January 14, 2014 Dear friends and supporters,

This morning, a friend on Facebook posted a very insightful and easy-to-read status update which I believe needs to be seen by Rex Tillerson and his staff. I now have broken my denial that the Ofce of the Chairman insulates the CEO from outside distractions like this, but I believe they are reading his mail and emails. Unfortunately, Mr. Tillerson and people in his capacity operate within the conning walls of the Corporate fortress, which allows them to perform their duties in accordance with conventional expectations in order to achieve the stipulated mission and objectives, within an isolated environment. In a few minutes, I will send Rex Tillerson the following email:

Dear Mr. Tillerson and Staff in the Ofce of the Chairman, What I have been trying to say to you over the past several months is very well explained by the following impassioned, easy-to-read and very explanatory Facebook status, posted this morning by a young friend. Please read this and understand the urgency my astute friend and I feel: 5 hours ago A friend wrote "Is there a 'middle path' between economic collapse and continued growth? Good question and I don't know." I replied to her with passion, so i share it for you to ponder and discuss, my dear human family. Note: this friend, ____ , lives in a house that uses *no* energy but the sunshine to heat it year round. It's an inspiration to all, to show what is possible. ==== my reply ==== Yes! There is! It's called a carbon tax, and it's the medicine we need. That is the positive vision that has been causing me to be an indefatigable thorn in the stubborn side of 350.org for over a year now! It's not because i'm a grump or surly without cause! A carbon tax would slow the fossil energy economy, while accelerating the good stuff, the real human innovation that is good for the world. The conservation of energy, as in your very own house, _____ , is one thing that would employ LOTS of people. We will be retrotting old houses with new insulation, and we will be doing lots of very green renovations. A carpenter like me will be swimming in good work, and will

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nally be able to make my way out of debt! Electricians, plumbers, engineers, laborers, local farmers, arborists, woodstove installers, architects, .... the whole gamut of people with any technical and muscular ability will have more employment. One key is to make the carbon tax serious -- high enough -- and to tax fracked gas at a rate worthy of its *actual* greenhouse gas load, including the leaked methane in extraction and distribution. Another key is that the revenue *must* be used to lower employment taxes. Sales taxes can also be lowered, but it is more tting and crucial to lower the tax on work -- payroll and self-employment taxes. This will stimulate new jobs at *no* net cost to the economy. It is a reorganization, not a new taxation. The form of taxation will change, but total taxes paid by the population will *not* increase. This is an easy sell. We just have to get working on it! I'm against the basic nature of capitalism, which is the privileging of accumulation above human needs, and the commodication of everything including land and food and shelter. But, ironically, i'm working really hard to *save* capitalism by advocating a carbon tax. This is because the alternative is a global collapse of epic proportions, and i love people, and people will get hurt and die. A carbon tax is the last sane act that capitalism can assent to, to save itself. Even the CEO of ExxonMobil realizes this. Even Grover Norquist realizes this. Even the World Bank and the IMF realize this. Even Greg Mankiw, the former econ adviser to Geo W Bush realizes this. It is *the* line in the sand that we need to draw. If the system will accept a serious and good carbon tax, then it can live. If it refuses, then it is clearly stating that prots for a few are more important than the survival of the planet and human society. That is why i've been harping on the carbon tax to all of your tired ears for over a year now. That is why i've been so frustrated that 350.org has not been responsive to even thinking about it as a serious part of its strategy, and why i was sad when i didn't even get a thank you for nearly single-handedly getting one of the upcoming gubernatorial candidates to commit to exploring a carbon tax, and to understand the benets and political viability of it. That's why i'm hanging by a thread to working with 350.org. Rep Rahall of West Virginia *almost* just got smeared for voting for a carbon tax amendment in the Progressive Caucus' 2014 budget resolution, by the coal industry which is a giant in the state, of course. But, saved by the bell, horribly, the chemical spill that ruined 300,000 people's water supply caused the coal industry to think maybe it's not the right time for that campaign against Rahall. But where is 350.org? Where is the ghting spirit? Where is the clarity on the most important policy that wold actually reduce emissions as it did in British Columbia

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and Ireland where the economies are becoming greener by the day and have not suffered, only transitioned? Where is even the slightest mention of a carbon tax in the 350.org website? It couples so well with the divestment campaign that i cannot believe the omission. It is actually *the* thing that would make the divestment campaign really take off, and would actually convince Harvard to divest, or example, setting off a wave of divestment. The oil companies are planning for it, but 350.org isn't even making a case for it. We need to be working to get the *right kind* of carbon tax passed, or else we'll end up with a carbon tax that is many years too late, and one that lowers the corporate income tax rate instead of the taxes on work. We'll get one that privileges fracked gas by not counting the fugitive methane emissions. We'll get one riddled like swiss cheese with loopholes for everyone's uncle's coal plant. I am in this *not* because i'm an ideologue. I'm against capitalism itself, remember. If i were being ideological, i would be railing against the commodication of land and shelter and life (and i spend a little time doing just that) -- but i'm serious here, in the realpolitik. I know this is politically possible. I have a political nose. I know how far we can reach and succeed. We need to make the leap. I know we can make it. We have to believe in ourselves, like the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement believed that we could achieve full legal equality, and not just "separate but equal". Not to blow my own horn, but i did political work in the US and in Nepal and i made things happen. I can't do it alone, but i have changed votes in the House of Representatives against the FTAA, and i have convened a meeting of the major countries in the UN HQ in Nepal to focus on human rights that had some effect on a soft landing to the civil war in that country. I got the King's army to think a little harder before killing innocent people, and i had a small part in the overthrow of the monarchy. I have proven gut feelings on what is possible. This is a moment in history when a carbon tax is a stretch of the best kind -- one that will take a *huge* amount of hard work, and a huge ght, but 100% achievable if we believe in ourselves, and commit to the struggle. I am doing this for my own life and those i love and those to come -my children, hopefully, and their children, beyond the seven generations. I know that the world needs to slow down from. We're on a crowded bus with a crazy driver on meth and cocaine and headed off a cliff real soon, unless we pull the driver from the wheel and take over. In this struggle, we will regain some measure of democracy. We will see the stark power landscape and realize who is pulling the levers (and it's not the ones in the voting booths). It is an epic struggle worthy of Lord of the Rings, and it's real, and it doesn't cost $15 to get in the theater. We

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are in the theater, and everyone can help. In fact those with less money can probably help more because they can see more clearly the failure of the system. I am doing this work because i love the planet. I love the trees and the waters and the animals. I love humans. We are a human family, though we've strayed far from our loving roots, like a family in the throes of many generations of alcoholism and emotional abuse. We're so many layers deep in self-deception, and we're all struggling. It permeates every aspect of life, from our health to our emotional states. It's in the stress of every angry driver, and it's in the way that police beat good people instead of helping people get along. It's in the way that all the good jobs are offshored to low-wage work camps. It's in the way that indigenous cultures are ravaged and "assimilated" into the big nothing, civilizing us all until we live in giant strip malls shopping for our meager pleasures instead of growing healthy food and playing music and connecting. I hope you can see my positive vision: a world where we slow down and value what really matters. A world where everyone has the chance to contribute to innovation. Every little idea that makes sense can propagate, as in times of old when a new crop was a human legacy, not a patent by Monsanto. The rivers i grew up near were polluted by Monsanto and General Electric in blind pursuit of prot -- greed has been privileged above love in our culture. I want to make a course change, and the carbon tax is the major element in the political realm. In the cultural realm, it is a move to realizing our interdependence, and acting from love instead of selshness. We can slow down and live better lives, burn some wood instead of toxic oil, share houses instead of living in 5,000 square foot lonely palaces, and get real. We can do it. We have to believe in our own power. We need to stop *asking* Obama to have a conscience. He has one, but he's a cog in the machine. He's a gurehead. Over a beer, as a common man, he'd be a cool guy to talk with, but asking him to make a decision is the wrong approach. We need to know in our hearts what we must accomplish, and then work toward it as if we are going to succeed -- because we *are* going to succeed. We are going to succeed, and we are going to have to change the nature of political power itself to do so. We must. Everything hangs in the balance. (quoted verbatim with permission)

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