Right Pulse

Mmmm, this should come as no surprise. Apparently “Sting’s” charity gives only half of what it raises to the causes it champions:

Sting’s Rainforest Foundation, which has been rated one of New York’s worst charities by watchdog Charity Navigator, also faces allegations it hoards donations and inflates ticket prices to its events so they can be used as tax write-offs.

The foundation’s 2006 concert, which involved Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow and Will Ferrell, raised almost $2.3 million, but less than $940,000 or 41 per cent of money raised was given to the charity’s eight programs that support native land claims and forest preservation in Latin America and Africa, the New York Post reported.

The Rainforest Foundation has been in trouble before, making false and missleading claims about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, as caught out by Prof. Philip Stott of the University of London:

As detailed in the recent TV special, Amazon Rainforest: Clear-Cutting the Myths, Landsat data indicate that 87.5 percent of the forest is still intact. Of the 12.5 percent that is deforested, one-third to one-half is in the process of regeneration, meaning that up to 94 percent of the Amazon rain forest is left to nature…

…according to the Institute for Research in Amazonia and other eco-scientists, the Amazon consumes as much oxygen as it produces, and Stott says it actually may be a net user of oxygen. “In fact, because the trees fall down and decay, rain forests actually take in slightly more oxygen than they give out,” says Stott. “The idea of them soaking up carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen is a myth. It’s only fast-growing young trees that actually take up carbon dioxide.”

Ahhh, but Sting’s foundation knows better:

“It’s very easy to romanticize these things from a distance, as long as it’s not your children who are dying without medical care.” Laurie Parise, the executive director of musician Sting’s Rainforest Foundation, doesn’t dispute that the Amazon is nearly 90 percent intact. She counters instead that the intentions matter, “I know in my heart that we’re doing the right thing.”

Regardless of the facts.