Exxon CEO: ‘What Good Is It To Save The Planet If Humanity Suffers?’

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/30/2076751/exxon-ceo-what-good-is-it-to-save-the-planet-if-humanity-suffers/

Exxon CEO: ‘What Good Is It To Save The Planet If Humanity Suffers?’
By Ryan Koronowski and Joe Romm on May 30, 2013 at 11:21 am


At Wednesday’s meeting for ExxonMobil shareholders in Dallas, CEO Rex Tillerson told those assembled that an economy that runs on oil is here to stay, and cutting carbon emissions would do no good.

He asked, “What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?”

One good would be that humanity has a habitable place to live. And in acting to stop the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change, we could avoid a great deal of suffering. Tillerson missed the billions of dollars in damages, thousands of lives lost, millions displaced, and rampant ecological destruction due to the carbon emissions that cause climate change.

snip//

So what Tillerson probably meant to ask shareholders yesterday was “What good is it to save humanity if profits suffer?” Last year he had told the Council on Foreign Relations about the “manageable” risks of climate change: ”As a species that’s why we’re all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this. It’s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions.”

The beauty of this approach is that Exxon makes money on both ends — they get to sell all their climate-destroying fossil fuels, and then, no doubt, they will sell their engineering skills dealing with the ever-worsening climate extremes. Now that’s win-win.

For the seventh time, almost three-quarters of Exxon shareholders voted down a resolution that would require the company to set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from using Exxon products. Shareholders also rejected a resolution that would ban discrimination against gays.

[hatrack]

1. "But what about The Children? Sniff sniff sob!!"

I mean, that's about the level of non-thought this putz is stooping to here.

[Blue Owl]

2. Um, who's causing the suffering, Mr. Valdeez?

n/t

[GeorgeGist]

3. Why save humanity?

If the Universe suffers.

[phantom power]

4. that is some awe-inspiring dualism

[GliderGuider]

5. GliderGuider: "What Good Is It To Save Humanity If The Planet Suffers?"

All depends on your point of view, doesn't it?

[GliderGuider]

6. There is no suffering, there is no salvation.

Thus endeth the lesson. Not with a bang, but a retch.

[NickB79]

7. ‘What Good Is It To Save The Planet If It's Populated by Dumb Fucks?'

Like Mr. Tillerson and his shareholders?

[stuntcat]

14. +1

[Archaic]

8. The planet is going to be fine.

The folks on it are just going to have a progressively worse existence. And since most of the people affected first will be poor and not anywhere near the rich folks, bonus!

If we don't kill off every last animal and plant first, that stuff will thrive when we're gone.


This guy is a rich schmuck, whose only job is to make other rich schmucks richer.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. "Because the alternative is to suffer a lot more"

[pscot]

10. What good is it to save Exxon..

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gaine the whole world, and lose his owne soule?

[gejohnston]

11. how exactly is humanity going to suffer?

Suffer from what?
God, what a lame rationalization.

[caraher]

12. This is such a backward line of thinking

This IS about humanity suffering; "the planet" will do fine with or without us (apart from the species we take out).

The fact that such words ever get uttered points up a long-standing problem with framing ecological issues in terms of "saving" something non-human. While non-human beings and things do have a value in themselves (at least arguably), the real issue is maintaining something resembling a world in which humans can flourish. It can never be "us or them" because we are part of the world ourselves!

[Iterate]

13. Words that could only be spoken by one who has never, himself, suffered.

I know nothing of his personal life but can say that with some confidence. His is the statement of a spoiled child: arrogant, self-serving, and indifferent. Suffering wrings that out in short order.

But, now that Exxon has obviously chosen to end world suffering as part of its new business model, I'm left wondering what kind of suffering the end of Exxon would bring. Not the complete end of oil use mind you, just the kind of massive use that can only be supported by a massive and aggressive corporation like Exxon.

No 40-mile exurban commute, with a race home through the drive-thru to shuttle kids, mow an acre, and save some weekend time for the jet-ski? Would it be suffering if that ended? The horror of a walkable city with a small local market that didn't carry apples flown in from New Zealand? Can people possibly stand the soul-killing pain of cutting the cord from their beloved freezer and garbage grinder?

Given that he's addressing the shareholders who flew into Dallas, I suspect he's referring to that life and the suffering of a life without Hiltons. Clearly, they aren't interested.