Then, just as importantly, post your handiwork for the world to see. Post it on Change Chevron’s Facebook wall, twitpic it with the hashtag #weagree, upload to Flickr with the tag “weagree,” or email/YouSendIt to us at changechevron@ran.org and we’ll get it out there.
If your punking juices are really flowing, though, perhaps you want to design your own spoof poster. If so, you’re in luck! We’re having a bit of a contest, along with the Yes Men and Amazon Watch, to see who can come up with the best punked Chevron ad. Pick a photo, write your own slogan, and send it along. The Yes Men have all the details about how to enter the contest on their blog: “Help us keep Chevron’s campaign on the skids!”
Change Chevron activist Josh Kahn Russell holds a banner reading “Energy shouldn’t cost lives” while Chevron CEO John Watson flees up a staircase (Watson is on the top left).
Chevron CEO John Watson was invited to speak about “The Energy Economy” at the University of Chicago, his alma mater, this morning. The event provided audience members a chance to ask Watson questions, and as it just so happens, we have a few we’ve been meaning to ask him. So we sent some activists to the event.
Here’s how it went down, as told by Josh Kahn Russell, who led our team on the ground in Chicago and chased John Watson right out of his own event:
Today Chevron CEO John Watson spoke about the new era of energy at the University of Chicago’s business school, Chicago Booth. Some friends and I were concerned about Chevron’s attempts to evade both the law and the company’s moral responsibility to clean up the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste it deliberately dumped in the Amazon, killing 1,400 people and poisoning thousands of others. So we paid him a visit.
Dressed business casual, we came in early and each took seats in different parts of the room. We listened to John Watson distance Chevron from the BP oil disaster. He reassured us all that Chevron is a thoughtful oil company. He went on to say that, above all other objectives, “No goal is more important than operating in a safe and responsible manner.”
On that note, Debra Michaud, an alumna of the University of Chicago, jumped up to express her dismay that a fellow graduate would be involved in poisoning the communities of 30,000 people. She asked Watson to speak to Chevron’s toxic legacy in Ecuador.
Watson was quick to evade the question, claiming that the damage was not Chevron’s responsibility. He seemed relieved at the end, as if he was thinking, “Phew, glad that’s over.” But it wasn’t.
A couple minutes later I took the mic and pointed out the irony in Watson’s allegations of “deception and conspiracy” on the part of the Indigenous plaintiffs in the court case, as his comments themselves were the real deception. After pointing out his false claims of remediation, he asked that we all just wait and “see how it all plays out.” After waiting through 17 years of Chevron’s delay-deceive-and-distort tactics, I kept pushing and went on to challenge his arguments.
The students in the room were engaged. Our respectful tone and figures presented from scientific case studies played well with the Business School crowd. One person near me glanced to the podium and murmured to her neighbor, “Why isn’t he answering the question?” Watson’s eyes darted around nervously as he realized that his presentation was being hijacked.
Watson’s entourage from the Business school looked panicked. The moderator escorted me off the microphone. A few minutes later, Abigail Singer went up to the mic to speak, and the alarmed moderator declared the Q&A over, after seeing Abigail’s paper, fearing she too would ask about Ecuador. She was escorted to her seat, and the event was declared over.
Watson, who can be seen from behind just over the right side of the banner, is ushered away by security guards after the event is declared over by organizers.
It was clear that the one thing people would remember from the event was the controversy about Chevron’s role in poisoning Ecuadorean Amazon communities.
I went up to shake Watson’s hand, and was immediately blocked by security guards who ushered him away. We persistently followed him out, holding up a banner reading “Energy shouldn’t cost lives” all the way out of the building. Two people from the crowd cheered us on, saying “Way to stand up!” and “Keep going!” We did, until the moderator, furious, saw to it that we were escorted from the building.
John Watson needs to know that this issue won’t simply go away. It is going to stay in his face until he addresses it head on — even on his home turf and alma mater.
2:26- Teams just made a special delivery to Chevron CEO John Watson’s House. http://twitpic.com/2whbih
2:02- Taking a break and watching all the photos from around the world on 350.org on the largest day of climate action in history.
1:05- Things shifting and calming down at Howard St, but i have a feeling this day isn’t over! http://twitpic.com/2wgj20
12:45- Just overhead passer-by say to a perturbed customer “they are doing good work actually. Glad someone is”. We are too!
12:41-Flickr gallery is up with photos coming in from all the stations in San Francisco. Check the out HERE
12:30- Activists report via twitter all 6 pumps down a Howard Chevron station! @RisingTideNA: 6 pumps shut down @ #chevron @ 9th & Howard #101010 #350ppm
12:29- Dance party going strong outside Howard station
12:00- Waiting for a few more updates from other stations, but a critical mass is coming together at the mega-Chevron on Howard street in San Francisco for the main event. We’ll have pics really soon.
11:50- Van Ness station getting a good cleaning, exposing Chevron’s dirty underbelly! Get to work Chevron!
11:44- Another Chevron gas station in need of a good scrubbing at 1000 Harrison st in San Francisco.
11:36- Quote of the day! “I agree Chevron does suck” – Chevron station manager (but we’ll never tell which one)
11:30- pics rollin’ in
11:26 Chevron on Harrison st just got closed for clean-up!
11:04- Another on bites the dust. Crews are at the Chevron gas station at 1601 Mission St in San Francisco cleaning up, and telling Chevron “it’s time to get to work! The rest of the world already is. 10/10/10.
11:01-From our crew in Layfyette CA (CEO John Watson’s neighborhood)— “A cleaning crew just started at Chevron CEO’s home station asking him to get to work cleaning up his dirty energy”. Kick Line Yeah!
10:59- Surprise John Watson you may not be in San Francisco but we’re watching. A Crew just arrived and shut down the Chevron CEO’s hometown station. He lives just a few block down. We’re make sure he gets the message today!
10:40- …And we’re off. Crews are arriving at the first stations in San Francisco. Chevron’s about to receive a clear message “We’re tired of you polluting and running on communities, and we’re done with your obstruction of clean energy solutions! We’re getting to work today, and it’s high time you got to work too!”
Right now RAN is shutting down Chevron stations across San Francisco, and we’re live blogging updates here all day long! So make sure to check back regularly for updates from our clean-up crews in the filed
Rainforest Action Network has sent clean-up crews to all 10 Chevron gas stations in the city of San Francisco today, Sunday, in conjunction with 350.org’s 10/10/10 Global Work Party, which is taking place in 183 countries worldwide. The Chevron clean-up crews are highlighting the company’s unprecedented oil catastrophe in Ecuador and its continued obstruction of climate change initiatives here in California.
Crews split up this morning and headed out to every Chevron station in the city. Chevron stations will be temporarily “closed for oil spill clean up” as activists risk arrest by blocking all entrances to the pumps with giant banners and warning signs reading “Closed for cleaning due to oil spills and climate pollution,” while other activist physically clean up the stations.
As one of the world’s biggest climate culprits Chevron, California’s largest corporation, has come under heavy scrutiny recently for remaining neutral on California’s Proposition 23, which would overturn the state’s landmark climate bill (AB 32) and strike a blow to clean energy investments nationwide.
“Chevron gas stations are the public face of one of the largest and dirtiest oil companies,” said Maria Lya Ramos, campaign director at Rainforest Action Network. “Four days ago, Chevron CEO John Watson refused to comment on Prop 23. Remaining silent on Prop 23 only reaffirms Chevron’s obstructive stance toward clean energy solutions in California. Chevron would rather watch from the sideline than help California lead the way toward a clean energy economy.”
On top of obstructing climate solutions, Chevron is also responsible for the world’s biggest oil disaster where they dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste-water and left over 15 million gallons of crude oil in Ecuador’s rainforest.
“In order to get to work on climate solutions, we must confront the polluters who have made it their business to obstruct climate legislation and keep the country dangerously addicted to fossil fuels,” said Rebecca Tarbotton, the executive director of Rainforest Action Network. “From California to Ecuador, Chevron is recklessly polluting communities, fighting regulation and standing in the way of the clean energy future we need and want.”
See you at the stations! Check back all day for live updates from our clean up crews.
Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal recently published an article entitled “Shakedown in the Rain Forest.” The piece’s bias is blatant. You need a subscription to read the whole thing, but click here and check out the teaser. Clearly the WSJ is okay with simply regurgitating Chevron’s talking points.
This is the third time the WSJ has published a hit piece against the ongoing trial in Ecuador, as Jonathan Abady wrote in his letter to the editor. Abady is one of the lawyers who is attempting to hold Chevron accountable for the billions of gallons of toxic oil waste the company left behind in Ecuador on behalf of the 30,000 Ecuadorians who are still exposed to that toxic mess.
Abady’s letter sets the record straight. The WSJ doesn’t have a unique URL for it, though, so I wanted to reproduce it here in its entirety:
Chevron Should Pay for Its Pollution in Ecuador
Your editorial “Shakedown in the Rain Forest” (Sept. 23) on Chevron’s multibillion-dollar liability in Ecuador is the third time in recent years that you have attacked this important litigation. Contrary to what you claim, scientific evidence from experts demonstrates that Chevron has been contaminating an area in Ecuador the size of Rhode Island and taking advantage of indigenous groups for decades. Now Chevron is trying to sabotage a seven-year trial to evade accountability.
Rather than deal with the overwhelming evidence of its contamination, Chevron has launched a strategy of intimidation, distraction and delay. It has filed legal actions in 10 different U.S. federal courts against 23 people (including two lawyers) involved in the case, claiming ex parte contacts with a court expert constitute “fraud.” Chevron knows that such contacts were allowed by the court and were common practice by both parties. Chevron devised this narrative as part of a strategy to defeat enforcement of a potentially adverse judgment.
From 1964 to 1990, Chevron deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic “formation water” into streams and rivers which thousands of people in the rain forest relied on for their drinking water. This hot liquid had a saline content 10 times higher than ocean water and contained heavy metals and carcinogens. Laboratory samples submitted during the trial found that all of the company’s former well sites are extensively contaminated— often at levels hundreds of times higher than Ecuadorian and U.S. norms. The disaster is larger than the BP Gulf spill and will cause harm for decades if not cleaned up.
Several peer-reviewed health evaluations have found significantly elevated rates of cancer where Chevron operated. Daniel Rourke, formerly associated with the Rand Corp., has found that up to 10,000 Ecuadorians are at significant risk of contracting cancer in the coming decades. Ann Maest, a leading geochemist, found that many Chevron pit sites “still contain high levels of . . . petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants” and are in close proximity to wells used for drinking water.
The editorial also mischaracterizes Chevron’s so-called “remediation” in the mid-1990s. Chevron employed a laboratory method that produced artificially low measurements of toxins that were used to induce the government to grant a release. As a result, two Chevron employees and several former Ecuadorian officials face fraud charges in Ecuador. Chevron’s internal audits conducted in the early 1990s found that remediation was necessary “at all production facilities,” that toxic wastes were not treated and that oil spills “were not cleaned up.” Yet Chevron never conducted a single environmental or health-impact study during the 26 years it operated in Ecuador.
Chevron for years insisted on moving the litigation to Ecuador after it was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993. With the evidence against it mounting, Chevron needs to stop forum shopping and allow Ecuador’s courts to determine the extent of its responsibility for this disaster.
For a big company like Chevron, image is everything. And when a company as big as Chevron dumps over 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste into a pristine rainforest, leading to the deaths of over 1,400 people and imperiling the health and wellbeing of tens of thousands more, that company’s reputation justifiably suffers.
The obvious way to repair your damaged image is to clean up your mess. We’re all expected to clean up after ourselves, and behemoth corporations are no exception. Chevron, however, seems never to have learned that life lesson. Instead of cleaning up after itself, the company just invests in PR to clean up its image.
For instance, the company is sponsoring numerous professional sports teams to try and associate the Chevron name with good ol’ American pursuits such as baseball and basketball instead of the toxic mess the company is more widely known for. Now that’s what I call a swing and a miss…
Our own hometown heroes the San Francisco Giants are one of the teams Chevron sponsors to protect the way its brand is perceived by everyday Americans even as it refuses to protect the lives of Ecuadorians. Chevron doesn’t just stop with the Giants, other teams whose good reputation the company is seeking to piggyback off of are the LA Dodgers and the New Orleans Hornets.
With the Giants making a bid for the playoffs (yeah we’re fans), and AT&T Park being right down the street, we decided to take ourselves out to the ballgame and send Chevron a message. It was a warm, sunny day out today, which was good news for everyone who came out to the daytime ball game. It also wasn’t terribly windy, which was good news for our banner.
Chevron has a huge advertisement with happy, smiling cars on the left field wall of AT&T Park. So we made ourselves a banner — hewing a bit closer to reality than Chevron’s ad, it read “Clean Up Ecuador Oil Spill” — and hung it on the left field wall, right next to Chevron’s ad.
The crowd loved it. Some folks even took up a chant of “Let them hang it” when security came and took our banner down.
Chevron can’t use PR as a pinch-hitter to get out of its mess. It’s time for Chevron to step up to the plate and clean up Ecuador.
Yesterday RAN and the Change Chevron team joined Mobilization for Climate Justice as over 150 people marched through the streets of San Francisco on a tour of Big Oil and climate culprits (check out the all the pictures here). The protest was held on the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the worst climate induced natural disaster in US history. The March began with over 100 folks converging on Chevron’s downtown offices (Coincidentally Kroll industries, the firm hired by Chevron to acquire spies in Ecuador shares the same building. Did I say coincidence?) for a mock oil spill and die-in organized by RAN. While at Chevron marchers, community members, and business people on lunch break, listened to Rev Kenneth Davis and Jessica Tovar two long- time activists fighting Chevron’s refinery expansion in Richmond, CA. Their words were as inspiring as they were invigorating, because they are winning!
After Chevron, the march snaked it’s way to the EPA regional offices where groups called on the EPA to be held accountable for the toxic dispersants used after the gulf oil spill. Of course none of those dispersants would have been necessary if it were not for the marches next target, BP.
After the brief stop at the EPA the march turned its sights on the BP offices. While at the BP offices over a dozen people blockaded the main intersection outside the office while a group of other activists blocked the front entrance of the corporate offices. With the support of over 150 people the blockades went on for over an hour. The day’s blockades resulted in 15 arrests making it the largest direct action against BP in the US since the oil spill.
However, judging by the energy and urgency in the crowd yesterday it won’t be the last against BP…or Chevron
Chevron has a playbook, a playbook they use to silence critics, dodge legal liability, create illusions of pollution clean-up, buy favorable media (or attempt to), and disempower communities, to name just a few. One of Chevron’s most tired tactics is that of masquerading public relations stunts as court claims. Chevron to their credit is very savvy when it comes to these kinds of games. Chevron lines up their bloggers and leans on their media contacts as they role out a meticulously manufactured story. So it should come as no surprise that last week Chevron filled, yet a again, to have their $27 billion court case in Ecuador to be dismissed. Chevron has done this a few times, always for PR never because of substance. Why, because Chevron is grasping for straws.
This most recent charade struck me as desperately elaborate, even for Chevron. Chevron went to great lengths to manufacture their latest claim, and I was struck by the sloppy nature of how they executed the ploy.
Last month Chevron won a court motion allowing them access to hundreds of hours of film footage from the documentary CRUDE. This request was met with fierce opposition from thousands of film-makers, journalist and 13 media giants like the Washington Post and Dow Jones who filed a “friend of the court brief” on behalf of CRUDE filmmaker Joe Berlinger. The court, ignoring journalist privilege under the first amendment, decided to allow Chevron access to film footage under the strict stipulation that Chevron would only use the footage they acquired in judicial proceedings. In fact the Second Circuit court’s decision reads, “material produced under this order shall be used by the petitioners solely for litigation, arbitration, or submission to official bodies, either local or international.” So had Chevron’s intentions been genuine they would surely have honored the courts decision. Why risk the repercussions of violating a court order for a public relations stunt?…Unless all it is, is a public relations stunt.
Fact is that is all it was, a new round of public relations trickery. First, Chevron has turned around and submitted blatantly edited video which was done so poorly that Joe Berlinger, the films director, explicitly called out Chevron’s tricks.
“The footage citations are being taken out of context and not being presented to the court in its entirety, creating numerous false impressions, precisely what we feared when we were first issued the original subpoena.”
Secondly, Chevron has gone against the court’s order prohibiting Chevron from using the footage or PR. Instead of first filing a claim based on Chevron’s edited video Chevron actually went on a media blitz before they filed any such claim.
Upon editing the video Chevron immediately distributed the material on Twitter and provided it to bloggers hours before it was even served to opposing lawyers.
According to Berlinger’s legal filing, Chevron’s violations of the court order include:
On August 3 at 7:47 p.m. — more than two hours before Chevron served its motion on Berlinger’s lawyers — a detailed article on the film outtakes was posted on the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Nineteen minutes later and also well before the papers were served, Chevron posted “Crude’ Footage Reveals Lies Behind Trial Lawyers’ Suit Against Chevron” to its Twitter.com page, and linked to the above-referenced article.
On August 5 the San Francisco Chronicle posted an article entitled “Chevron: Outtakes prove collusion with expert,” in which the author states that he was given the outtakes by Chevron.
As laid out in a recent press release, the simple above timeline shows Chevron’s intentions are only to divert attention from their responsibility, and the decades forth of pollution in the Amazon while dragging film directors, lawyers, and courts through another merry-go-round of deflection and delay. Deflection and delay that becomes more elaborate and desperate as Chevron realizes they have run out of options to obstruct justice any further.
As public outrage at the oil industry intensifies and questions on how to reign in the industry abound, an unprecedented global coalition of communities harmed by – and fighting back against – the industry present both a groundbreaking report, “The True Cost of Chevron: an Alternative 2009 Annual Report,” (entire report in PDF is HERE) and a landmark organizing model for taking on Big Oil.
Written by dozens of community leaders from sixteen countries and ten states across the United States where Chevron operates, the 60-page report encompasses the full range of Chevron’s activities, from coal to chemicals, offshore to onshore production, pipelines to refineries, natural gas to toxic waste, and lobbying and campaign contributions to greenwashing.
On May 25, forty report authors will appear in Houston at a press conference to address the true cost of Chevron’s operations in their communities. On May 26, they will deliver the report directly to Chevron inside the company’s Annual Shareholders Meeting.
The 2009 report has gained even greater import in the wake of the BP/Transocean explosion as it exposes Chevron’s role as the largest leaseholder in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and its role at the forefront of lobbying to expand offshore drilling across the U.S. and around the world. Chevron also contracts with Transocean for its massive offshore operations.
The true Cost of Chevron’s global operations and the resulting environmental and human rights abuses have never before been so collectively and thoroughly documented. As this unprecedented coalition continues to build pressure on Chevron it looks more likely than ever that we will Change Chevron, because energy shouldn’t cost lives.
Pictured Chevron Lawyers: 1) R. Hewitt Pate, 2) Scott A. Edelman, 3) Andrea E. Neuman, 4) Randy M. Mastro
Chevron has spent millions on lawyers in order to delay and deny justice to the 30,000 Ecuadorean people impacted by the oil giant’s massive oil contamination in the Amazon. Now Chevron is sending their legal hounds after a new target.
Chevron’s most recent legal attack? The First Amendment and acclaimed director of award-winning documentary film Crude, Joe Berlinger.
“This is a violation of the first amendment and journalistic privilege,” “Just because they want to look at my footage doesn’t mean they have the right to look at my footage.”
Berlinger also commented that he has been receiving support from 100’s of documentary filmmakers and journalists who fear the “chilling” impact on documentaries if sources’ protection could not be guaranteed.
Crude unflinchingly depicts the human suffering and environmental devastation caused by Chevron’s actions in Ecuador.
Over 325 of you hosted Crude screenings last month. Again and again, you told us that the movie inspired your community to take action to hold the oil giant accountable.
Joe Berlinger made a movie that Chevron didn’t want the world to see. And now Chevron is determined to punish him for it. Don’t let Chevron shred the First Amendment in order to evade justice in Ecuador.
Tell Chevron’s lawyers to stop harassing people who speak truthfully about its oil disaster in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest.
This past week, Emergildo Criollo, an Indigenous Ecuador leader of the Cofan people traveled 3,000 miles from his home in the Amazon rainforest to California. He came to California to share his story and ask for support in getting one of the world’s largest oil companies (Chevron) to clean up one of the largest environmental disasters in history.
For a whirlwind few days this week, Emergildo shared his story with Chevron employees, California Senators and Assemblymembers, journalists, activists, and Chevron’s new CEO John Watson’s Lafayette neighbors. (more…)
A judge in Ecuador just found Chevron guilty of polluting the Amazon rainforest, ordering the company to pay $8 billion to clean it up. Chevron is vowing to appeal.
Tell Chevron that enough is enough, Chevron should clean up Ecuador now.
How can you protect your investment in Chevron – while protecting the environment and human rights? Chevron’s actions expose the company (and its investors) to great financial and environmental risks.
We don’t pretend to know everything about working at Chevron. We do know many communities are suffering because of the way Chevron does business around the world. As an employee of Chevron you can literally save peoples’ lives by working inside the company to change it.
We want to hear from you. The call’s confidential and on us: 1-877-844-4114
The award winning documentary CRUDE, from filmmaker Joe Berlinger, tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet: the infamous $27 billion lawsuit pitting 30,000 rainforest dwellers in Ecuador against the U.S. oil giant Chevron.
Yesterday RAN and the Change Chevron team joined Mobilization for Climate Justice as 
