“We’re up against a system that has inequality built into every facet. It’s vast, dehumanising, and vulnerable to the manipulation of the rich and powerful whenever their interests collide with ours. Things have been going pretty badly the last few decades, but the foundations stretch back hundreds of years. It’s going to be difficult to dislodge.” Equality Trust

 

 

Rhode, Co Offaly, Ireland

Thursday 2 January 2025.

Dear Irish Media,

My good friend Steven Donziger is a human rights lawyer who was locked up in the United States for close to three years after he worked with Amazonian communities to hold Texaco (now owned by Chevron) to account for creating one of the world’s worst environmental disasters.


For three decades, Texaco dumped billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste into the rivers and streams of the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador. 

This produced a devastating environmental catastrophe that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Indigenous peoples and farmers. Even today, Indigenous communities continue to face imminent risk of death due to exposure to Texaco’s toxic waste.


After years of litigation, Steven’s legal team won a landmark legal battle that resulted in Texaco being ordered to pay $10bn in damages – the largest judgement ever awarded in an environmental lawsuit. 
But Texaco fled the country and their owner, Chevron, haven’t yet paid out one cent.
Instead, Chevron (the owners of Texaco) hired 60 law firms and hundreds of lawyers to try to destroy Steven. They sued  him personally in New York for $60 billion – more liability than any bank or fossil fuel company had ever faced. 

For more than seventy years Texaco have sponsored a children’s art competition here in Ireland – one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Texaco also provide funding to sports clubs across Ireland.

For us, rejecting fossil fuel company greenwashing needs considerably greater public education, debate and action including directly challenging greenwashing initiatives in Ireland.  In pursuing this agenda, we have experienced very considerable opposition to doing this – opposition from media, educational and sports bodies, non-governmental organisations and ‘celebrities’.

The time has come to challenge this and to be forthright about highlighting the agendas of the fossil fuel sector in Ireland and abroad.  Specifically, we want to directly challenge two initiatives by Texaco in Ireland – the Texaco Children’s Art Competition and the Texaco Sports Grants scheme.  Both are blatant examples of fossil fuel company greenwashing.  Both seek to involve the public, including children and sport, in generating an aura of acceptability for the greenwash agenda.
To this end, we are organising a series of on-line and in-person events to explore, debate and promote real action on greenwashing and on these Texaco initiatives specifically.

“This is not a campaign aimed at demonising your local shop owner who happens to provide the fuel for your vehicles.
No, this is a campaign aimed at holding the fossil fuel industry accountable for their criminal acts – in this case Texaco/Chevron.” Tom Roche

September 12 2023: Climate, Politics, and Corporate Power: A Conversation with Steven Donziger & Special Guests

FREE! Hear human rights attorney Steven Donziger discuss his fight for justice at the intersection of climate, politics, and corporate power.

Join us in conversation with noted human rights attorney Steven Donziger about being targeted with the nation’s first corporate prosecution after helping Amazon communities win a historic $10 billion pollution case against Chevron [the owners of Texaco]. Steven is a leading thinker operating at the intersection of climate, law, and corporate power. He is also the first US attorney to be jailed by a corporation in retaliation for his human rights work. Link here…