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The Rockefeller family has turned on Exxon (the former Standard Oil) for being environmentally tone deaf.

While other oil firms are exploring alternatives to petroleum Exxon sticks to a single business practice and funds global warming deniers.

My favorite quote:

"There are an awful lot of people who are getting increasingly annoyed with Exxon," said economist Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a great-granddaughter of the company's founder. "Their [Exxon's] attitude is 'these pesky shareholders, they act as if they own the company'."

The real truth was revealed in this comment, stockholders may "own" a company but they don't control it. This is the breakdown in the capitalist system that nobody talks about.

Here's a link to one version of the story:

Myopic ExxonMobil is ignoring the planet's future, say Rockefellers

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Thu May 1st, 2008 at 11:10:14 AM EST
...stockholders may "own" a company but they don't control it. This is the breakdown in the capitalist system that nobody talks about.

Bingo!

A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run

by ATinNM on Thu May 1st, 2008 at 11:17:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
One of David Rockefeller's daughters, Abby, was a good friend in the 70's.  Foreseeing the troubles over fresh water, she tried to develop a company making a self-composting toilet called Clivus Multrum.  (Inclined composting room?)  The company's motto was "getyourshittogether."

She was an early adopter of renewable energy technologies, supported our earliest wind energy efforts (in the mid-70's!), and was generally a rebel.  She was living with a passive solar architect from someplace Scaninavian.  I remember being scared to death watching from our motel window, after we'd shared a bowl or two, as her minders sat in their car out on the street (at least in my mind).

One of my chief mentors in early windpower, Paul Montagu Sturges, a classmate of David's at Harvard, thought the Rockefellers were the greatest danger to future civilization.  He considered it a great coup when we installed a Clivus Multrum on our passive house by a mountain stream where we couldn't get permits for a waste system, but with the Clivus we got it built.  Paul and Abby invited Pete Seeger to sing at the opening, sound system set up on the rocks surrounding the stream.

I haven't spoken with Abby over the years, but i'd bet she's still fighting.  And she's a daughter, not a granddaughter, so she's even closer to her father and his policies.

Abby, if you're out there, let's make a ceremony for old times sake, and perhaps the future.  Bet you'd be proud of what i've done.

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Thu May 1st, 2008 at 11:29:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Serendipitous, if not weird..

Dunno about Abby, but her son organised the gig I attended in Seattle a couple of weeks ago.

Really nice guy. He said she's always been the black sheep of the family...

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Thu May 1st, 2008 at 01:00:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Does that mean we can´t be mean to the ´elites´ any more?

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. --Charu Saxena.
by metavision on Thu May 1st, 2008 at 01:40:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Sure, anytime that demonising unspecified groups of people is  what you're looking for, "elites" are the people to go for.

Elite marathon runners are especially pernicious.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 1st, 2008 at 02:13:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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