The guilty verdict and 16-year prison sentence of asbestos billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny is a Red Letter Day for the many fighting the hypocrisy of the Maurice Strong-fermented ‘Sustainability Business’.
Schmidheiny, found guilty of being partially responsible for causing death, pain and suffering to thousands from asbestos-related illnesses, is second only to Canadian-born, UN Poster Boy Strong in the Sustainability ethos.
“A court in Turin, Italy, ruled today that Schmidheiny and lead Eternit shareholder Jean-Louis de Cartier de Marchienne were partially responsible for hundreds of deaths and illnesses caused by asbestos in Eternit factories.” (Bloomberg, Feb. 13, 2012). “They were also sentenced to pay damages, which reportedly could reach past 250 million euros ($330 million), to be determined in a separate civil proceeding to victims’ relatives and to a number of local authorities.”
The epitome of this cautionary tale is how people, touted worldwide as eco saviours, are sometimes the same ones who cost people their lives and make them ill. A chill must be running down the spine of Schmidheiny puppet master Strong, whose long time Number One sustainability protégé now faces prison.
While avoiding litigation that has already sent many in the global asbestos cartel bankrupt until justice caught up with him last week, Schmidheiny, has been spreading the global message of Business Sustainability since Strong’s 1992 Earth Summit.
The term ‘eco-efficient’ took root at the Summit and billions of dollars were made in its name.
Schmidheiny is to ‘eco-efficient’, what the exposure of man made global warming scientist emails were to Climategate. Environmental movement members of the day are now not the only ones who know that the ‘Patron saint of Sustainability‘ ran another business that cost so many their lives.
International mainstream media miss the boat by nicknaming Schmidheiny the “Bill Gates of Switzerland”. As Strong’s long term protégé, Schmidheiny is living proof that the Sustainability Movement can be a cover to hide those insensitive to the health and well being of others.
‘Maurice Strong/ Stephan Schmidheiny Man-made Sustainability’ is a global mockery if any of its main advocates operate businesses that claim human lives and sicken honest factory workers.
Most people now know that a court case on behalf of nearly 3,000 asbestos disease-stricken people in Europe brought justice to the company founded by two of Europe’s richest men for “criminal negligence”. But few know that the “Bill Gates of Switzerland” is none other than the founder of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. To this day the Council provides a forum for some 200 member companies with a combined revenue of more than $7trillion “to develop innovative tools that change the status quo,” according to its own website.
“The Council has published a vision for 2050 that urges companies to incorporate the cost of externalities such as carbon and water into the marketplace and to halt deforestation. The group will participate in the Rio+20 sustainable development conference that will be held the third week in June.
In his own words, Schmidheiny founded the council to do the bidding of Strong, then secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development to “represent the voice of business” at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
As Schmidheiny depends on the creativity of lawyers to avoid having to don the orange coveralls of the prisoner, Strong remains holed up in China, where he fled in the aftermath of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal.
“Schmidheiny’s books include Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development, co-authored with former DuPont Co. Chief Executive Officer Charles Holliday and former Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chairman Phil Watts.”
Schmidheiny waxed poetic in describing his first meeting with Strong:
“It all started in 1990; I had come to a resting place in a decade-long job of turning a global construction materials business into a diversified portfolio of companies: banking, electronic instruments, watches, forestry, water systems, and some very different types of construction materials. Resting from the rat race of business, I could afford to think about such “luxury” issues as a safe and clean environment.
“I was in an introspective mood. The 1980s had been a bad time for the environment; we were told that rainforests and whales would not be with us much longer and that the climate was changing beyond recognition or predictability, but that none of this would matter because we would soon all be dead of skin cancer because of the hole in the ozone layer. That, at least, was the way the message came through to an industrialist not paying close attention.
“However, the 1980s had been fairly kind to me and my attempts to change my business holdings. So I wondered privately, and then aloud in a speech I made in 1990, how we could create a world in which what was good for the planet was good for business, and vice versa.
“Not many people heard my short address, made in the L-shaped hold of a noisy, creaking wooden ship tied up in Bergen, Norway, where the wealthier countries of Europe and North America were meeting to plan their approach to the ‘Earth Summit’ two years off; but one of the few who heard me was Maurice Strong, designated secretary general of the Summit. He was pleasantly surprised to hear someone suggest that perhaps gains for business did not necessarily have to be losses for the environment, and again, vice versa.
“My family later claimed, half-jokingly, that Maurice Strong invited himself to our house in Switzerland and would not leave until I had agreed to do his bidding. In truth, Maurice is far too shrewd and diplomatic to have to resort to such tactics. And what he wanted me to do attracted me. He wanted me to coordinate a message from business to his Summit and at the same time to spread the message of sustainability among business leaders. He was challenging me to put my efforts--and, as it turned out, some of my money--where my mouth had been in Bergen.”
Schmidheiny’s family was right. The trap door shut on doing Strong’s bidding, and regrettably for the asbestos billionaire, he’s headed for prison, while slippery-as-an-eel Maurice Strong is still at large in Communist China imposing sustainable development on the masses.
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
