Douglas A. Grandt Contact info. while in DC: [email protected]510-432-1452 April 17, 2014 Mr. Jack N. Gerard, CEO American Petroleum Institute 1220 L Street NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20005 Re: Petroleum Industry Initiatives in Response to IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Dear Mr. Gerard, I have written over 350 letters and dozens of emails to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson on the need for his leadership as a uniquely situated industry captain. I believe that he fully understands the need to imminently reduce CO2 emissions along with reducing extraction and refining of hydrocarbons. I believe Mr. Tillerson understands the inevitability, but that he does not understand the urgency, having said, “I don’t believe we are at that point yet.” According to Dr. James E Hansen and his team, as well as countless organizations and individuals around the world, including the IPCC’s latest assessment and working groups, we are, indeed, at that point ... now! The only question is how fast we need to scale back. The reason for this letter is to enlist you as the industry representative to guide the people who are responsible for the economic success of their respective companies. Help them see that they are best served by beginning to scale back on hydrocarbon operations and to shift capital investments to the expansion of carbon-free energy and fuel technologies. Attached are my two most recent emails to Mr. Tillerson, explaining the moral imperative. I encourage you to contact Mr. Tillerson and explore ways that you can facilitate serious discussions within the industry as a neutral mediating party. You are uniquely situated. I would be pleased to drop off a two-volume book containing all my letters. It is available at amazon.com for an extraordinarily high price, but I have a few copies that I bought at the publisher’s special 50% discounted author’s price. Its title is “A Scout Is Brave.” I understand the complexities of the challenge that you and this industry face, having been employed at Humble Oil & Refining as my first job. I left the newly named Exxon for a position in Corporate Planning of a Fortune 500 company. I am presently retired, and dedicating my encore career working on a managed energy “soft landing” for humanity. Sincerely yours, Doug Grandt
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Douglas A. Grandt Contact info. while in DC: [email protected] 510-432-1452 April 17, 2014
Mr. Jack N. Gerard, CEOAmerican Petroleum Institute1220 L Street NW, Suite 900Washington, DC 20005
Re: Petroleum Industry Initiatives in Response to IPCC Fifth Assessment Report
Dear Mr. Gerard,
I have written over 350 letters and dozens of emails to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson on the need for his leadership as a uniquely situated industry captain. I believe that he fully understands the need to imminently reduce CO2 emissions along with reducing extraction and refining of hydrocarbons. I believe Mr. Tillerson understands the inevitability, but that he does not understand the urgency, having said, “I don’t believe we are at that point yet.”
According to Dr. James E Hansen and his team, as well as countless organizations and individuals around the world, including the IPCC’s latest assessment and working groups, we are, indeed, at that point ... now! The only question is how fast we need to scale back.
The reason for this letter is to enlist you as the industry representative to guide the people who are responsible for the economic success of their respective companies. Help them see that they are best served by beginning to scale back on hydrocarbon operations and to shift capital investments to the expansion of carbon-free energy and fuel technologies.
Attached are my two most recent emails to Mr. Tillerson, explaining the moral imperative.
I encourage you to contact Mr. Tillerson and explore ways that you can facilitate serious discussions within the industry as a neutral mediating party. You are uniquely situated.
I would be pleased to drop off a two-volume book containing all my letters. It is available at amazon.com for an extraordinarily high price, but I have a few copies that I bought at the publisher’s special 50% discounted author’s price. Its title is “A Scout Is Brave.”
I understand the complexities of the challenge that you and this industry face, having been employed at Humble Oil & Refining as my first job. I left the newly named Exxon for a position in Corporate Planning of a Fortune 500 company. I am presently retired, and dedicating my encore career working on a managed energy “soft landing” for humanity.
Sincerely yours,
Doug Grandt
Dear Rex Tillerson,
Please read What Is Morally Required? dated January 3, 2012. The authors admonished:So let us say it loud and clear: It's wrong to wreck the world. To take what we need for our comfortable lives and leave a ransacked and dangerously unstable world for the future is not worthy of us as moral beings. And when, to enrich a powerful few, rich nations threaten to disrupt forever the great hydrological and climatic cycles that support all the lives on Earth? This is moral monstrosity on a planetary scale. We have a responsibility, individual and collective, to leave a world as beautiful and life-sustaining as the world that has nourished us.
Three reasons are explained in compassionate detail. Here is a brief summary:To honor human rights. All people have a right to life, to liberty, even to the pursuit of happinessTo honor duties of justice. Those who spew carbon in the air for profit or convenience are reaping the benefits of their profligacyTo honor duties of compassion. "In matters of climate change, as in all our lives, our obligation is clear: we must do unto others as we would wish them to do unto us." -Archbishop Desmond TutuThe IPCC Working Group III report explains clearly that we must begin reducing CO2 emissions.It is incumbent upon you and ExxonMobil to get started — indeed lead — reducing CO2 emissions. Please meet me for coffee to discuss required and realistic options for your success and legacy.
Re-energize with clean carbon-free fuels — for life!Re-invent ExxonMobil as an energy company, be more than an oil & gas company.Re-direct capital investments from carbon-based infrastructure to carbon-free infrastructure.Announce a retirement schedule for your refineries — dismantle them — let the end-game begin.
"The key thing is the sense of universal responsibility. If our generations exploit everything — the trees, the water, and the minerals — without any care for the coming generations or the future, then we are at fault, aren't we." -His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.
What Is Morally Required?by Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. NelsonPublished January 3, 2012 by CommonDreams.orgIn a high, trembling voice, Middlebury student Abigail Borah interrupted the UN climate change talks in Durban last week, shouting over US Climate Envoy Todd Stern until she was led away by guards. Why did she do it? "I've stopped settling for what is deemed 'politically feasible' by obstructionists and started asking for what is morally required and scientifically necessary," she explained later."No one is listening to you," the president of the session chided. Maybe not, but US leaders should be paying close attention to both the scientific and the moral arguments. Scientists have spoken clearly about what steps are necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change. What we need are equally clear and insistent ethical voices, telling why immediate action to prevent climate catastrophe is required of us as moral beings and as a moral nation.Many times, the American people have created dramatic and rapid social change -- the War of Independence, the emancipation of the slaves, the mobilization during World War II, the civil rights movement. In every case, while economic and political considerations were undeniably at play, the change itself was powered by widespread public affirmation of great moral principles of justice and human decency. Action on the greatest of our challenges -- climate change -- will require the same moral resolve. The essential questions are not what is politically feasible or what is profitable, but what is right and what is deeply, devastatingly wrong.So let us say it loud and clear: It's wrong to wreck the world. To take what we need for our comfortable lives and leave a ransacked and dangerously unstable world for the future is not worthy of us as moral beings. And when, to enrich a powerful few, rich nations threaten to disrupt forever the great hydrological and climatic cycles that support all the lives on Earth? This is moral monstrosity on a planetary scale. We have a responsibility, individual and collective, to leave a world as beautiful and life-sustaining as the world that has nourished us.Why?Here are three reasons.One: to honor human rights. All people have a right to life, to liberty, even to the pursuit of happiness. Yet the material conditions that sustain life and permit the exercise of liberty will be undermined by the effects of climate change; the familiar short list includes catastrophes from destabilized economies to food and water shortages -- all the forces that wreck peoples' homes and hopes. Without quick action, climate change will create the greatest violation of human rights the world has ever seen. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, former International Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, speaks of the effects of climate change on the Northern people: "These monumental changes absolutely threaten the memory of who we were, who we are, and all that we wish to be."Two: to honor duties of justice. Those who spew carbon in the air for profit or convenience are reaping the benefits of their profligacy, even as they cast off the burdens on those least able to speak in their own defense -- children, future people, plants and animals, marginalized people everywhere. This is not fair. It violates the basic principle of equity, that benefits and burdens should be deserved, and the principle of retributive justice, that one person should not be punished for the wrongdoing of another.The wrongful taking of the necessary conditions for thriving "is our shame," says ecologist Carl Safina. "Shame, because the unborn, who did not choose it, will come saddled with all conceivable consequences. Shame because the poor, who likewise did not choose it, will be hit first and foremost."Three: to honor duties of compassion. "In matters of climate change, as in all our lives," Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu says, "our obligation is clear: we must do unto others as we would wish them to do unto us." Scientists give us the probable numbers -- numbers of wildfires, durations of drought, intensity of tropical storms, etc. Our moral imagination allows us to translate the numbers into the suffering of parents and children, and our capacity for empathy allows us to understand that the suffering is morally intolerable.As science converges on a consensus about the dangers of climate change and as violent winds
As science converges on a consensus about the dangers of climate change and as violent winds converge on villages, the moral and religious traditions of the world are converging too. We are called to act, they all tell us, for the sake of the children, for the sake of human survival, for the stewardship of divine creation, for the sake of compassion, for the sake of justice, for the rights of present and future generations, for the sake of human integrity -- and for the sake of the beautiful, beloved, life-sustaining Earth."The key thing is the sense of universal responsibility," says His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. "If our generations exploit everything -- the trees, the water, and the minerals -- without any care for the coming generations or the future, then we are at fault, aren't we."
Kathleen Dean Moore is co-editor, with Michael P. Nelson, of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, a call to climate action from almost 100 of the world's moral leaders. Moore is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University and author of several books about environmental philosophy.
Michael P. Nelson is co-editor, with Kathleen Dean Moore, of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, a call to climate action from almost 100 of the world's moral leaders. He is professor of environmental ethics and philosophy, and co-director of the Institute for Conservation Ethics at Michigan State University.
President Jimmy Carter and nine other Nobel Peace Prize recipients told President Obama:
"As you deliberate the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, you are poised to make a decision that will signal either a dangerous commitment to the status quo, or bold leadership that will inspire millions counting on you to do the right thing for our shared climate."
When I read statements like this, I think of you and my hope you will start retiring refineries.
The letter continued with another statement that I strongly believe pertains equally to you:
"You are among the first generation of leaders that knows better -- leaders that have the knowledge, tools, and opportunity to pivot our societies away from fossil fuels and towards smarter, safer and cleaner energy. History will reflect on this moment and it will be clear to our children and grandchildren if you made the right choice."
Will you join with people of conscience who are speaking up loudly in growing numbers? It's time!The IPCC Working Group III report explains clearly that we must begin reducing CO2 emissions.It is incumbent upon you and ExxonMobil to get started — indeed lead — reducing CO2 emissions. Please meet me for coffee to discuss required and realistic options for your success and legacy.
Re-energize with clean carbon-free fuels — for life!Re-invent ExxonMobil as an energy company, be more than an oil & gas company.Re-direct capital investments from carbon-based infrastructure to carbon-free infrastructure.Announce a retirement schedule for your refineries — dismantle them — let the end-game begin.
Your "leadership by example would usher in a new era...."Sincerely yours,Doug Grandt
