“Okay. What Do You Want Me to Do About It?” – A Highly Influential Corporate Executive With Ties to The Business Community and Federal Government

NOTE: An earlier version of this article appeared in 350 Brooklyn’s Parts Per Million e-magazine in July 2022. It appears here in edited form.

To the thousands of people rallying outside the skyscraper where my multinational corporation is headquartered: thanks for the reminder about these worsening environmental catastrophes. Not to mention racial unrest, inflation, insurmountable debt, and stagnating wages. All of this has revealed countless systemic inequalities hidden in plain sight. I think you know this, otherwise you wouldn’t be holding a papier-mâché effigy of me with dollar signs over my eyes and money bags in my fists. But what do you want me to do? Employ my power, obscene wealth, and influence in both the private and public sectors to remake society from the top down? Surely, you jest.

Do the actions of one individual really matter if the world requires a complete overhaul? As a former business colleague of several sitting members of Congress in both major parties, I certainly couldn’t discuss climate action with them, working in concert with business interests and public necessity to do so. Alternative energy wouldn’t be a wise investment, even if my doing it would persuade others in my field to do the same, thus making it profitable. We can’t include an allotment in the annual federal budget for renewable energy infrastructure! How are we going to pay for it? By taxing the rich proportionately to their incomes and holdings, and reducing our military budget by less than five percent? What do you think that will accomplish, aside from creating millions of good-paying jobs, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and aiding the transition away from fossil fuels? Be reasonable, people!

Next, you’ll tell me that climate justice is inextricably linked to racial justice, the protection of democracy, and fundamental human rights. Do you think capitalism, a system that allows people like me to even exist, is the problem? I know more than one motion passed by the elected officials I’ve backed has contributed to this inaction, but what do you want? To convince moderate Republicans to get on board with action against the greatest existential threat in the history of humanity? Environmental policy has never been a bipartisan issue; even if Richard Nixon did create the E.P.A. and George H.W. Bush advocated proactive action on the climate crisis in the late eighties. That might very well have nipped this whole thing in the bud! Stop confronting me with the checkered, self-serving history of my involvement in world affairs and begging me to atone for them by doing the right thing now before I die. You think I can’t take all this wealth with me? I can’t, of course, but I’ll die trying!

Okay, I did help weaponize the Supreme Court through my involvement with the Federalist Society. Heck, thanks to me, SCOTUS is basically an entity two-thirds composed of people installed to undo legally enshrined civil liberties and solidify white supremacy for the foreseeable future. They’re a group of glorified lawyers choosing to downplay and ignore easily understandable science that has consequences they themselves are experiencing in real time. Five of them were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote, and all of them were approved by a body of Congress that grants a disproportionate share of power to a conservative minority of the general population. One third of the men serving on the Court have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct, and several others have accepted legal bribes from lobbyists in the form of lavish vacations. But what should I do? Tell our elected officials we need to expand the courts? Strengthen environmental regulations by codifying them into law? Hold our sitting Justices accountable via a code of ethics that actually does something? Get outta town!

I can’t convene a meeting of our board to reassess our activities in the Amazon Rainforest, determining if our intrusion onto Indigenous Peoples’ habitats is a violation of land sovereignty and a PR disaster to boot. I can’t refuse to enter any partnership or contract with far-right nationalist lunatics in South American governments, or anyone else literally setting fire to the lungs of the planet. I can’t even order a firm-wide audit of our annual carbon emissions with the goal of reducing them to zero by 2030, the year the IPCC has given as a deadline to get our act together. My limited power as head of this multinational Fortune 100 company only allows me to do so much.

I appreciate you coming here and bringing all of this to my attention. Again. Let’s hold out hope that this will all work out the way it’s supposed to. A little faith never hurt anyone. Except, of course, that of the Evangelical Christian-led PACs partially bankrolled by me to essentially install a fascist theocracy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are representatives here from the U.N. and Amnesty International. They want to discuss funding humanitarian efforts to relocate people in island nations displaced by coastal flooding and relief efforts for wildfire victims. I can’t imagine why. What do they think I am, a billionaire?