The Evidence: Is Rex Tillerson of Exxon the Top Climate Killer?

Climate criminal number one — Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson

Mr. Tillerson first hit these pages (and our radar) in this post — Who is the enemy leading us to Climate Catastrophe? Here we quote Bill McKibben, who quotes Naomi Klein:

“Lots of companies do rotten things in the course of their business – pay terrible wages, make people work in sweatshops – and we pressure them to change those practices,” says veteran anti-corporate leader Naomi Klein, who is at work on a book about the climate crisis. “But these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel

Rex Tillerson: Top Fracker Exxon CEO Sues: NO Fracking Near My Mansion! –

EXXON CEO Rex Tillerson, the world’s largest oil and gas company personally sued to prevent fracking near his own mansion in Bartonville, Texas. Tillerson and EXXON, and the Texas legislature, have spent years fighting to minimize regulations on fracking and claiming that there are negligible impacts on water, and inconclusive evidence that they cause earthquakes. Industry along with the GOP even passed a bill that overrode local governments that tried to ban fracking in their communities. According to a report by Chris Hayes on MSNBC Tillerson was compensated over $40 million in 2012 alone while Exxon became the largest frack-gas producer in the world.

♠ Tillerson’s personal wealth. All of that Exxon money exists to make the Exxon executive class, which Tillerson rules as CEO, wealthy beyond their dreams — or needs. The destruction of the planet’s climate system is a byproduct of their personal wealth-production. Here’s a taste:
Salary(2007) — $5,110,000 / month; $16,726,742 / year [1]
Total compensation (2011) — $25.2 million (2011) [2]
Estimated net worth — More than $40 million (based solely on his 5-year Exxon compensation)

”Wrecking the planet is their business model. It’s what they do.” …They’re clearly cognizant of global warming – they employ some of the world’s best scientists, after all, and they’re bidding on all those oil leases made possible by the staggering melt of Arctic ice.And yet they relentlessly search for more hydrocarbons – in early March, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson told Wall Street analysts that the company plans to spend $37 billion a year through 2016 (about $100 million a day) searching for yet more oil and gas.

Nearly half (48%) of all industrial carbon pollution released into the atmosphere since 1854 can be traced directly to just 20 entities.

McKibben again (same source; my emphasis and paragraphing):

There’s not a more reckless man on the planet than Tillerson. As the Colorado fires reached their height, he told a New York audience that global warming is real, but dismissed it as an “engineering problem” that has “engineering solutions.” Such as? “Changes to weather patterns that move crop-production areas around – we’ll adapt to that.” This in a week when Kentucky farmers were reporting that corn kernels were “aborting” in record heat, threatening a spike in global food prices.

“The fear factor that people want to throw out there to say, ‘We just have to stop this,’ I do not accept,” Tillerson said. Of course not – if he did accept it, he’d have to keep his reserves in the ground. Which would cost him money. It’s not an engineering problem, in other words – it’s a greed problem.

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Did Rex buy his way into power?….Chevron drops $2.5 million in pocket change to elect House Republicans and buy influence     by pbgrist … 2012

Chevron, owners of a refinery that exploded over the summer resulting in possible criminal charges, decided to make a strategic investment that it clearly hopes will prevent future, similar headaches.