5 million project in Brazil—GEF is providing a grant of $4.7 million plus GEF Agency fees $446,500.” He pulled out his phone and did the calculation. “GEF fees are 9.5% of its grant. $52.8 million is coming from other sources—World Bank? Give me time and I can probably figure it out.”

“Not necessary for this exercise,” said the General, rolling over his chair. “I am opening Project Documents, a Review, and searching by ‘CERTI’. We have several hits,” he said, “but let me read a snippet:

The proposed project will promote the revitalization of the cocoa value chain as a tool to protect the important Atlantic Forest in Southern Bahia. It will do so by promoting innovative and complex agroforestry systems and economic tools (eg. certification, market access) to consolidate the value chain while conserving globally important biodiversity. The project will also explore innovative financing mechanisms with the private bank and strengthen connections between communities, businesses and markets.”

The General shook his head in disgust. “Certification. Finance. Market access. Consolidation. They say it’s all voluntary, but without certification you’re denied access to finance and markets, blacklisted. Blacklisted product moves into the global economy pulling down everyone’s wholesale prices.”

“At wholesale,” said Ian. “Never at retail.”

Ian brought up a site on his computer, “Uswitch.com,” he said. "They broke some of the costs down for utilities, so we in the UK can see a tiny portion of these schemes.” He pointed to the screen.

Environmental costs

A proportion of your gas and electricity bill is used to subsidise the government's environmental initiatives. Environmental costs comprise approximately 6% of your gas bill and 11% of your electricity bill.

Environmental schemes which are subsidised by your gas and electricity bill include:

• Feed-in Tariff scheme (FITs)

• Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT)

• Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP)

• The Renewables Obligation (RO)

• EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)

The General said, “Even if these projects never produce anything, the certification bodies, NGOs, government reps, UN and World Bank employees, the Global Empire, gets a cut. The producers who try to keep up by attending meetings? Well, that time is unpaid, further weakening them. In the process, detailed data is compiled and delivered to ASW and the Global Empire. That data is used for generating more proposals, to pull funds out of the UN and World Bank, used by private businesses for their own purposes. Repeat this for tens of thousands of projects. It’s a rerun of the centralized Communist model—group think, governance by committee and stakeholders, untethered from reality bound by economics. The World Bank and the UN pay and taxpayers pay for the World Bank and the UN. Citizens pay—as consumers, taxpayers, victims of inflation, sovereign debt slaves.”

“Inedible canned sardines,” said Grace.

“They call it sustainable development,” said Ian, “but without forced taxation to support endless subsidies, it’s unsustainable at every level.”

The General shook his head. “A world hungry for peace was sold a peacekeeping UN and we’ve been in a perpetual state of war ever since—deadly for many, extremely profitable for a select few. We tasked the UN with shuttling victims of war and economic collapse around the planet—misery for many, bodies ripe for exploitation by a select few. The UN excels at propaganda and we ceded more power to them. We now have over 500 UN treaties, all directing governance for the benefit of this select few. These centralized, top-down agreements, generate layers of programs, grants and legislation, all controlling policy, herding people. This multi-national super-structure has eviscerated national and individual sovereignty.”

Grace could see the General was tiring, but he continued, “Ignoring its own miserable history of failure for the many, the UN’s World Health Organization is engaged in greater treaty expansion. More trillions. One Health, they call it—designed to benefit the few by entangling climate, the environment, plants, animals, people, everything.”

“This time it’s our bodies, our children’s bodies,” said Ian. “We’re the Global Empire’s lab rats. We’re the invasive species.”

“This is a misery,” said Grace.

“This is the world in which we live,” said the General.