Rockefeller brothers divest from fossil fuels in moral move

On a perfect summer day in June 2014, on the grounds of a stately home overlooking the Hudson River, a handful of the descendants of America’s most enduring business dynasty made a fateful decision: they would cut their ties to fossil fuels in order to fight climate change.

The ironies were inescapable. About half of those gathered for the board meeting were direct descendants of John D Rockefeller – founder of the oil empire that eventually became ExxonMobil – and here they were, gathered in the estate he built at Pocantico Hills, New York, surrounded by a collection of antique gas guzzlers and limousines, preparing to take a highly symbolic stand against fossil fuels.

As descendants, they had an extra burden to fight climate change, said Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a former middle-school special education teacher and chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).

Read The Guardian story - “Rockefeller Brothers Fund: it is our moral duty to divest from fossil fuels.”