Blog Action Day: Take that, Exxon! (Comments: 0)

This essay is part of RocBike.com’s contribution to Blog Action Day

I don’t know how much money you make, but ExxonMobil made $39.5 billion in profit — profit! — in 2006, more than any other company. If ExxonMobil were a person — which it isn’t, despite the prevailing notions in both American law and media coverage — it would have landed a pretty sweet gig, clearing $18,990,384.61 an hour. If, like me, you’re not good with commas, that’s just about 19 MILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR IN PROFIT.

It’s important to say again that we’re talking about what ExxonMobil gets to keep and use to buy politicians, er, or whatever they like. Plasma TVs. Small countries. Paramilitaries to keep the natives in line. Y’know, the same kinds of things you and I buy.

But ExxonMobil is a publicly traded company, so at least its shareholders can influence the company’s direction, right? Sure. Just check out these snippets from the article I linked to above:

While other companies have become more “green,” more gay-friendly and more willing to give stronger voice to shareholders, ExxonMobil (Charts, Fortune 500) continues to go its own way. Like his predecessor, Lee Raymond, chief executive Rex Tillerson seems disinclined to bow to today’s conventional wisdom about how big corporations are supposed to behave.

[snip]

Last week, the California state teachers retirement fund, the state treasurers of a half dozen states, labor union pension funds and socially-responsible mutual funds said they would withhold their votes for an Exxon director, Michael Boskin, because he wouldn’t meet with them. Boskin, a Stanford economics professor, chairs the board’s public issues committee. He didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment, but a company spokesman said Boskin communicates regularly with shareholders and that he helped arrange a day-long meeting for institutional investors with top ExxonMobil officials. The investors say they want access to the directors, as well.

[snip]

But the shareholder discontent is about substantive issues, too.

The most prominent is climate change. General Electric (Charts, Fortune 500), Wal-Mart (Charts, Fortune 500), DuPont (Charts, Fortune 500) and oil companies Conoco-Phillips and BP (Charts) have called for strong federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. They accept the scientific consensus that global warming is a threat, that it’s caused by man-made activity and that forceful remedies are required.

ExxonMobil won’t go that far. In its corporate responsibility report issued last week, the company says: “Because the risk to society and ecosystems from rising greenhouse gas emissions could prove to be significant, strategies that address the risk need to be developed and implemented.” It goes out to lay out a set of principles that it believes make sense in addressing climate change. You can read more here.

But the company has upset some environmentalists by providing financial backing (albeit small amounts) for groups that challenge the conventional wisdom on climate change.

The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank, publishes a newsletter called Environment and Climate News. Sample headlines: “Fears of Melting Polar Ice Are Discredited,” “Record April Freeze Hits U.S.” (!), “Scientists Urge Gore to Cool His Global Warming Rhetoric,” “When Will We Tire of the Fear Mongers?” ExxonMobil gave $115,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2006.

Another group on Exxon’s support list is the George C. Marshall Institute. The climate change page on its Web site displays such headlines as “Storm Guru: Oceans, Not CO2, Cause Global Warming,” and “Earth’s Climate is Seesawing, According to Climate Reseachers.” The institute got $85,000 last year from ExxonMobil.

[snip]

On governance issues, ExxonMobil opposes Monks’ resolution that asks the company to separate the jobs of chairman and CEO. It opposes a proposal from Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard Law school professor and prominent critic of excessive CEO pay, asking the company to give more power to its independent directors to approve executive compensation. It doesn’t want to give shareholders a vote on executive comp, either.

ExxonMobil also opposes a resolution asking the company to adopt in writing a non-discrimination policy against gays and lesbians. More than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies (and 98 of the biggest 100) have done so. While Exxon says it opposes any form of discrimination, you have to wonder why the company won’t put its position in writing, and what kind of signal that sends to gay or lesbian employees or prospective employees.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the cheapest gas you can buy where I live in upstate New York is about $3 a gallon. When I moved back to the U.S. from Japan in 1999, I distinctly remember filling up my tank in South Carolina for about $.75 a gallon. In the meantime, we’ve invaded and occupied a country with a ton of oil. Not only has that Iraqi oil not paid for the invasion, which costs U.S. taxpayers $430 million a day, but we’re still paying four times more for gas than we did eight years ago. (And we’ve, y’know, also killed a lot of people.)

So what can we do?

If you’re reading this site, you’ve already figured out one huge way to give ExxonMobil, Big Oil and the Bush junta the kick in the sensitives they so richly deserve. Take my small contribution:

• Miles biked since June: 1,176
• My car’s gas mileage: 18 miles per gallon
• Gallons saved by biking: 65

Big deal, right? All that biking I’ve done over the past four and a half months has resulted in me saving a small enough amount of gas that I could probably carry it on my Xtracycle if I didn’t go too far.

But now consider this: According to a 2002 government study (reported by the League of American Bicyclists), 57 million people rode a bike in 2002. If the average of all the trips they made was only 5 miles a person, that would still be 285 million miles traveled by bicycle. The average gas mileage in the U.S. was 21 miles per gallon in 2005. That means that if 57 million people each ride just five miles in a year, they’ll collectively save 13.5 million gallons of gas ! Even if they all only ride one mile and then quit, they’ll save 2.7 million gallons of gas!

So there you have it. Millions of gallons of planet-destroying gasoline saved, lives improved, wars averted, health increased, happiness escalated. What are you reading the rest of this for? Go ride your bike!

P.S. — If you’re a visual learner, here’s an easy choice:

OR

(Photo by Jill from Up In Alaska)

Which side are YOU on?

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