Sunday, Jan. 14th, 2018
Some of you may have heard by now that on Jan. 10th, 2018, NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced that the city is divesting all of its pension funds from the oil and gas industry. This is a huge victory in the fight against climate change, and against the ongoing devastation throughout this country and around the world caused by a warming planet.
Mayor DeBlasio also announced a plan to sue five of the major oil and gas companies; Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips, for knowing the scientific facts of climate change and it’s increasing risks to people, property and planet, and willfully denying and obfuscating those facts for decades so that they could continue to reap major profits at the expense of us all.
Someone who’s been prominent for years among that pack of industry polluters and deniers is Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil and current Secretary of State. And while he now acknowledges the truth about climate change, he is also working within an administration that is continuing the trend of denial by removing all mention of climate change from government websites, gutting funding for science, the EPA, clean energy initiatives, emergency response agencies and infrastructure, and common-sense regulations intended to protect our communities. These actions put all of us, our children, and our future at risk so that a few can continue to squeeze profit from the misery. I don’t know about you, but I’m not okay with that. It’s time to fight back. Thank you, Mayor DeBlasio, for doing the right thing. I pray many more will follow in your tracks.
Rex Tillerson, this song is for you - and for all those within the fossil fuel industry who deny or ignore the facts, putting corporate profit above people and planet.
*One lyrical correction: I referenced a "billionaire businessman" in the 2nd verse, but apparently Mr. Tillerson's net financial worth is only $325 million. My bad! But it did flow a whole lot better than "multimillionaire"...