Rockefeller Family Joins the Uprising

In my upcoming book, The Uprising [1], I report a whole chapter on the increasingly brilliant use of shareholder resolutions as an instrument of powerful political populism. Specifically, I sneak into an ExxonMobil shareholder meeting with a group of activists who deliver a blow to the company on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. Now, it looks like those efforts are getting a huge boost from none other than the Rockefellers.

Here's Forbes [2]:

Even though Exxon Mobil is posting record profits, some shareholders aren't happy. A group of them said Wednesday the company is overlooking its effect on the environment and the future of alternative energy. But these aren't just any shareholders. They're Rockefellers, the first family of American oil.

They proposed four shareholder resolutions Wednesday to be voted on at Exxon Mobil's annual meeting May 28. The family is calling for the company to reduce greenhouse gases from operations and products, to establish a task force to study the effects of global warming and to adopt of a renewable energy policy.

The concept of the Rockefellers - the cultural image of the Establishment and a family whose companies have often degraded the environment - joining the uprising against the Establishment is difficult to fathom. But it is real - and goes to an important uprising axiom that I discuss in the book: The ability to form seemingly impossible coalitions. Getting the Rockefellers into the forgotten corner of the uprising that uses shareholder resolutions is huge news.