It is critical that we as designers understand the weight of our social impact. We have the power to communicate clear, accurate, useful messages that reach and inform millions—or we can spread misinformation and propaganda by working for the highest bidder. If we move in the former direction, the end result is a well-educated public that knows what is harmful to themselves and the environment, and will (hopefully) choose what’s best for the world. Designers (and photographers) must do their research on any job they are about to take on, and be willing to back up both their work and the company or cause that their work is endorsing. The other thing we must be willing to do as socially responsible designers is to call out and bite back (via logo jams, commentary, and remixing) when we see design being used to mislead and deceive the public.

Working at RAN we are getting firsthand experience in ways to bite back. The most recent example is the successful prank and subsequent spoof campaign that is currently taking all the wind out of Chevron’s new ninty million dollar “We Agree” ad campaign. In coalition with The Yes Men and Amazon Watch, RAN launched a website that encouraged people to spoof the latest campaign by creating their own ads with some of the company’s more realistic values. Will Farrell’s Funny or Die website got in on the action by creating spoof video ads that highlighted the ridiculous greenwashing that the company was practicing. Now people are taking to the streets and wheatpasting their favorite ads all over. You can get in on the action by joining The Street Team here.

As designers we have to wonder what Steve McCurry, the photographer for the Chevron ad campaign, was thinking when he took this job. Did Chevron sell him a line of BS about how they were doing lots of good things for the environment and he took them at face value? Or did he realize that they were full of crap and did the job anyways because it paid well? Mcgarrybowen, the ad agency that oversaw the ad campaign states that their philosophy is “A company that believes, with every fiber of its being, that it exists to serve clients, build brands and grow businesses.” There isn’t one mention of people or the communities that these companies have an impact on.

As Robert L. Peters wrote, “ Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. Design is therefore responsible for the world our children will live in.”

-Sayf Khidir & Martha Pettit

For further reading on socially responsible design:

Do Good by David Berman
First Things First 2000 manifesto
Adbusters
Another good place to start is to learn more about Kalle Lassn & Tibor Kalman.

Indonesian Rainforest, Sumatra. Photo courtesy of RAN

How will YOU celebrate rainforests from October 17-24? Please add your ideas, activities, and commitments as a comment to this blog to keep our thoughts and actions fresh with new ways to think global and act local.

Here are some ideas from our staff, friends, and activist like YOU about how they will be honoring and sharing the beauty and importance of our world’s precious rainforests all week (and beyond!)

1 Be A Rainforest Hero

Visit RainforestHeroes.com with the kids and youth in your life to learn about rainforests and their awesome inhabitants. Sign up for yourself or your class to be Rainforest Heroes today!

Rainforest Heroes

2 Watch Green

Watch the films GREEN and Orang-Rimba: Happiness Lies in the Forest with your friends or family. GREEN is a powerful, beautiful film that documents orangutan habitat loss in Indonesia through the eyes of one of its victims. The second film documents the impacts of deforestation on Indigenous Peoples, such as the nomadic Orang Rimba who live in the Jambi and Riau provinces of Sumatra. Then, write a letter to one of the companies destroying Indonesia’s rainforests telling them to change their practices.

3 Breathe

Take a deep breath. Know that rainforests produce 20% of the oxygen we breath. Say thanks!

4 Meet Tiki

• Become friends with Tiki the Tiger on Facebook
• Follow Tiki on Twitter
• Sign Tiki the Tiny Tiger’s petition
• Visit TikiTheTiger.com to learn about the cutest, tiniest Sumatran Tiger in the whole wide world- and how YOU can help save his rainforest home.

5 Eat Rainforest Food

Incorporate sustainably-harvested rainforest foods into a meal and savor a taste of what incredible (and delicious) plants have evolved in such biodiverse tropical areas!

6 Love Indonesia’s Rainforests

Join our We Love Indonesia’s Rainforests Facebook fan page

Zapara Elder, Ecuador. Photo courtesty of RAN.

7 Protect An Acre

Donate to RAN’s Protect-an-Acre fund. PAA is a small grants program which contributes directly to forest communities struggling to protect their rainforest homelands and the natural-resource base on which these communities rely. Learn about the Zapara People of the Ecuadorian Amazon, our featured PAA grant.

8 Sleuth at the Store

Sleuth out Rainforest-Safe Books at your local bookstore with our free, easy-to-download Sleuth toolkit.

9 Get There Without Chevron

Skip the gas station (especially Chevron), ride your bike, walk or take the bus.  Learn about what Chevron has dumped in the Amazon and tell Chevron to take responsibility and  CLEAN UP ECUADOR.

10 Be Brilliant

We want to hear your ideas for how to celebrate World Rainforest Week. Please comment below and let us know how you intend to especially celebrate rainforests this week!

This morning the Change Chevron Campaign made a visit to the Chamber of Commerce’s Corporate Citizen Conference. The reason for our visit was that Chevron’s General Manager of Corporate Public Policy, Gary Fisher, was speaking at a plenary session on “partnership.” Mr. Fisher was predictably sent by Chevron to parade around their public partnerships and corporate responsibility projects. Unfortunately you’ll never see Mr. Fisher, or Chevron, parading around their private partnerships or the reality of their projects. This is why we were there to make sure people not only heard Chevron’s rhetoric, but they heard people’s reality.

Prior to the plenary session we distributed copies of “The True Cost of Chevron” throughout the main conference room. We wanted people to be primed on Chevron’s global pollution before Gary Fisher even began his opening statement. These reports, full of community testimonies about living with Chevron’s pollution, no doubt leave an impression on anyone who flips through them.
(* the Chamber of Commerce and Chevron were furious that these materials made it into their “corporate citizenship” bonanza, even going as far as threatening to fine Rainforest Action Network $10,000 for distributing materials. Seems the Chamber of Commerce is a allergic to truth telling as Chevron is.)

I wonder what was going through Gary Fisher’s mind as he walked out to see a room full of people reading this report?

However, rather than the reports, it was the attendance by Maria Lya Ramos, Director of the Change Chevron campaign, that had Chevron squirming it their seats.

During the question and answer period Ms. Ramos took her allotted time to speak to Chevron’s refusal to assume responsibility of their oil disaster and pollution in Ecuador. Though interrupted more than once by security (for asking a critical question no-less) she still put Gary Fisher and Chevron squarely on the hot seat in front of their distinguished crowd at the Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s not right for a multi-billion dollar company to operate, extract for oil in a developing country, dump billions of gallons of toxic sludge, leave those people to sicken and die, while making a profit. But this is exactly what Chevron did in Ecuador…. So Mr. Fisher, when you said that a corporate-public partnership is not based on charity, I think you’re right. It’s based on transparency, accountability, and responsibility. And if Chevron were a responsible company, it would clean up its massive oil pollution in Ecuador’s Amazon. So my question for you, Mr. Fisher, is when is Chevron going to do the right thing and clean up the Ecuadorean Amazon? People are suffering. More than 1400 people have died of oil-related cancers.”

In the video above you’ll see Chevron remains totally silent, having no real answers to as why they continue to delay solutions and refuse to clean up the soil and drinking water pollution of the communities they once operated in as Texaco.

We were not surprised Chevron didn’t have an answer as to their responsibilities in Ecuador. They have never had an answer. Rather than answers and solutions for these communities, Chevron relies on distracting public relations and suspicious legal maneuvers to drag out the lawsuit holding them accountable to nearly 18 years.

It’s obvious again by today’s event that Chevron will always have plenty to say, as long as it has nothing to do with their pollution and accountability in Ecuador. That’s why it’s up to us to keep talking about it and keep Chevron’s responsibility in the spotlight.

Crossposted from Daily Kos

In the last two days Chevron has been hit with two developments that will surely produce lasting doubts to the legality and authenticity of Chevron’s actions in what is being called the world’s largest environmental lawsuit. Chevron has been involved in the $27.3 billion for the last 17 years. The breathtaking figure represents the expensive pollution counting for over 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste and 15 million gallons of crude oil left in the Amazon rainforest. Chevron has vehemently denied responsibility, claiming high cancer rates and polluted drinking water is due to “poor sanitation.” However Chevron cannot, and as of yesterday now refuses to, backup any such claim.

Yesterday Chevron was provided with the opportunity to submit to the court its own damages assessment. (Presumably to argue any discrepancies they found in the original damages assessment compiled by the court appointed expert.) Chevron in turn rejected the opportunity. A peculiar move considering Chevron has spent the last two years attacking the submission of independent damages assessment. The original assessment contained over 105 expert reports and more than 64,000 samples, many of which came from Chevron’s own team. This latest maneuver by Chevron has many in the legal and human rights world scratching their heads. However for those close to the lawsuit this latest development is seen as another indicator that Chevron is solely interested delaying the trial rather than letting the courts rule on the extent of their liability.

“We predict that Chevron’s bad faith will be on full display yet again,” said Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the Amazonian communities. “Chevron complained that it did not have an opportunity to produce its own damages assessment. But when given the opportunity, company lawyers accuse the judge of bias against Chevron and launch attacks on the justice system.” Fajardo said the Amazonian communities would submit their own damages assessment prepared by a team of scientific and medical experts to the court today.”

The new damages report submission, comes a day after another major dilemma for Chevron’s defense in Ecuador. On Wednesday a Federal Judge ordered Diego Borja, a spy video operative and former Chevron employee, to appear for a deposition in San Francisco next week.

The deposition is in regards to Borja’s involvement with Chevron in a potentially illegal entrapment scheme. Borja became a lightning rod of controversy in the lawsuit after partnering with a former drug runner and secretly videotaping themselves having conversations with the judge presiding over the trial. The videotape as been a key piece of evidence for the defendants and human rights activists claiming the Chevron continues to attempt to undermine the rule of law in Ecuador with “dirty tricks”.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Chen says “that Mr. Borja was not an innocent third party who just happened to learn of the alleged bribery scheme but rather was a long-time associate of Chevron whom Chevron would pay for any favorable testimony.”

Chevron has denied any association with Borja, however an investigation uncovered that Chevron had arranged for his relocation from Ecuador to a $6000 a month Northern California townhouse, and is currently providing him legal counsel. Diego Borja’s deposition is scheduled for October 1st, pending any objections from 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.

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.

Emergildo Criollo Indigenous Ecuador leader of the Cofan people.

Here is the story that Emergildo told (translated from Spanish):

“I want to start telling my story from when I was a child.

In 1964, I was 6 and living by the river.

As was the tradition of my people we would migrate from area to area to hunt. We were in (what is now called Lago Agrio) hunting.

At one point we heard this really loud noise coming from the sky. We thought it was a large bird (it was a helicopter). We were scared and hid.

The helicopter landed and we were very scared. They landed and started cutting down trees. They cut down about 10 hectares of trees.

Texaco (now Chevron) set up a worker camp. Me and my father tried to sell our jewelry. I was wearing my traditional dress. The workers came up and lifted my dress. I was so embarrassed. They lifted it because they didn’t know if I was a little girl or boy. It was so humiliating.

A few months passed and we saw great waves of oil floating down the river. We had to part the sheets of oil to get the water. As we walked we waded through oil. We tried to get it off our skin but we couldn’t get clean.

After a bit we said we can’t live here anymore and we had to relocate.

About a decade passed. I met my wife. She got pregnant and was drinking water that we didn’t know was contaminated. My son was born but didn’t grow well. He died at just 6 months. I took him to a hospital in Quito but they couldn’t do anything.

Then our second son was born. I would take him to the river to swim. One day at the river he drank the water and started vomiting and vomiting. He soon started vomiting blood. Within 24 hours, he was dead too.

After seeing this I realized we couldn’t drink from the river. We started digging wells and looking for subterranean water which we hoped was cleaner.

After being exposed my wife became ill. She had uterine cancer and had to have a hysterectomy. She was never the same after. Always in pain.

It wasn’t just my family that was affected by the polluted water. And not just my people, the Cofan, but all the other Indigenous communities and campesinos in the area. Many, many of our brothers and sisters have died as well.

Before Texaco (now Chevron) arrived we lived well. We had plenty of food. Plenty of animals and plenty of medicinal plants. Everything has changed. All of our customs have been transformed since the company’s arrival.

If you can imagine, we have lost our traditional healers and medicine with Texaco’ (now Chevron) arrival. The irony is we now have so many new illnesses and we have lost our abilities to heal.

There were changes for the women as well. The women would traditionally get firewood by the river. Because of oil spills, the wood was drenched in thick, black oil. The oil coated their bodies and polluted the food they cooked over the wood.

The women suffered as well. The Cofan women never had miscarriages before. With Texaco (now Chevron) and the contamination there were suddenly many miscarriages and children born with abnormalities. There has been so much pain for our women.

This continues today. People are dying of cancer and oil-related illness. They just left so many open oil pits and never cleaned up. This is why we started the lawsuit.

That’s what our lawsuit is about. To get Chevron to take responsibility. They need to see the supposed clean-up was not a proper clean-up. They just sprinkled dirt on the oil pits, covered them up. But if you dig even 50 cm it is thick with oil. This is not a proper clean up. The oil is still there.”

These open waste pits had no protective liner. The oil would seep into the the ground, and then into the smaller rivers, and the larger rivers. The contamination affects so many people.”

Emergildo’s story is the story of thousands of people in the region. What will it take for Chevron to do the right thing, clean up Ecuador, and put an end to the suffering?

Cross-posted at http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2010/03/05/emergildos-story/

Senator Fran Pavley and Assemblymember Jared Huffman hosted the reception in Sacramento entitled, “From Ecuador to California: California’s largest corporation, one of the world’s worst oil related disasters, and what California’s legislators can do.”

Despite the pouring rain, the reception was packed with Senators, Assemblymembers, and their staff. Lawmakers in attendance included Senator Fran Pavley, Senator Loni Hancock, Assemblyman Manny Perez, Assemblyman Paul Fong, Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, and Assemblyman Jared Huffman. These key leaders from both the Environmental and Latino Caucuses not only listened to Emergildo’s story, but spoke of their desire to support the people of Ecuador who are suffering and dying because of Chevron’s operations.

Assemblymember Jared Huffmand spoke of the need “to remedy a very serious environmental and human tragedy.”

At the reception, Emergildo shared his story. He told the lawmakers about how he was only 6 years old when Chevron (then Texaco) began oil drilling in his community. He spoke of how his family was forced to relocate because of the contamination. About he had to part centimeters of oil off of the river to drink the water. About how he has lost two sons and nursed a wife through uterine cancer because of the contamination. His family drank, bathed, and fished in water that was poisoned by oil dumping.

After telling his story, Emergilod asked all of the Assemblymembers and Senators for their help and invited them to visit his home and see for themselves the devastation Chevron’s behavior has caused.

Senator Loni Hancock, from the Contra Costa district where Chevron is headquartered, said she “would like to come and visit. This is an international issue and an issue here as well.”

Assemblymember Manny Perez had a heartfelt exchange with Emergildo in Spanish and lawmaker after lawmaker stood up and said they wanted to learn more and to see what action they could take.

We are excited about the possibilities moving forward and look forward to working closely with California’s legislators to make sure California’s largest corporation is held responsible for cleaning up one of the largest environmental disasters of all time.

Learn more at www.ChangeChevron.org.

For years, the people of Ecuador have been trying to get Chevron to clean up the billions of gallons of toxic waste and unlined oil pits that were left to poison their water, their land, and their community.

Chevron has used dirty tricks and tactics every step of the way during the decades-long legal challenge to force them to clean up Ecuador. They’ve hired dirty PR, legal, and lobby teams; forced the case to move around the globe; fabricated a story to discredit the original Judge; and filed endless motions that are eventually denied but nevertheless succeed in further draining the plaintiff’s resources and delaying a judgment.

As Steven Donziger, a legal advisor for the 30,000 Ecuadoreans who are suffering because of the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste Chevron refuses to clean up, says:

“Chevron is again trying to strong-arm the court by misrepresenting facts. This is part of an underhanded attempt to derail a trial Chevron is losing based on the voluminous scientific evidence.”

Today’s trick? To claim in a press release to their investors it had “newly discovered” evidence that the court-appointed Special Master who conducted a damages assessment, Richard Cabrera, owns a remediation company in Ecuador that stands to benefit from a clean-up should the plaintiffs win the case. The filing is the 29th official motion Chevron has made to the court to disqualify Cabrera but the court has never accepted Chevron’s arguments.

Carbera, working with a team of 14 scientists, found that Chevron could be responsible for $27.3 billion in damages.

Pablo Fajardo, who grew up in the contaminated region and is now the lead Ecuadorian lawyer in the case, took a moment to dispel some of today’s Chevron lies and half-truths:

* Cabrera disclosed to the court that he owned a clean-up company beforehis appointment as Special Master. This fact was properly cited by the court as one of the reasons he was qualified to do the damages assessment.
* Chevron thought so highly of Cabrera’s qualifications that it accepted him as a court-appointed expert in an earlier part of the case and paid his fees as required by court rules.
* The fact Cabrera’s company is qualified to bid on clean-up contracts offered by Ecuador’s state-owned oil company is irrelevant. That company, Petroecuador, is not a party to the case against Chevron and would have no role in any eventual cleanup.
* Cabrera by virtue of his role in the case would be barred from having a role in a future clean-up.

To Chevron, this is all about money and pulling out every dirty trick in the book to avoid taking responsibility for the devastation they have caused.

For the people of Ecuador this is about so much more than money.

This is about the children who are getting sick and dying because they are forced to drink poisoned water. This is about justice for the 1,400 people who have died of cancer. And for the families who were unfortunate enough to build their homes on dangerous oil pits that Chevron (then Texco) lied about properly cleaning up. This is about their right to drink clean water. A right that Chevron denies with every lie and legal trick.

Chevron- when will the lies end and the clean up begin?

Visit www.ChangeChevron.org to become part of the movement to change Chevron.

Cross-posted from www.ItsGettingHotinHere.org.

Well last week I attended the first film in the Nigerian Film Series that the Smithsonian Museum of African Art is hosting. The movie was great but the fact that Chevron is the main sponsor was disconcerting. Yep, the same Chevron that is responsible for massive environmental destruction and human rights violations in the Niger Delta. I find it disrespectful that Chevron would use an event like this to make their public image more appealing, especially within the Nigerian community of DC.

Why is Chevron the wrong sponsor for Nigeria?

• Over the last fifty years, Chevron has spilled 1.5 million tons of oil in the Niger Delta, contaminating waterways, fish-stocks and farmlands.
• Chevron still engages in the illegal practice of gas flaring [the burning and emission of natural gas into the air during the oil extraction process], contributing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and resulting in high rates of cancer, asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
• Chevron employs the Nigerian military’s secret security forces – known to violently repress peaceful protests. In 2008 Chevron stood trial for torture; extrajudicial killing; and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Nigerian villagers.

We were concerned about this so our colleagues at Justice in Nigeria Now (JINN) phoned the museum’s corporate membership office to express concern about Chevron’s sponsoring of the event and to ask about the criteria for evaluating prospective sponsors.

Their response: that they could not divulge its criteria; that they are aware of Chevron’s track record in Nigeria, but that they did not concern themselves with the political ramifications of what their funders do, since the Smithsonian’s objective is to fund art.

So I attended the movie along with some of my friends and we handed out these postcards and collected signatures of other movie-goers that were just as offended by the Chevron sponsorship. In fact, most attendees seemed surprised to find out that an oil company was sponsoring such a lovely evening at the Smithsonian.

I am looking forward to the rest of the film series. Nollywood is fascinating to me. The producer, Lancelot, who was showcased in the documentary, has made over 150 movies in his career! If you are in the DC area, come join me one Thursday.

It is undeniable that the world wants to change Chevron. People from all over the globe are signing this petition, people young and old, from so many backgrounds. We’ve had celebrities, musicians, investors, and Chevron employees standing up and demanding change from one of the largest corporations on the planet.

As the new leader of the 3rd largest oil company in the world, CEO John Watson can right the wrongs of his predecessors and transform his company into one that cares.

150,000+ are saying “Enough is enough. Energy shouldn’t cost lives.”

From Ecuador to Richmond,CA to Burma and everywhere the oil giant operates in-between they leave a trail of environmental devastation, human rights abuses, and a legacy of health problems.

150,000+ say ENOUGH to Big Oil destroying our environment and the health of our communities.

Chevron, and their Big Oil cohorts, spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists and political contributions to buy off politicians and destroy policies that would be good for our climate and our future.

150,000+ people say ENOUGH to Chevron’s control of our government and our democracy.

To truly change Chevron and the oil industry, we are going to need to be 150,000 x stronger and louder and more powerful than we ever have been before. Our communities, our climate, our planet, and our future depend on it.

You in?

Learn more from our friends at Amazon Watch!

As many of you know, there is lawsuit that has been going on for over 16 years to get Chevron to own up and clean up its toxic legacy in Ecuador. The lawsuit is on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorean people who are suffering and dying because of Chevron’s refusal to the do the right thing.

The legal team working on behalf of the impacted people in Ecuador has a great blog called The Chevron Pit which is a great source of information about the case, Chevron, and the people seeking justice.

They’ve just launched a powerful new series featuring the first of many personal stories about how the oil contamination left behind by Texaco has impacted the people living near the oil company’s former oil sites. Chevron purchased Texaco in 2001.

The first story is about Modesta Briones, who passed away not long after she and her husband, Segundo Salinas, gave an interview to author Lou DeMatteis for his book Crude Reflections.

The story and images are powerful, and as they say, speak so much louder than words. Every year that Chevron does not clean up Ecuador more people will get sick and die. We can, and we must, Change Chevron

After getting unintentionally embroiled in a corporate free speech campaign involving a scrappy little enviro group called Rainforest Action Network, The Washington Post, and one of the largest oil corporations on the planet (Chevron), it’s got me thinking of the political ad campaign implications of the ruling. And what it means for the public’s access to real information in our withering media landscape.

First, the Corporate Speech vs. the People’s Speech story.

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) recently began a campaign to Change Chevron. As part of the launch of the campaign we bought ads last week in The New York Times and WashingtonPost.com. The ads had a picture of Chevron’s new CEO John Watson face (which we bought the rights to from Getty images) and the copy read: “Oil men have polluted the Ecuadorean rainforest for decades. This man can do something about it now.”

Chevron’s behemoth legal team immediately pressured Getty, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to pull the ad. The New York Times ran the ad. The Washington Post did not. The Washington Post (which receives huge ad revenue from Chevron) has sided with the oil giant and frozen our ad. As of 3 pm Tuesday (Feb 2, 2010) The Washington Post has said they will “unpause” our ad after a meeting between their legal counsel and Chevron’s ad rep at the paper.

We are now trying to get The Washington Post to run our new version of the ad featured above. While this may seem small, it is a window into what we will likely see run rampant as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing corporation’s unbridled campaign finance AND advertising. With the Supreme Court ruling, the controversy over the Super Bowl ads (which allow anti-choice but not pro-gay advertising), and this recent small example of Chevron throwing its money around to suppress critical ads, it feels like a good time to think about what this means.

Advocacy groups like RAN have meager budgets with little money to spare on advertising. Chevron spends hundreds of millions of dollars EVERY year on ads that are deceptive, misleading greenwash. Don’t corporations already control our airwaves enough?

As we’ve seen over and over again in the hugely frustrating climate and energy debate in this country, it matters less if you’re right and more if you can scream misinformation to the general public- either through paid advertising or through Fox News.

A Chevron media relations representatives said it best, “Not to say that news media ignores us,” said Jim Hendon, media relations rep for Chevron, “but our ads tell a story that wouldn’t get told otherwise about our company’s environmental concerns. Oil companies can’t rely on media, so we do it through this [ad] campaign.”

As we look forward, both in our advocacy work and at the coming election season how are we possibly supposed to compete with Corporate America’s “free speech?”

We must work together to right the wrongs of that Supreme CT ruling, support media advocacy groups like Center for Media and Democracy, and continue to work to change Chevron and other corporations that are destroying our climate, our communities, and our democracy.

*Reposted from Itsgettinghotinhere.org.

The runners had paid for a table to distribute “I’m Running for Human Rights” stickers and information about Chevron’s refusal to clean up over 18 billion tons of toxic oil sludge they are responsible for in the Ecuadorean rainforest.

At approximately 10 a.m. this morning, Managing Director Steven Karpas told the Rainforest Action Network team, “higher ups at Chevron are freaking out” and threatened to arrest the peaceful runners. Police then ejected the runners from the city-owned and operated building for exercising their right to free speech.

“We are outraged that Chevron would deny marathon participants the right to run for what they believe, in our case, human rights in Ecuador,” said Rainforest Action Network runner Maria Ramos. “It is sad that the Chevron Houston Marathon – which raises awareness and money for many important causes – would deny the rights of participants to appease a corporate sponsor that is clearly ashamed of its human rights record.”

When asked for a reason for their ejection, Steven Karpas told the runners they were being removed for “protest activities.” The Rainforest Action Network team’s objective at the Expo was not to protest, disrupt the Expo or dampen other runners experience at this important race. The runners merely wanted to sit at their table and invite other runners to run with them for human rights.

Undeterred, the RAN running team stood outside the entrance and gave the stickers to runners going into the Expo. A really cool group of around 30 local high school students took the “I’m running for Human Rights” stickers and promised to wear them in the race on Sunday. Yay!

Ready to “freak” Chevron some more? Go to our brand new campaign website, www.ChangeChevron.org, and let Chevron’s new CEO John Watson know they’ve got to start respecting human rights.

I arrived in Houston, TX yesterday (yeehaw!) to run for human rights in Ecuador at this weekend’s huge Chevron-sponsored Houston marathon.

We have a rad team of people who are running the marathon for Emergildo Criollo, an Indigenous Ecuadorean man who has had to bury two children and nurse his wife through cancer because Chevron refuses to clean up their toxic legacy in Ecuador. Over 18 billion tons of toxic sludge was DELIBERATELY dumped into the Ecuadorean Amazon (on people’s home, in their water, etc) in one of the largest environmental disasters of all time. Emergildo’s family drank, fished, and bathed in the water that Chevron has refused to clean up.

Check out this great, short video made by our friends at Amazon Watch about the crisis in Ecuador.

While we’re in Houston, besides running, Rainforest Action Network advocates will drop “Change Chevron” banners along the race route, distribute “I’m Running for Human Rights” stickers to runners at the Marathon expo, and host a free screening of Crude – the critically acclaimed documentary about the crisis in Ecuador – for Chevron employees and the Houston community. Stay tuned for more marathon and changing Chevron fun.

Chevron wants the world to believe they are company that cares – and they sponsor community events like marathons and concerts- to hide their real, dangerous impacts on communities around the world. I feel it is important to bring the voice of people and communities that are literally dying because of Chevron’s deadly operations to these events.

That’s why at the Chevron Houston marathon on Sunday I’ll be running for Emergildo and the over 1,400 Ecuadoreans who have died because of Chevron’s negligence.

****This is cross-posted on ItsGettingHotinHere.org***