After using his oil investments to grow wealthy, the great-great grandson of an oil baron said in a blog post Wednesday he has now sold off all his ExxonMobil assets in response to the company’s supposed shenanigans related to man-made global warming.
“The Standard Oil stock my great-great grandfather bequeathed to his survivors appreciated tremendously for a century. Shares were handed down — at deaths, marriages, and births,” Lindsay Suter, an environmental engineer, told his followers.
Suter went on to say that his entire family benefited from his grandfather’s investment, an investment that, by the way, financed his college education.
Suter’s great-great grandfather, Lauren Drake, was a world shaker in the 19th century, working first as a clerk in a general store, according to Suter, and later as a general manager at Standard Oil in Chicago.
In his obituary, the Chicago Tribune noted Suter’s patriarch was “a confidant and business adviser of John D. Rockefeller,” as well as many other petroleum kings at the time.
Suter went a different direction in life — using his acquired oil wealth to advocate for renewable energy. He’s installed solar panels on his house, and heats it with vegetable oil, as well as uses rain barrels to collect rainwater.
Even with all his environmental friendly living, Suter still clung to his Exxon stock, figuring he could do more to change the company’s culture from the inside.
Suter went on to explain that he changed his mind after finding out Exxon supposedly suppressed knowledge about global warming.
The liberal media outlet InsideClimate News published a series of reports in September 2015 showing how Exxon conducted research in climate science during the 1980s, but then opposed government regulations meant to hem in carbon emissions.
He simply could not square the allegations with his ties to Exxon.
“I can be thankful for what my forebears provided me. But if that gift undermines my family and our planet’s very future, now is the time to change course,” Suter said about his decision to shake off his oil assets.
He concluded his missive by suggesting that his decision is not meant to demean his great-great grandfather’s work. Rather, he stated, it’s meant to hold responsible those who “are now recklessly and knowingly ignoring our common peril.”
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