The End of Rex Tillerson

If Copenhagen fails, the developing countries face the choice of dying quietly or escalating action. They will escalate, and this story describes a plausible path.

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If we go on like this, and I do not see what power can prevent us from going on like this, some day there may be a terrible reckoning, and those who take the responsibility so entirely upon themselves are either of a hardy disposition or they are incapable of foreseeing the possibilities which may arise.

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close.
In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

Winston Churchill, 1937

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Things did not go well following the failure of Copenhagen. No real agreement resulted, except to meet again, and everybody knew what that meant.

Many of the rich countries, and all of the oil and coal companies, regarded the failure as a victory; things could continue on much as they had been. The status quo was preserved, and therefore profits, power, and prestige. The shills came out in force, trumpeting a wide range of often convoluted opinions that served the wealthy and largely ignored reality: there really was no problem; there might be a problem, but humanity would triumph; an attempt at global socialism had been averted; it was too expensive to use less or different energy; the economy came before the environment; and so forth.

None of these rationalisations sat well with those facing the hot end of the global warming pitchfork. The Maldives, Tuvalu, and various other low-lying island nations were to become a people without land within perhaps 25 years. Bangladesh, India, China, and many other countries would need to relocate tens of millions of people due to rising sea levels and desertification. The thought of tens or even hundreds of millions of climate refugees terrified many European and Asian countries.

Bangladesh, which had taken hard steps to get their population growth under control, was faced with nearly 20 million climate refugees within the next 40 years, probably sooner. They had already lost several small islands to the sea, and faced the collapse of much of their water supply as the Himalayan glaciers melted.

China would have to relocate millions from Shanghai and Beijing, and was already battling desertification and water shortages. India was in the same position, as were Pakistan, Vietnam, and many others. Many of them shared the Himalayan glacial water supply and none of them could afford for the rivers to run dry. Mass starvation would be the result, and before that there would surely be mass rioting, possibly war. Millions were going to die young and unpleasantly.

Rex Tillerson didn’t really care. He openly doubted that global warming was really a problem, and if it was, well, in his view, there was no problem humanity, preferably in the form of a large corporation, couldn’t solve. He and the corporation he led, ExxonMobil, continued to obstruct any response to global warming, to mock “eco-nuts,” and to fund pro-market, anti-science shills unencumbered by any moral values other than making money and “winning.”

It was his arrogance and reverse-leadership position that caused the sinking countries to choose Tillerson as their first target. With the world’s top scientists and their own advisors predicting catastrophe, something had to be done.

The Maldives started it: Their president had vowed before the Copenhagen negotiations that his people would not die quietly, and now Copenhagen had failed, largely because of obstruction by vested interests within the rich countries. When he called for a Working Action Group (WAG) of the sinking countries, virtually every developing country sent their highest-level diplomats.

The purpose of the conference was to determine appropriate action – and then to take it, immediately. There would be no more delay, no more procrastination, excuses, rationalisations, evasion. WAG was going to wag the dog, or die trying.

Discussions were heated, as the sinking countries were torn among revenge, preserving trade relations, and the certainty that they must do something constructive or all would be in vain. The reality was that the rich countries had most of the money and power, so the sinking countries had to be clever; they needed a lever. No more candlelight vigils, or holding a session of parliament under water, or demonstrations, or other symbolic actions. Actual action was  needed.

Canada had been blocking progress on global action on climate change for years, and was a far smaller and less powerful target than the world’s biggest polluter and obstructor, the United States, so initial discussions centred around singling out Canada as an example. Canada had ratified the Kyoto Accord, which legally committed her to reducing carbon output, but had done less than nothing about meeting that ‘commitment.’

However, Canada is a large, sparsely populated country richly endowed with natural resources, including oil and water, and would surely be protected by the United States if things got really ugly. And, in the current economic reality, even India and China had little trade or financial leverage to use against Canada.

With reluctance, the delegates concluded that Canada, while a deserving target, was out-of-range.

Discussion moved on to the current Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, who had flat-out stated that Canada could not and would not meet her Kyoto commitment, law or no law, and moreover would not even attempt to do so. He had ideological, non-reality-based reasons for doing so, as he had stated that “Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”

Someone moved that the Canadian Prime Minister be charged with crimes against humanity, and there was a broad murmur of approval. However – it was a big step, too close to declaring war, and the large countries balked. The United States would surely interfere, certain members of the United Nations Security Council would likely veto the motion, and the world would be instantly divided into sinking and sinkers, those bailing out the lifeboat and those pumping water into it at a profit.

It was ultimately Bangladesh that suggested Tillerson as a starting point, with immediate support from China.  As the delegate from China pointed out, the real problem was that the governments of the developed countries had been corrupted by corporate and wealthy interests who were ‘influencing’ their governments to move slowly, if at all. This was especially true in Canada and the United States, where most of the ‘deniers’ came from, the paid shills and scientific prostitutes who were spending millions to obstruct action.

The logical starting point, then, was to go after the root cause of the obstruction: those funding it. As ExxonMobil continued to fund global warming deniers, and as Tillerson was the Chief Executive Officer of that company, he would make a fine example. If convicted, that might break the back of the denier movement, as few multimillionaire executives would want to risk rotting their final days away in prison in a developing country. It also sent a very strong message, and there was a fair chance that President Obama would, if not support it, at least not lobby too hard to prevent it, as it would serve some of his purposes, too.

Thus the stage was set for the final pronouncement of the Working Action Group, approved unanimously by all members:

Be it hereby known that we, the undersigned, hereby intend to charge Rex Tillerson with crimes against humanity for his wilful obstruction of knowledge and action on global warming and its consequences. This charge will be brought to the United Nations Assembly immediately by all signatories.

Be it further hereby known that, should the motion to charge Rex Tillerson be denied by some means by the United Nations Assembly, all the undersigned will proceed without United Nations sanction and will arrest Rex Tillerson at the earliest opportunity.

Be it further hereby known that, should Rex Tillerson refuse to surrender and evade capture by remaining in friendly countries,  the undersigned shall try him in his absence.

Signatories included almost every developing country in the world.

There had been leaks, of course, and much noise in the press, but nobody had seriously expected the sinking countries to actually do something. For decades, the rich and powerful countries had crafted economic and trade agreements that seriously disadvantaged the developing world, but had papered it over with meaningless drivel,  justified by authoritative-sounding men in expensive suits. For the first time, the developing world united to say, “Enough.”

It didn’t help that several nations gleefully leaked the news that, should Rex Tillerson be found guilty, he would be imprisoned in Bangladesh under the same conditions any Bangladeshi prisoner could expect.

There was a huge outcry from the executive class, but the sinking countries were not persuaded. ExxonMobil took out full-page advertisements in papers from the New York Times to the Times of India. The millions of Indians whose homes and businesses were going to be drowned by rising seas were unmoved. Rex Tillerson and various executives from many oil, coal, and automotive companies did the talk show circuit in the United States to explain how they were, of course, taking Serious Action on global warming, and how they sympathised greatly with the sinking countries. As this Action consisted primarily of press releases justifying business-as-usual but with low-flow faucets and green-coloured ink on their annual reports, no wise people took them seriously. Certainly the sinking countries did not.

The executives confined themselves to talk shows in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. They may be greedy, but they weren’t stupid. Nobody wanted to get themselves arrested, and France, Germany, Spain, the Scandinavian and a few other countries had mumbled at least limited support for the charge.

Efforts were made by the President of the United States, and the Prime Ministers of Canada and the United Kingdom, to pressure the sinking countries into backing down. However, just as India and China had little influence on Canada, so conversely. If anything, the sinking countries had the moral high ground. President Obama’s efforts largely centred around a half-hearted attempt to persuade the sinking countries to postpone the charges until a new international Emergency Climate Conference could be held, but nobody was buying more delay.

The U.S. Congress, on the other hand, perhaps the most corrupt democratically elected body on the planet, was consumed with rage, as many of the representatives were heavily funded by fossil fuel corporations and their proxies. They initially bemoaned the fact that the sinking countries were proposing acting without UN approval, but that was promptly thrown back in their face by those who pointed to the Iraq occupation and the countless other unilateral actions the United States had taken.

They rushed through a package of sanctions against all signatories – except China. China held too many U.S. Treasuries and other debt, and if China stopped shipping cheap goods to the United States…well, America didn’t make many consumer goods any more. There would be widespread shortages of everything from televisions to rice.

Two days of furious backroom negotiations later, President Obama vetoed the sanctions. Congress could have passed the bill again with a large enough margin to override the president’s veto, but by then global economic reality had been explained  to the American Congresspeople, and they instead made a huge noise about the Rightness and Justness of ExxonMobil and the American Way™, the evils of Obama, and quietly suggested to Rex that he restrict his travel.

Which he did. And that brings us to today, the first day of the trial of Rex Tillerson on charges of crimes against humanity for funding global warming denial and thus condemning millions, possibly billions of people to dispossession and an early death.