ExxonMobil’s Appeasement Strategy Backfires (Milloy has had enough)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 1, 2021

“The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser’s intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture’s dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers.”

“Moral cowardice is fear of upholding the good because it is good, and fear of opposing the evil because it is evil. The next step leads to opposing the good in order to appease evil, and rushing out to seek the evil’s favor.”

– Ayn Rand

ExxonMobil switched strategies from principle to appeasement early in the first term of President Obama. I have watched, step-by-step, a great corporation become mediocre for the first time in its storied history.

I long for Lee Raymond, who was honest and demanding–with impressive results for the shareholder, employees, consumers, and the national/international economy.

Every step that Exxon Mobil has taken backwards has required more backward steps. Playing defense means not playing offense. Is this a corporation whose leadership can say ENOUGH, we are not going to ….

• Play along with intellectual and scientific exaggeration.
• Compromise our core in a futile crusade to ban fossil fuels.
• Needlessly increase prices for the users of our products.
• Comfort the enemies of energy affordability, energy reliability, and economic progress.

Steve Milloy (below) has had enough. At the recent shareholder meeting, he called for a senior management change from appeasers to fighters. He is right; the top executive of ExxonMobil should ask management, employees, and stockholders who do not agree with the fossil fuel mission of the company to leave, to go elsewhere.

Good morning. My name is Steve Milloy.

At the 2008 annual meeting, I told then-CEO Rex Tillerson that appeasing climate activists would lead to disaster. I suggested a way out: Ban these stupid shareholder proposals.

I delivered the same message to current CEO Darren Woods in 2017. He didn’t listen either. Now, we are in crisis.

Political activists, masquerading as shareholders, stand to gain even more control over Exxon through … guess what … shareholder proposals. These activists hate our business and our country and have no use for us.

This year I proposed that Exxon push back on climate idiocy by disclosing the actual costs and benefits of cutting emissions. The costs of emissions cuts, you see, are very high and the benefits are zero.

But the ever-obtuse Mr. Woods refuses to acknowledge these realities.

Instead, he fantasizes about appeasing the crazed political radicals who are the mortal enemies of us genuine shareholders.

Let’s review some realities.

Both Joe Biden and John Kerry now admit that going to zero emissions will not solve whatever climate problem alarmists want you to imagine we have.

Kerry said even if the US and China went to zero emissions tomorrow, that would not solve the imaginary climate problem.

And of course, China is not going to zero emissions tomorrow or ever. China’s goal is to be the lone global superpower by 2049. It’s not worried about emissions of plant food.

The UN says global emissions are going up with no end in sight. Meanwhile Exxon’s lifegiving products produce less than one percent of global emissions.

Get the picture? Climate hysteria is a hoax…. one being used to hijack our company and country.

Yet Mr. Woods coddles the Exxon haters. He is complicit in their campaign to undermine our company. Mr. Woods wants Congress to pass a carbon tax.

Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu said gasoline should cost at least $10 per gallon by 2023 to force down demand. Is that what Mr. Woods wants? To crush our customers and economy for no reason? Mr. Woods got his wish when Joe Biden rejoined the Paris climate treaty.

Now, Joe Biden wants to cut US emissions 50% by 2030 — while our main adversary, China, doesn’t have to cut anything.

It will be impossible to cut emissions that much. But rest assured the mere effort will not be Exxon-friendly. And the climate will remain the same.

Mr. Woods latest idea is to capture and store emissions offshore. This foolish notion is not physically, financially or politically possible. Even if it were, it would not satisfy the radical climate activists who are after political power, not lower emissions.

ExxonMobil staff are brilliant when it comes to business. But when it comes to climate politics, Mr. Woods and his management team are just dumb as a box of rocks.

So what is the path forward for Exxon’s genuine investors?

Mr. Woods and the board need to go. We need management who will defend our company against the climate gangsters.

Next, Exxon needs to educate the public about what is really going on with climate. Stop the phony greenwashing… which as you can see from this meeting and the various lawsuits around the country… has accomplished nothing except bringing us to brink of disaster.

Tell the public that climate hysteria means $10 gasoline. Tell the public that $10 gas won’t improve the climate. It will only make people poorer and less free.

That’s the reality and the only reality about the climate hoax that really matters.