Memo to Sierra Club: Capital allocators tell Exxon expensive oil is bad business

Greens in Pinstripe Suits are the investment advisers doing more for the planet's CO2 emissions using economic incentive instead of the Sierra Club and others moral persuasion. The fact is that investing in expensive oil extraction is bad business for shareholders.  And in the case of Exxon Mobil, the subject of the The Economist article referenced above, there are investment groups suggesting to management that more investment in big expensive projects is bad for shareholders and that the company should throttle back and distribute capital back to shareholders to more efficiently allocate elsewhere. A similar decision is that of Shell's abandoning a multi billion oil rig project for the Arctic because of poor returns. Currently Canada's oil tar sands industry is at a juncture where the the forest fires have burned down a good portion of capacity so that a rational decision would be not to re-invest and rebuild.  Let's see.