Oil Companies Misbehaving
In terms of decency, it hasn’t been a good day for the oil companies. First it was the ExxonMobil CEO’s mocking renewable energy, and now it’s more news on Chevron’s refusal to clean up its mess in Ecuador.
For those not following the story: Chevron deliberately dumped 18 million gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon, resulting in the large-scale disease and death of the indigenous people. They’ve been ordered to pay $9.8 billion in damages, a judgement that was upheld at an appellate court, but they’re not handing over a dime. Please see the incredible video linked above.
These are immensely profitable multinational corporations with outsized influence in deeply pocketed governments (including our own), and they have long histories of willfully negligent stewardship and a fiercely cruel talent for externalizing colossal costs.
After the massacre at Bhopal, and the poisonous insults at Puget Sound and the Gulf of Mexico, it comes as no surprise but rather a bitter expectation that the descent continues.