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In one of the last places one would expect to hear about climate change and about large oil companies’ denial that is it caused by their carbon extraction, at the stockholders’ meeting for Exxon-Mobile and for Chevron, repeated attempts were made to have their own companies face up to the problem they created, denied, and lobbied to have swept under the carpet….
More than 38% of Exxon’s investors rebelled against the company by voting for a proposal that would have required the company to publish an annual study of how its profits may be affected by public climate change policies, following the Paris climate agreement, to limit the global temperature rise to less than 2C (3.6F)….
(A similar vote at Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting, also held on Wednesday, showed 41% support from Chevron investors that cast ballots.)
This opens the door to a new avenue to attack “denial of global warming”, by buying stock in Exxon Mobile and Chevron, then attending the stockholder’s meetings… (Only 13% of additional stock is now required to change Exxon, and only 10% required to flip Chevron)… A far tinier margin than anyone had previously imagined…
Exxo tried to block the resolution from being heard at its meeting, but the US Securities and Exchange Commission regulator ruled that it must include the resolution among Wednesday’s votes. Obviously this revolt could not have happened during a Republican’s executive administration.
Rex Tillerson, the boss of oil giant ExxonMobil, said cutting oil production was “not acceptable for humanity”…Tillerson said Exxon had invested $7bn in green technology, but the science and technology had not yet achieved the breakthroughs needed to compete with fossil fuels.
The resolution discussed at Exxon’s annual meeting in Dallas was proposed by the New York state comptroller, a trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third largest US pension fund, and the Church of England.
More than 30 of Exxon’s largest shareholders, including the pension funds of the governments of Norway, Canada and California, Legal & General Investment Management and Schroder’s, previously publicly stated they would vote in favor of the motion. Other supporters of the motion include the pension funds of local authority workers in Greater Manchester and Tyne & Wear.
Exxon is currently under investigation by New York’s attorney general over claims that it lied to the public and shareholders about the risks of climate change….
Exxon believes oil and gas will still provide about 60% of the world’s energy demands by 2040. In fighting off the proposals, Rex Tillerson, the boss of oil giant ExxonMobil, played his hand as to the real reason Exxon-Mobile and other oil producers are “pretending” Global warming is still a hoax. He stated their tapped and untapped underground oil reserves already firmly in their possession would be worthless, if the world shifts over to renewable energy.
They miscalculated the future; those investments are nothing but a bad business decision.
(Lower Keystone Pipeline Rupture; Mayflower, Arkansas) EPA
Death and money. The two things that really move politics forward. If something will kill you, it is possible to get a law passed to rectify it. The Environmental Protection Agency came about because people were dying… enough people dying so it became hard to elect people who said, “what the heck if people die; it costs money for billionaires to protect people from hazards.”
Instead people who stated: “this will kill us; I’ll stop it immediately” were elected as the alternative, which today, … is why we have clean air and clean water.
The only other thing besides death that can move things through legislative halls is money. And since people won’t die from Keystone as they would from breathing in toxic air spewing across Newark out of a giant TDC smokestack, the money angle has more of a pull.
There are a lot of argument out there both for and against the Keystone Pipeline. However the principal brainstormed idea behind the Keystone pipeline, is to raise your gas prices. For those who don’t know, the current glut in the price of oil is being caused by the emirates of the Persian Gulf dumping oil at very low prices onto the international market. Their motive, taken straight from John Rockefeller I, is to drive out their competition which is us. After we give up, after we throw up our hands and stop fracking, they again have the monopoly and with the price war over, their price bounces up a dollar per gallon and guess who is stuck? They can get a barrel out of the ground for under $25 dollars. It averages out to $75 in the US today… So if they can get the price under $75 a barrel, then people will switch to cheaper foreign oil, and the frackers close up shop….
Except there is this giant pool of very dirty liquid tar in Alberta. Stuff that burns with gross black smoke, but can be refined into automotive fuel and much of it is owned by the Koch Bros through various unrelated companies.
This oil will not sell well in America due to its filth and residue, but other nations do not have such scruples. The oil can go out either of two ways. One is across Canada to the Pacific; the other is across the US to Houston, Texas. The Canadian route is an environmental nightmare and Canadians are environmental sticklers over their pristine wilderness.
But conservatives in control of the Congress make the US route far more attractive. If a giant oil spill were to occur destroying the aquifers of millions of Americans as well as those of millions of cows, pigs, corn, and soy; there is a very good chance Mitch McConnell’s Senate and John Boehner’s House will pass a gigantic tax break to reimburse the Koch billionaires for any or all of their spilled oil…
Keystone II will raise your gas price at the pump.
The best way to describe how, is to imagine that your family has an oil well out back attached to a refinery…. You just back your car up and fill’er’up…. Pretty cheap… Now imagine your spouse, decides to make some money so they sell 10% to this client, 25% to that client, 35% to that client’s neighbor and the sells three shares of 10% on the open market…
You never stop hearing how smart they were for selling those rights and making all that money…. (Did you do the math? Add the percents?) You will find that you have no rights to your oil… You now need to buy it on the open market!… And the price is much more than when you could back your truck right under a tank and fill’er’up!
If we have rights to 100 million barrels of oil, which we can tap later at our leisure, and suddenly with a pipeline, have zero rights unless we too buy it at the world price, we are going to pay more for gas….
Which is what everyone wants…. except those who aren’t making billions of dollars.
For those who want to argue that America will use the oil first, and not import it, answer this question: why would any fool sell something cheap when he can get a lot more for it from somewhere else?
All the oil is intended to be imported. We know this because when legislation was brought on the floor of Congress, requiring some of the oil in the Keystone pipeline to be designated solely for domestic consumption, every single Republican voted against it….
They want you to pay more for gas because: you are not their boss; rich billionaires are. Unless you can makes some people start dying, the money is going to win this one……
kavips 