Sometimes it's so hard to write

This whole BP event is so upsetting. I sometimes find it hard to write. I feel so helpless.

Of course this won't be the first or last horrible event in which an oil company destroys our environment as we sit back and watch.


Several summers ago, in 2004 I think, I visited Suzanne in Quito, Ecuador. She had been working with an NGO there that helps keep street boys off the streets. In the airport, we met a lawyer working on the case of Ecuador against Chevron.

It was the first I’d heard of the case in which Chevron is accused by the indigenous people of Ecuador of dumping 20 million gallons of toxic waste into their rainforest, polluting the rivers and land.

The indigenous have no running water, the lawyer explained, and they use the river for drinking and bathing still. As a result a lot of the people have cancer and other diseases.

She talked for a while about the details of the case. Could they actually win this case? I asked.

Chevron, she said, will probably keep this case in the courts for a long time, bleeding us of money as they continue to pollute other parts of the world. We won’t give up, she added with a smile. Of course, no one in the US will know or care. It’s not happening to their water.

But, she added, with the US in the hands of the oil companies, the US judges will probably rule in favor of Chevron.

But even that is not cause to give up.

I just looked up the case, and the lawyer was right. It's still not settled.

Suzanne's post below, I think, is a nice companion piece to this entry:


beneficiosdebanco.blogspot.com