In the course of writing my New Year 2015 E-FORUM, I came across this tongue-in-cheek “Chevron Manifesto” that I suggested for Chevron to adopt in the 2014 New Year E-FORUM. I thought it was worth sharing again before I archive it. It would be a much more honest statement to the community than the usual Chevron PR blather.

We are Chevron.

We are a business, not a charitable foundation. We extract non-renewable hydrocarbons from the earth, refine them and sell them as fuels because that is what people demand, and they are willing to pay dearly for it.

Our number one priority is earning our shareholders the highest profit possible on their investment.

We enthusiastically agree that the extraction and refining process, as well as the combustion of the fuels we produce, constitute the highest proportional contribution to greenhouse gases and global warming. Fighting global warming is for others. We just provide a legal and government subsidized product.

If you want to know who is actually responsible for global warming, look in the mirror. If you want to do something about it, stop driving and flying. Sell that SUV and buy a plug-in Prius. Stop eating oysters and lobsters from the East Coast and berries from South America; stop drinking wine from Chile. Stop buying electronics, cars and clothes made in Asia. Turn off the gas and put solar panels on your roof.

On behalf of our shareholders, we make significant strategic political contributions to protect our profits and our future. If you don’t like what politicians do for us, talk to them; don’t blame us.

Transporting and refining fossil fuels is inherently risky and periodically results in fires and explosions that cause property damage, injuries and death. They also produce air pollutants that are unhealthy and sometimes deadly. We are a highly regulated industry, which includes many safeguards, but in the end, we are responsible for our own safety. We try to balance our number one priority, profits, against the downsides of spills, fires and explosions, as well as adverse health impacts, all of which potentially can reduce profits if not controlled.

However, we are human and sometimes make expensive mistakes. But we always make a lot of money for our investors.

We are Chevron.