Thursday, June 17, 2010

Where is Erin Brockovich When You Need Her?

This BP oil industrial crime (I refuse to call it a spill as if it were an accident) is a disastrous occurrence that will haunt us for years and decades to come. As terrible as it is, it has only been at the forethought of our minds for the last few months. And, it's probably only been given this much attention because it is in America's oceans and coast lines. What a crime it is that very few of us even know about Chevron's deliberate industrial crime that has gone on for more than 4 DECADES in Ecuador's rain forest!

"Between 1964 and 1990, Texaco (which was acquired by Chevron in 2001) drilled roughly 350 wells across 2,700 square miles of Amazon rainforest. It extracted some $30 billion in profits while deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic soup, known as production water--a mixture of oil, sulpheric acid, and other carcinogens--into the streams and rivers where people collect drinking water, fish, bathe, and swim."

"In the process, Texaco constructed over 900 oil sludge pits, many the size of Olympic swimming pools. Unlike swimming pools, these pits were unlined punctures in the earth. With no concrete to protect the surrounding soil, poison seeped into the ground water." (Huffington Post)

Where is Erin Brockovich when you need her?

As hard as it will be, and as much as we will have to change jobs, mind-sets, and our false sense of security, we have got to get rid of our oil usage all together! We have to do the right thing, instead of continuing to take the easy way out. Just because it is profitable, doesn't make it right!

We KNOW there are other productive ways, and cleaner ways may I add, to use energy! (Which, by the way, would create more jobs in the long run!) Why are we so resistant to change our unhealthy ways? Why is it so easy for us to forgive big-fat oil companies who use and abuse us every single day? Their acts are simply not defend-able, but yet they do it and get the public to support them anyways! At the very least, why aren't we looking at this as a home-land security issue? Forget about the environmental impacts, we could "drill-baby-drill" all day long. But, doesn't anyone understand that even the oil we drill here at home goes into a world market? It's not necessarily drilled for our own personal use! Wake up America!

To read about an eye witness account of what is going on in Ecuador, please read the following link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kerry-kennedy/chevron-and-cultural-geno_b_346257.html

or

http://chevrontoxico.com/

1 comment:

  1. When BP CEO Tony Hayward testified before Congress this morning, many expected to hear him apologize for the disaster his company has caused. Instead, GOP Congressman Joe Barton was the one saying he was sorry -- to BP.

    In his opening statement, Barton, the top Republican on the committee overseeing the oil spill and its aftermath, delivered a personal apology to the oil giant. He said the $20 billion fund that President Obama directed BP to establish to provide relief to the victims of the oil disaster was a "tragedy in the first proportion."

    Other Republicans are echoing his call. Sen. John Cornyn said he "shares" Barton's concern. Rep. Michele Bachmann said that BP shouldn't agree to be "fleeced." Rush Limbaugh called it a "bailout." The Republican Study Committee, with its 114 members in the House, called it a "shakedown."

    Let's be clear. This fund is a major victory for the people of the Gulf. It's a key step toward making them whole again. BP has a responsibility to those whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the disaster. And BP oil executives don't deserve an apology -- the people of the Gulf do.

    Stand with us to show that the American people support holding BP accountable -- and we won't apologize for doing so.

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