Rockefeller Fund Dumping Fossil Fuels, Hits Exxon On Climate Issues (cnbc.com)

mdsolar quotes a report from Reuters: The Rockefeller Family Fund said on Wednesday it will divest from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and "eliminate holdings" of Exxon Mobil, chiding the oil company for allegedly misleading the public about the threat of climate change. The move by the U.S. based charity, which will also include coal and Canadian oil sands holdings, is especially notable because a century ago John D. Rockefeller Sr. made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to Exxon Mobil.
Given the threat posed to the survival of human and natural ecosystems, "there is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons," the fund said. Exxon did not immediately comment. In a letter posted on its website, the Rockefeller Family Fund said Exxon's conduct on climate issues appears to be "morally reprehensible."

Comments

Re:Fiduciary sense?

[MightyMartian]

1. That climate always changes doesn't mean it changes so radically and so quickly.
2. There are no lack of other sources of energy. Hydrocarbons are hardly the only solution.
3. There are other ways to produce plastics and similar materials.

So what we really have here is you posting patently false things as if they were true.

Re:Fiduciary sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Barring thermonuclear warfare or a wayward asteroid, global climate will change no matter what we do (or don't do), and will continue on its current trend.

2) Barring the invention of commercially viable electrical generation from fusion (or some similar massive source of energy), hydrocarbons are pretty much it for providing the majority of humanity's energy, so unless someone at Rockefeller has information that the rest of us do not have...

1. Climate does not have to continue on its current trend.

Certainly, if we keep up the status quo, it will continue on its current trend.
However, we can do something about it and reverse that trend.

2. Hydrocarbons came from the sun.

Every single joule of energy derived from hydrocarbon sources originated in the sun and eventually got buried underground.
We can cut out the middle man (bacteria, plants, animals, dirt, millions of years of time, oil rigs, oil pipelines, refineries, etc) and just collect those joules directly ourselves.
Are there enough solar panels to provide for all of our energy needs right now? No.
Could there be enough solar power stations to provide for all of our energy needs? Absolutely.

Is there a way to keep doing what we're doing and not suffer any consequences? Absolutely not.

Oh Really?

[HighOrbit]

Rockefeller Fund: Now that oil has dropped from $120 per barrel to $30/$40 per barrel and oil stocks are no longer profitable, we've suddenly developed a sense of moral courage. Our decision has nothing to do with oil investments no longer being a money-spewing spigot.

Re:Fiduciary sense?

[Geoffrey.landis]

I get the whole Greenwashing that happened there, but seriously - no matter the {whatever} you hold concerning AGW, three things are constant:

1) Barring thermonuclear warfare or a wayward asteroid, global climate will change no matter what we do (or don't do),

Yes to the first part: Yes, human sources of climate change are not the only source of climate change; the other sources are still there.

and will continue on its current trend.

...and no to the second. There is very very good evidence that the current trend is due to human activities. There simply are no natural sources of change that have this magnitude of effect this quickly that we would not be able to see. (Remember, we do measure solar output. One thing we know: the current trend is not due to solar variability. If we stop these activities, the current trend will stop. (Although it will take a while to do so.)

2) Barring the invention of commercially viable electrical generation from fusion (or some similar massive source of energy)

You just said "unless there are other sources of energy, we have to use the current sources of energy." That statement is a tautology.

OK, so it is desirable to develop new sources of energy if we don't want to use the current sources. Fair enough. Let's get to it.

...

Plastics (made from petroleum) are the backbone of technology and civilization at this time - no viable replacement has yet arisen that doesn't require even more damage to the ecosystems, or can last nearly as long when the requirements call for longevity/durability. (e.g. yeah you can make plastic from corn, but it'll be much shorter-lived and will require massive up-scaling in agriculture, which presents problems of its own.)

1. Plastics account for so small an amount of the hydrocarbon usage that you can't even notice it on the pie chart.
2. ...and plastic isn't the problem, since turning fossil hydrocarbons into plastics puts the carbon into the plastic, not into the atmosphere.

Water is WET!

[danaris]

Well, yeah. We all know that. Hell, it's in the story summary.

The point is, even Rockefeller is divesting from fossil fuels. It would be like Bill Gates saying, "Y'know, Windows really is pretty terrible, and is likely to get you infected and turned into a bot. Everyone should ditch it and use Linux."

And, frankly, about time, too.

Dan Aris

Re:Water is WET!

[tnk1]

The old money Rockefeller descendants and their foundations are not the same people as those who made the money. They're pretty much the poster children for old money guilt. John D. Rockefeller would probably make ExxonMobil look like a Green Party front organization if he was still alive.