Chevron’s attempts to greenwash its image while doing nothing to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights abuses around the globe continue unabated. So we decided to re-launch ChevronThinksWereStupid.org last week to provide concerned citizens like you with a fun and engaging platform to call out Chevron’s misleading PR campaigns.
At virtually the same time that the re-launch was happening, something quite unusual happened: An oil company admitted liability for an oil spill it had caused in a developing country. No, not Chevron in Ecuador. Shell in Nigeria. Shell will likely end up paying several hundred million dollars to clean up its oil spills in the Niger Delta.
It just so happens that Chevron operates in the Niger Delta as well, and has caused its share of environmental degradation and human suffering. Has Chevron taken responsibility for the damage it has done in the Niger Delta? No. But the company did give away a bunch of mosquito nets in Angola.
We’re not making this up – as part of its plan to prove what a fantastic corporate citizen it is, Chevron gave away a few thousand mosquito nets. To our knowledge, mosquito nets are capable of absorbing absolutely none of the oil Chevron has spilled — and the impacts of oil operations in some parts of Angola are so severe that most of the sand on the shores is black in color and the beaches cannot be used.
Chevron has promised funding to restore the damaged ecosystem, but has yet to act — except for donating those nets.
This is exactly the type of preposterous greenwash and misleading corporate PR that we wanted to call out when we teamed up with the Yes Men and Amazon Watch to spoof Chevron’s “We Agree” campaign. We launched ChevronThinksWereStupid.org so that you could join in on the spoofing fun, and we’ve decided to extend our call for submissions indefinitely.
We’ve assembled some resources to help you call out Chevron’s mosquito nets as the blatant corporate greenwash that they are. Have fun!