Archive for January, 2011

Seems like Chevron can’t take the heat

By Mike G.
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Raging Grannies at Chevron CEO John Watson's house

The Raging Grannies deliver the "Corporate Hall of Shame" certificate to Chevron CEO John Watson's house while holding a banner reading "Las Abuelitas Enojadas" - Spanish for "Raging Grannies." Click on the photo to see more pics from the event.

Yesterday we asked you to call Chevron CEO John Watson and “congratulate” him, as it had just been announced that Chevron had been inducted into Corporate Accountability International’s “Corporate Hall of Shame.”

Hundreds of folks made the call, only to discover that the phone number for Watson’s office was quickly diverted to a pre-recorded message asking them to call a different number. I guess too many calls came in even despite the bait and switch, because when people called that new number, they were told Chevron was no longer accepting comments from the public by phone, and they’d have to send an email to the company.

Incredibly, the folks who sent an email to the address supplied received an auto-response from Chevron telling them that that mailbox would no longer be monitored by anyone at the company, and they’d have to use a webform.

I guess Watson couldn’t take the heat, and decided to hide behind a never-ending labyrinth of bureaucracy. But that’s okay, we’re pretty sure he got our message all the same. Yesterday we teamed up with the Raging Grannies — an amazing group of activists – and headed down to Lafayette, CA to deliver a “Corporate Hall of Shame” certificate to Watson at his home.

The Raging Grannies came up with a great little ditty to sing to Watson. Of course no one would come to the gate of Watson’s home, so they had to sing it to him through the call box. You can see a photo montage and hear the Grannies singing in this video put together by the “embedded reporter” who rolled along with the Grannies yesterday:

Thanks to everyone who made calls, and extra special thanks to the Raging Grannies for being so awesome! We managed to shut down two phone lines and an email address down at Chevron HQ. Maybe that’s a sign that the folks at Chevron are starting to realize how ashamed of themselves they should be for refusing to clean up the company’s oil pollution in Ecuador… but I doubt it.

I’m sure Chevron would still love to hear from you, however. You can use this phone number — 925-842-3232 — and this sample call script to tell John Watson and Chevron how shameful you think their behavior is.

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Congratulations to John Watson on His Shameful First Year as Chevron CEO!

By Mike G.
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Chevron Hall of Shame certificateGuess who just got inducted into the Corporate Hall of Shame? Well, yeah, Monsanto and BP, obviously. No one likes those guys. But Chevron is pretty darn unpopular too, what with all those billions of gallons of oil pollution that the company won’t take responsibility for still lying in the Ecuadorean Amazon and poisoning thousands of people.

The announcement that Chevron will be immortalized in the Corporate Hall of Shame comes just as Chevron CEO John Watson celebrates his one-year anniversary as head of the company. We had high hopes when Watson first took over — it was a chance for the company to start anew, to start working to redress the human rights and environmental abuses for which it is responsible. Alas, Watson has instead continued business as usual, steering his company directly into a vortex of corporate shame.

Take a couple of minutes to call John Watson and “congratulate” him. Here’s how you do that:

1. Call 925-842-9232. Your call will be answered by a secretary. Ask to speak with John Watson. If you’re asked if you want to leave a message, say yes.

2. Here’s a sample call script you can use for your message:

I’m calling to tell Mr. Watson that it is shameful that he’s been around for a year, and yet has done nothing to accept responsibility for Chevron’s 18 billion gallons of oil waste pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

Thousands of Indigenous and campesino Ecuadoreans are still suffering from the effects of Chevron’s pollution, but instead of cleaning up its mess, Chevron spends millions on high-priced lawyers and a fancy ad campaign designed to convince us all that the company is really concerned about human rights and the environment.

Until Chevron does the right thing and cleans up Ecuador, John Watson and Chevron should be ashamed of themselves.

3. Let us know how it went after you call by filling out this form.

Slick PR campaigns like the one Chevron launched last year to convince us all that the company is socially and environmentally responsible can only change perception, not reality. But in this case, Chevron’s PR didn’t change anything — just like Watson hasn’t changed anything at Chevron. Luckily, thousands of us saw through the carefully cultivated PR image, and Chevron is now in the Corporate Hall of Shame.

So give Watson a ring right now! I’m sure he’d love to hear from you. Make sure to click here and let us know that you made the call.

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The Joy of Message Correction

By Mike G.
Thursday, January 13th, 2011

This post was sent to us by Flora Bernard, who works with Peaceful Uprising. A fellow activist from Salt Lake City, UT recently sent Flora this report about their “message correction” mission, and Flora passed it on to us. Salt Lake City, you might recall, was the site of not one but TWO recent Chevron oil spills.

Message correction in Salt Lake CitySpending all day at a desk — even if you’re doing your damndest to corner climate villains, save the planet, and build a better society with clipboard, keyboard and mouse — can be bone-wearily discouraging. Meeting and networking to put pressure on elected officials; penning earnest media entreaties to expose Chevron’s blatant callousness, and the damage they have done to my community; trying to incite sad or complacent citizens to action — all add to the distance between me and the actual problem itself. That’s why I have to let off some steam and reconnect with a little light message correction.

Nothing can compete with the self-affirming feeling of gathering sneakers and a black track suit, posters and a flask of wheat paste, and hitting the streets at the witching hour.

Liberty Park is a cop haunt in a cop-heavy part of Salt Lake City, but it’s the place where the posters were needed most. Yards and yards of orange CAUTION tape still ring Liberty’s centerpiece: the tiny lake into which Chevron dumped hundreds of gallons of oil from a sprung pipe months ago, now fenced off and garnished with garish signs stating: “For your own health and safety, please keep the hell out of here.” Hard-hatted workers mill about all day, doing God-knows-what beyond failing to effectively clean the pond.

The little lake used to be frequented by children and couples, pedaling paddle boats, picnicking and tossing bread to lure families of ducks. Months later, it sits sad and stagnant, a telltale Chevron sheen still staining its surface.

My strategy was simple: I rolled the posters up in my yoga mat, wrapped the flask and a paintbrush in a towel, and packed them into my gym bag. I arrived at the park at 4:30 AM on a weekday with my backstory — meeting a friend for some one-on-one yoga instruction before work.

I pasted up six posters before a cop rolled in and started eyeballing me. My proudest placement: smack in the middle of a huge sign right at the south entrance, urging folks to stay away from the poisoned pond, and to be patient with ongoing efforts to mop up Chevron’s filth. The poster with which I adorned that eyesore featured Polaroids of some of Chevron’s most onerous crimes, right next to a snapshot of our own Salt Lake City, with the caption: “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT.“

I returned to Liberty Park that afternoon, and when I arrived a handful of folks — a young couple and their toddler, a 30-something jogger and an older gentleman — were admiring my handiwork. I declared victory then and there. If I remind just a few people where the culpability lies — if I can make it briefly clear that a resistance exists and is paying close attention — I have accomplished more in two hours of darkness than I typically do in an entire eight-hour shift of desk-bound daytime effort.

For the record, it’s also a whole lot more fun.

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Diego Borja’s Latest Dirty Trick For Chevron

By Mike G.
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Diego Borja: WantedPerhaps you saw the news last week that Chevron’s self-described “dirty tricks guy” in Ecuador, Diego Borja, has fled California to evade being served with a subpoena. I feel compelled to say something here, because if this isn’t the height of hypocrisy and a shocking admission of guilt, I don’t know what is.

Borja, a Chevron contractor, was recorded talking about his efforts to corrupt the trial in Ecuador by entrapping and bribing the judge, tampering with evidence, and other dirty tricks. Now, Borja is on the run to avoid questioning, though two US Federal courts ruled that he should be compelled to testify.

By contrast, when Chevron’s lawyers sought to compel Crude director Joe Berlinger to turn over outtakes from the film, he fought back on the grounds that he needed to protect his journalistic sources — an argument supported by the International Documentary Association as well as documentarians like Michael Moore, D.A. Pennebaker, Louie Psihoyos, and Morgan Spurlock. But ultimately Berlinger complied when the court ordered that he turn his footage over.

Consider also the fact that lead US lawyer for the Ecuadorean plaintiffs Steven Donziger is currently facing not one but multiple depositions as Chevron’s lawyers are trying to compel him to divulge everything and anything they can, on a fishing expedition for information they hope they can use to portray the entire lawsuit as fraudulent. Donziger surely isn’t happy about Chevron wasting his time and grossly misrepresenting his actions, but he’s complying.

And why are Berlinger and Donziger complying? Because while they may not like it, they have nothing to hide.

On the other hand, when the tables were turned on Chevron and Borja was about to be served with a subpoena, what happened? Borja up and fled his posh California home in the shadow of Chevron’s headquarters. Why would he flee, unless it was imperative to him and the company that he not be compelled to divulge what he knows about his and Chevron’s attempts to corrupt the trial in Ecuador so that the company can evade its responsibility to clean up its toxic oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon?

Of course, I have no evidence that Chevron helped Borja, his wife (who has also been implicated in evidence tampering), or his American partner in crime, Wayne Hansen, flee California. Nor can I prove that the company told them to flee before being subpoenaed. But we do know that Chevron was paying Borja’s $6,000-per-month rent for his fancy California digs, and we also know that Borja has claimed in the past that he has evidence so damning that it would prove Chevron’s guilt and win the case for the plaintiffs. I’m just connecting the dots here.

Chevron and its lawyers have spent a lot of time and energy lately trying to make allegations that it is in fact the Indigenous and campesino plaintiffs and the Ecuadorean courts who are guilty of fraud. But you have to ask yourself: Why is Chevron’s dirty tricks guy acting so guilty? What does Borja have to hide? And how likely is it that Chevron is trying to keep Borja and whatever he knows hidden? To my mind, Borja fleeing the subpoena shows who has the guilty conscience — and it ain’t the plaintiffs.

Imagine, for a moment, if Berlinger and Donziger had gone into hiding rather than face the music. What would Chevron’s lawyers be saying about that?

If Chevron really believed itself to be the innocent party in this whole affair, why wouldn’t the company force Borja to comply with the subpoena and set the record straight? The plaintiffs’ lawyers and related parties are complying with court orders to divulge what they know, because ultimately anything revealed may be embarrassing, but not damning.

The answer is simple, and obvious: Chevron is guilty as hell, Borja can prove it, and all of them are desperate to avoid being compelled to divulge that fact.

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The Profits Over People Pattern

By Mike G.
Friday, January 7th, 2011
Oil pollution in the rainforest

Cofán community member Donald investigates one of the many unlined, open-air oil waste pits Chevron left in his rainforest home in Ecuador.

In what has become something of a pattern, the Obama administration recently took a bold new step to protect our planet at the same time that it was taking a giant step backwards.

Hot on the heels of the announcement about the EPA’s plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries and fossil-fueled power plants, we get word that the administration is allowing 13 oil companies to resume offshore drilling operations without any further environmental review.

Speaking of patterns: Remember how Chevron recently had three oil spills in the space of one week? Well, several members just walked out of the community advisory committee set up to deal with the fallout from one of those spills, the one that occurred in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. One of the community members who resigned from the committee says that the decision to walk out was prompted by Chevron’s deliberate attempts to hide the extent of the ongoing spill. “What [Chevron] told us and what are in the pictures are two different things. I totally lost my trust,” she says.

Let’s see, Chevron polluting a community, pretending to work to remediate the pollution and impacts on the local community but actually trying to downplay the extent of the problem and having no real desire to clean anything up because that might adversely impact the company’s bottom line… Where have we seen that before?

Oh right! That’s pretty much the same story as down in Ecuador. It almost seems like everywhere Chevron goes, there is pollution caused by its operations that the company refuses to take responsibility for. Just ask the people of Salt Lake City, UT or Richmond, CA or Pascagoula, MS.

It bears mentioning, therefore, that Chevron is among the 13 oil companies that have just been given the green light to resume drilling without performing a thorough assessment of the environmental impacts of a spill — even though the Obama administration vowed that it would not allow drilling to resume until it was guaranteed to be safer and less likely to catastrophically pollute our planet, and Obama’s own National Commission just released a report finding that without fundamentally reworking the regulatory framework, a catastrophe like the BP oil spill could happen again.

Putting aside the obvious fact that the oil business can never guarantee it won’t poison our planet because the oil business is just inherently dirty through and through, it seems like the least the administration could have done would have been to demand a thorough environmental review before the likes of Chevron gets the green light to resume its reckless operations. It’s not a matter of if there’s another oil spill, but when — and why shouldn’t we expect the responsible party to have a legitimate plan in place for dealing with the next spill?

But hey, it’s another pattern: American politicians caving to powerful corporate interests who put profits over the planet.

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