Chevron’s True Cost
Today, communities from across the world and the bay area converged on San Ramon, CA to protest and take direct action against the third largest corporation in the world, Chevron. The oil giant held it’s annual shareholder meeting deep in the belly of it’s corporate headquarters.
Inside the meeting delegates from around the world, confronted Chevron CEO David O’Reilly with a long list of grievances. Green Mayor Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond California joined delegates from Nigeria, Burma, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Philippines, and Canada to speak truth to Chevron’s power. Amazonwatch, Rainforest Action Network and several other NGO’s put together a report, written by author Antonia Juhasz, called “The True Cost of Chevron.”
O’Reilly remarked in the meeting that the report was “an insult and should have been thrown in the trash”. I guess our movements are getting under his skin.
To download the True Cost of Chevron, go here.
Outside, the protests took on a festive tone as speakers spoke and activists rallied. Rising Tide Bay Area, Unconventional Action in the Bay and the Iraq Vets against the War took direct action and locked down on the main entrance once the delegates went into the meeting.
Activists also performed “Sub-Advertisement Theater” with creative sub-advertisements to Chevron’s greenwashing campaign.
Chevron is expected to pay $27 billion to indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon after they left hundreds of lakes filled with toxic waste. They are also the target of campaigns for their abuses in Nigeria and Richmond, CA.
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July 2nd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
[...] organized protests at Chevron’s shareholder meeting at their headquarters in San Ramon; this year, seven people blockaded Chevron’s front entrance, while community activists from Richmond, [...]