National
Big Oil’s Heirs Join Call for Action as Climate Summit Opens
In this Wednesday, April 21, 2010 file photo, oil can be seen in the Gulf of Mexico as a large plume of smoke rises from fires on BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
Joby Warrick and Steven Mufson, THE WASHINGTON POST
NEW YORK (The Washington Post)—For 140 years, the Rockefellers were the oil industry’s first family, scions of a business empire that spawned companies called Exxon, Mobil, Amoco and Chevron. So it was no trivial matter when a group of Rockefeller heirs decided recently to begin severing financial ties to fossil fuels.
“There is a moral imperative to preserve a healthy planet,” said Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a great-great-granddaughter of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller Sr. and a trustee of the largest charitable foundation in which the family still plays the leading role.
On Monday, the foundation, known as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, will formally announce plans to begin divesting itself of fossil-fuel stocks, citing concerns about climate change. The symbolic cutting of ties to a key part of the family’s heritage is being timed with the start of another symbolism-laden event: a gathering of world leaders to grapple with the environmental consequences of decades of fossil-fuel burning.
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