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After four grueling years of late nights studying and more Ramen noodles than any one person should ever consume, most students don’t find themselves protesting their own graduation. Yet on Saturday, a group of graduates from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) did just that as a row of seats towards the back were left empty for them. No, they weren’t protesting the abhorrent prices of graduation gowns they would never wear again or the absence of top-shelf champagne at the ceremony: they were protesting its speaker.

As soon as WPI announced Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, would be this year’s graduation speaker, many students suddenly were “left confused, even betrayed,” graduating senior Katrina Crocker told DeSmogBlog. It didn’t make sense that WPI, a school recognized as one of the greenest universities in the nation, would invite the CEO of one of the largest dirty energy companies on the planet to address the class of 2011. In contrast to WPI’s green priorities, ExxonMobil reaps billions in dirty energy profits while polluting the environment and contributing to global climate change, all while simultaneously funding front groups to attack climate scientists and confuse the public.

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The national conversation about wasteful welfare for highly profitable dirty energy corporations has gone from the dramatic statement by the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency that fossil fuel subsidies are one of the biggest impediments to global economic recovery (“the appendicitis of the global energy system which needs to be removed for a healthy, sustainable development future”), to a speech by Solar Energy Industries Association President Rhone Resch (in which he called the fossil fuel industry “grotesquely oversubsidized”), to a call by President Obama to cut oil company welfare by $4 billion. Not to be outdone, House Democrats are now calling for a $40 billion cut.

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He was going to be smooth. Polished. Charming. The new face of ExxonMobil, presented to us back in March 2006:

That image completely fell apart at a news conference yesterday.

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On the same day Hilary Clinton released her plan to reduce the US addiction to foreign oil imports and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the CEO of the largest oil company in the world is balking at the pursuit for energy independence.

Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has hit out at "isolationism" in energy policy (full article is firewalled) arguing that attempts to pursue energy independence are futile and counter-productive.

Tillerson stated that:

Regardless, no conceivable combination of demand moderation or domestic supply development can realistically close the gap and eliminate Americans' need for imports."

His remarks, made at the World Energy Congress in Rome, provided support for calls from Opec, the oil producers' cartel, for what the group calls "security of demand".

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Looks like ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson dusted off Donald Rumsfeld's PR play-book in explaining Exxon's stance on global warming, here's the quote:

There's much we know and can agree on around the climate change issue, and there’s much that we just don’t believe we do know…and we want to have a debate about the things we know and understand, the things we know about that we don’t understand very well, and the things we don’t even know about around this very complex issue of climate science. So that will continue to be our position."

Thanks for clearing that up Mr. Tillerson.