Mellon Foundation Tied to Anti-Tesla Vandalism
- Neither Justice, nor Grievance, nor Firebombing Doth Clean Air or Water Make
April 2025
When leftists and environmentalist wackos start protesting and firebombing electric cars that they once championed, we know their alleged mission to ‘save the planet’ is not serious. They care much more about power and control than they do about the environment.
One of the same groups that created havoc in 2020 during the ‘summer of rage’, Philly Anti-Capitalist, is now supporting radicals targeting Elon Musk’s Tesla vehicles across the country, even recommending that the perpetrators not use Molotov cocktails because they might not explode or produce the desired environmental and property destruction, but will leave forensic evidence traceable to the culprits.
Today’s environmentalist and anti-capitalist groups are connected at the hip in their rage and their efforts to thwart American freedom.
Since its inception in 1969 and prior to around 2010, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was one of the good guys in its support for environmental issues with its grants providing “key leadership in the fields of population studies and ecology.”
Mellon’s grants in the area of Higher Learning for environmental purposes were made under the rubric Conservation and the Environment. The Foundation funded hundreds of university ‘Environmental Studies’ programs which, most likely, did not include funding for eco-terrorism as we saw across the country in 2020 and just recently with the “Tesla Takedowns” here and here.
And, similar to contemporary environmentalist grievance groups, Mellon has strayed leftward from its roots and its emphasis from real conservation to so-called justice.
Hearkening back to 2020 when the Mellon Foundation, under the leadership of Elizabeth Alexander, adopted its new vision and reimagined its strategic direction from one of support for the Arts and Humanities to one of social justice, we see that its subsequent grant-making began to revolve around the concept of “justice.”
Environmental justice, as established in our last installment on Mellon, is a new Marxist term defined as a social movement that addresses “injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, and resource extraction.” Granted, communities must be protected from harm by hazardous waste and that’s why there are laws that prevent polluting the environment anywhere. The United States is the cleanest country on Earth with the most stringent environmental regulations and that fact alone renders the term environmental justice nonsensical.
Since 2010, Mellon has used the terms climate or environmental justice to specify the purpose for its Higher Learning or Arts and Culture funds in the discipline of, what they once called, “environmental studies.”
Just a few examples of Mellon’s more recent grants for ‘environmental or climate justice’ are grants awarded to the City University of New York in 2025, New York City’s Pace University in 2024, The New School (2024), Anchorage Museum Association (2024), Producer Hub, Inc. (2024), Mellon’s call to higher learning institutions to submit “concepts in environmental justice studies” in 2023, and to Wake Forest University in 2022.
At the City University of New York, a newly awarded seed grant from the Mellon Foundation “will pilot the first university-convened climate assembly in the U.S. dubbed the CUNY Climate Assembly Project (CCAP).” The $150,000 Mellon award will “further a global movement for people-powered governance” by primarily funding student fellowships. “Many of the university’s 25 campuses are located within environmental justice areas throughout all five of the city’s boroughs, and it serves approximately 233,000 students who live and work in these diverse communities. CCAP will help ensure these students have a leading voice in shaping just and regenerative climate transitions.”
“Environmental justice areas” and “regenerative climate transitions” - this is the language of the Left, which shows you how far Mellon has gone off its rocker.
Pace University is an island campus, also in New York, which prides itself on the themes of “climate justice, creative interventions, and decolonization.” It received $476,000 from Mellon to advance comparative studies of the islands of New York with the U.S. legacy in the Marshall Islands and the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The grant will likewise “support activities such as faculty-mentored student research, curriculum development, and public engagement projects to address issues like waterfront planning, cultural production, and nuclear justice.” Justice, justice, justice.
It is unclear what Pace U. considers nuclear justice. Perhaps it pertains to mitigating the proliferation of and the testing of nuclear weapons because it disproportionately impacts poorer communities? We DO need more ‘nuclear justice,’ however, in the form of building more nuclear plants to provide cheaper and more efficient energy for all communities.
The New School, again in New York, received a Mellon grant to support the planning for its “Environmental and Climate Justice University Centers and Movement Partners Council.” In short, a full employment for Leftists grant.
Six hundred thousand dollars went to the Anchorage Museum in Alaska for “Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Justice Initiatives” to continue support for contemporary indigenous art and culture and climate justice programs.
Mellon awarded Producer Hub, Inc. a “connective space for independent producers, artists, and other arts workers creating live performance,” $150,000 for its commitment to “Decolonization and Climate Justice in Contemporary Arts.” The money will support “Groundwater Arts, an Indigenous-led service organization focused in climate justice and decolonizing dominant cultural practices.”
In October of 2023, the Mellon Foundation announced a call for concepts to institutions of higher learning across America considering research or curricular projects in three distinct humanities-grounded and social justice-oriented categories. Those categories are “Cultures of U.S. Democracy,” “Environmental Justice Studies,” and “Social Justice and Disciplinary Knowledge.” Mellon announced that it “particularly welcomes concepts from institutions that are minority-serving (MSIs).” $250,000 to $500,000 a pop are up for grabs.
Trinity College in Connecticut was awarded one of those $500,000 grants for a new project called “Urban Environmental Justice in Hartford.” The article goes on to explain, “Collectively, the Trinity team aims to encourage informed public dialogue on how historical land use decisions have imposed health and environmental consequences on Hartford’s predominantly Latine and Black residents and to build regional consensus to address challenges brought about by that history.” An amply-funded pity party. Oh woe is us.
Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC, received a $1 million grant in 2022 to “support collaboration between the university’s program in Africa American Studies and environment and sustainability in the development of a new Humanistic Science and Technology Studies curriculum that centers environmental and epistemic justice” (yet another ‘justice’) “and examines the role of race in shaping environmental narratives and policy.”
Not to be left out, singer Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation has recently partnered with the Mellon Foundation to fund artist-led initiatives to preserve Barbados’ cultural heritage, which, they say, “is at risk from climate change.” Sure.
It remains perplexing as to why the Mellon Foundation assumes that only certain races of people in specific areas of the country and world are affected by climate and the environment. The question then remains, how will Mellon’s millions contribute to environmental concerns overall if their focus is on theatrical performances, race, and justice?
Leftist grievances are widely varied, but, miraculously, the torch-bearers for radical causes have mastered the art of contortion and, at the drop of a hat, can somehow link all of them together in one lump-sum . . . when they need money. A glaring example of this contortion is New York’s The Climate Museum. A few years ago, Mellon granted The Climate Museum, the first museum in the United States wholly dedicated to climate change art, $800,000.
The founder and director of The Climate Museum, Miranda Massie, was a civil rights litigator prior to her post at the museum. She had this to say about Mellon: “Mellon Fellows have led the development of our discussion series on topics at the intersection of climate and inequality, such as grief, displacement, infrastructure, food, law, identity, and more, and they are playing key roles in the preparation of the framework for our upcoming exhibition on the intertwined histories of inequality and climate disruption in modernity.” Can’t get more Left than that.
They really mean it when they use the term “inclusive.” They’ve included every imagined grievance under the sun.
Ironically, The Climate Museum is one of the key sponsors of Hands Off!, a nation-wide environment-compromising protest, organized by the far Left group Indivisible, opposing President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s attempts at fighting waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. Vandalism has occurred at Hands Off anti-Tesla protests. Instead of condemning it, Hands Off! merely implores protesters to “de-escalate’ and not bring weapons to the protests. But Hands Off! rolls merrily on, despite the lawbreaking that has occurred. The silence of Hands Off! and Mellon has enabled the escalation of other anti-Tesla protests into firebombings and domestic terrorism. It’s not good enough to say ‘please behave.’ In a very real sense, this wave of violence was brought to you by the enabling Mellon Foundation and its big money.
The Mellon Foundation should remember its past and reimagine how it allocates its millions in respect to the environment. Because if they don’t, like with their fellow travelers in the Environmental-Industrial Complex, we’ll know they’re not serious.
- Neither Justice, nor Grievance, nor Firebombing Doth Clean Air or Water Make
April 2025
When leftists and environmentalist wackos start protesting and firebombing electric cars that they once championed, we know their alleged mission to ‘save the planet’ is not serious. They care much more about power and control than they do about the environment.
One of the same groups that created havoc in 2020 during the ‘summer of rage’, Philly Anti-Capitalist, is now supporting radicals targeting Elon Musk’s Tesla vehicles across the country, even recommending that the perpetrators not use Molotov cocktails because they might not explode or produce the desired environmental and property destruction, but will leave forensic evidence traceable to the culprits.
Today’s environmentalist and anti-capitalist groups are connected at the hip in their rage and their efforts to thwart American freedom.
Since its inception in 1969 and prior to around 2010, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was one of the good guys in its support for environmental issues with its grants providing “key leadership in the fields of population studies and ecology.”
Mellon’s grants in the area of Higher Learning for environmental purposes were made under the rubric Conservation and the Environment. The Foundation funded hundreds of university ‘Environmental Studies’ programs which, most likely, did not include funding for eco-terrorism as we saw across the country in 2020 and just recently with the “Tesla Takedowns” here and here.
And, similar to contemporary environmentalist grievance groups, Mellon has strayed leftward from its roots and its emphasis from real conservation to so-called justice.
Hearkening back to 2020 when the Mellon Foundation, under the leadership of Elizabeth Alexander, adopted its new vision and reimagined its strategic direction from one of support for the Arts and Humanities to one of social justice, we see that its subsequent grant-making began to revolve around the concept of “justice.”
Environmental justice, as established in our last installment on Mellon, is a new Marxist term defined as a social movement that addresses “injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, and resource extraction.” Granted, communities must be protected from harm by hazardous waste and that’s why there are laws that prevent polluting the environment anywhere. The United States is the cleanest country on Earth with the most stringent environmental regulations and that fact alone renders the term environmental justice nonsensical.
Since 2010, Mellon has used the terms climate or environmental justice to specify the purpose for its Higher Learning or Arts and Culture funds in the discipline of, what they once called, “environmental studies.”
Just a few examples of Mellon’s more recent grants for ‘environmental or climate justice’ are grants awarded to the City University of New York in 2025, New York City’s Pace University in 2024, The New School (2024), Anchorage Museum Association (2024), Producer Hub, Inc. (2024), Mellon’s call to higher learning institutions to submit “concepts in environmental justice studies” in 2023, and to Wake Forest University in 2022.
At the City University of New York, a newly awarded seed grant from the Mellon Foundation “will pilot the first university-convened climate assembly in the U.S. dubbed the CUNY Climate Assembly Project (CCAP).” The $150,000 Mellon award will “further a global movement for people-powered governance” by primarily funding student fellowships. “Many of the university’s 25 campuses are located within environmental justice areas throughout all five of the city’s boroughs, and it serves approximately 233,000 students who live and work in these diverse communities. CCAP will help ensure these students have a leading voice in shaping just and regenerative climate transitions.”
“Environmental justice areas” and “regenerative climate transitions” - this is the language of the Left, which shows you how far Mellon has gone off its rocker.
Pace University is an island campus, also in New York, which prides itself on the themes of “climate justice, creative interventions, and decolonization.” It received $476,000 from Mellon to advance comparative studies of the islands of New York with the U.S. legacy in the Marshall Islands and the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The grant will likewise “support activities such as faculty-mentored student research, curriculum development, and public engagement projects to address issues like waterfront planning, cultural production, and nuclear justice.” Justice, justice, justice.
It is unclear what Pace U. considers nuclear justice. Perhaps it pertains to mitigating the proliferation of and the testing of nuclear weapons because it disproportionately impacts poorer communities? We DO need more ‘nuclear justice,’ however, in the form of building more nuclear plants to provide cheaper and more efficient energy for all communities.
The New School, again in New York, received a Mellon grant to support the planning for its “Environmental and Climate Justice University Centers and Movement Partners Council.” In short, a full employment for Leftists grant.
Six hundred thousand dollars went to the Anchorage Museum in Alaska for “Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Justice Initiatives” to continue support for contemporary indigenous art and culture and climate justice programs.
Mellon awarded Producer Hub, Inc. a “connective space for independent producers, artists, and other arts workers creating live performance,” $150,000 for its commitment to “Decolonization and Climate Justice in Contemporary Arts.” The money will support “Groundwater Arts, an Indigenous-led service organization focused in climate justice and decolonizing dominant cultural practices.”
In October of 2023, the Mellon Foundation announced a call for concepts to institutions of higher learning across America considering research or curricular projects in three distinct humanities-grounded and social justice-oriented categories. Those categories are “Cultures of U.S. Democracy,” “Environmental Justice Studies,” and “Social Justice and Disciplinary Knowledge.” Mellon announced that it “particularly welcomes concepts from institutions that are minority-serving (MSIs).” $250,000 to $500,000 a pop are up for grabs.
Trinity College in Connecticut was awarded one of those $500,000 grants for a new project called “Urban Environmental Justice in Hartford.” The article goes on to explain, “Collectively, the Trinity team aims to encourage informed public dialogue on how historical land use decisions have imposed health and environmental consequences on Hartford’s predominantly Latine and Black residents and to build regional consensus to address challenges brought about by that history.” An amply-funded pity party. Oh woe is us.
Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, NC, received a $1 million grant in 2022 to “support collaboration between the university’s program in Africa American Studies and environment and sustainability in the development of a new Humanistic Science and Technology Studies curriculum that centers environmental and epistemic justice” (yet another ‘justice’) “and examines the role of race in shaping environmental narratives and policy.”
Not to be left out, singer Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation has recently partnered with the Mellon Foundation to fund artist-led initiatives to preserve Barbados’ cultural heritage, which, they say, “is at risk from climate change.” Sure.
It remains perplexing as to why the Mellon Foundation assumes that only certain races of people in specific areas of the country and world are affected by climate and the environment. The question then remains, how will Mellon’s millions contribute to environmental concerns overall if their focus is on theatrical performances, race, and justice?
Leftist grievances are widely varied, but, miraculously, the torch-bearers for radical causes have mastered the art of contortion and, at the drop of a hat, can somehow link all of them together in one lump-sum . . . when they need money. A glaring example of this contortion is New York’s The Climate Museum. A few years ago, Mellon granted The Climate Museum, the first museum in the United States wholly dedicated to climate change art, $800,000.
The founder and director of The Climate Museum, Miranda Massie, was a civil rights litigator prior to her post at the museum. She had this to say about Mellon: “Mellon Fellows have led the development of our discussion series on topics at the intersection of climate and inequality, such as grief, displacement, infrastructure, food, law, identity, and more, and they are playing key roles in the preparation of the framework for our upcoming exhibition on the intertwined histories of inequality and climate disruption in modernity.” Can’t get more Left than that.
They really mean it when they use the term “inclusive.” They’ve included every imagined grievance under the sun.
Ironically, The Climate Museum is one of the key sponsors of Hands Off!, a nation-wide environment-compromising protest, organized by the far Left group Indivisible, opposing President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s attempts at fighting waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. Vandalism has occurred at Hands Off anti-Tesla protests. Instead of condemning it, Hands Off! merely implores protesters to “de-escalate’ and not bring weapons to the protests. But Hands Off! rolls merrily on, despite the lawbreaking that has occurred. The silence of Hands Off! and Mellon has enabled the escalation of other anti-Tesla protests into firebombings and domestic terrorism. It’s not good enough to say ‘please behave.’ In a very real sense, this wave of violence was brought to you by the enabling Mellon Foundation and its big money.
The Mellon Foundation should remember its past and reimagine how it allocates its millions in respect to the environment. Because if they don’t, like with their fellow travelers in the Environmental-Industrial Complex, we’ll know they’re not serious.