Rex Tillerson, our next Secretary of State, has not changed his key views from those that he has held as CEO of Exxon, our largest oil company. This applies to his view of climate change and his ignoring of civil rights violations in other countries. Although claiming to be skeptical of Russia, he will have to reverse that as Trump tells him to do. The King of the Jungle does not change his stripes. Rex (king in French) was of course chosen for this position because he has the same stripes as soon-to-be-Presidentosaurus-Rex Trump.
While oil exploration and drilling and fracking and refining and pipelining and shipping are highly scientific endeavors, Rex has apparently never talked to a climate scientist, since he mouths the standard Republican line that the origin of global warming is not decided. This, despite Exxon’s being sued for supporting climate science deniers, while planning to drill in the Arctic as the polar cap continues to melt away. Of all things, there are emails that prove Exxon’s duplicity.
Tillerson said that we should stay in the Paris Agreement, but to maintain our leadership. He didn’t say that we should stay because it is important for us to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. What he means by leadership could then turn out to be casting doubt on climate science, or claim that mitigating climate change is too expensive. In contrast, President Obama just published an article in our leading Science Magazine demonstrating how our economy has improved as we have invested in clean energy.
Then he seems to not know about human rights violations in countries that he has or will deal with, and says that there are more important dealings with those countries that should not be marred by civil rights worries, like drilling and shipping their oil, I imagine.
In other words, Rex is promising that as Secretary of State, he will continue acting just as he did when he was CEO of Exxon. That literally makes our previous Department of State into Exxon’s Department of Oil States.
