Having virtually all the money in the world often means you can buy silence, you can buy time, and you can buy lies.
Chevron has demonstrated this time and again in its decades-long battle to evade accountability for deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The problem is that this time, what Chevron has bought is a bag of lies in the form of false testimony from a thoroughly disreputable source, and it isn't able to hide the price tag.
Environment
On October 20 last year, I did stand up at a party in Chelsea, Manhattan, for the book I had just written called America's Got Democracy!
The joke that got the biggest laugh, which I will now ruin by writing it out, was about how the supposedly “stark choice” between Democrats and Republicans around global warming isn't the different things they're going to do about it, but the different ways they say they're not going to do anything about it.
About 1000 people rallied on November 11 in front of the US Embassy in Manila to demand climate justice after the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda (as Typhoon Haiyan is known in the Philippines).
The demonstrators care from various sectors of Filipino society. Farmers, urban poor, women, workers, and youth marched from Bonifacio Shrine to the T.M. Kalaw demanding that the US immediately and radically cut its emissions and pay its climate debt -- to assist with the costs of adapting to climate change and for loss and damages caused.
Below is an open letter and petition to governments of the rich industrialised nations, initiated by the Philippines Movement for Climate Justice. The PMCJ is a broad movement consisting of 103 national networks and local groups representing many grassroots communities across the Philippines.
Please add your name here. You can also donate to grassroots relief work via http://transform-asia.org/.
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The statement below was released by the Party of the Labouring Masses (PLM, a Filipino socialist party) on November 10 in response the huge humanitarian disaster caused by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. Details on how to donate to the PLM's relief efforts at at the bottom. You can also sign a petition initiated by the Philippines Movement for Climate Justice.
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Let Our People Live! Save Lives, Redistribute Food, Stop the Economic and Environment Plunder! Climate Justice Now!
The Victorian government has released the East West Link Comprehensive Impact Statement (CIS). Public comment has been sought until December 12. The consultation process ends in July next year.
The proposed East West Link is an 18-kilometre road project, including a multilane tunnel, which would extend from Hoddle St to the Western Ring Road at Sunshine East. The CIS covers the eastern section of the proposed road, extending from Clifton Hill through Parkville to the Port of Melbourne precinct.
Canada's colonial past is its present, too, however much Prime Minister Stephen Harper seeks to obfuscate the reality of the history of this land.
Recent events have served as a prime example of how denial of past colonialism helps to perpetuate ongoing colonial relationships. The flash point is the small town of Rexton, New Brunswick, on Canada's east coast.
The growing resistance to fracking — the “hydraulic fracturing” of deep level shale rocks to extract natural gas — promises to reignite the climate movement after the failure of United Nations climate talks in 2009.
A feature of the recent march and blockades at Cuadrilla Resources’ drilling site near Balcombe in West Sussex was the diversity of the people involved, as well as the numbers. Local residents were central to the protests, as they have been at Fylde, near Blackpool, where two Cuadrilla fracking operations led to minor earthquakes.
From Richmond, California to Ecuador and Romania, communities affected by oil giant Chevron’s operations are rising up to demand justice.
Chevron’s response in each case has been consistently irresponsible: Deny any wrongdoing, cover up the extent of corporate malpractice and environmental contamination, and go on the offensive against anyone demanding the company take responsibility for its messes.
But lately, the company has really been on a tear, taking its anti-democratic attacks to bold new heights.
The Country Liberal government of the Northern Territory announced on October 26 it was extending a reservation over Darwin’s rural area to “protect rural and rural-residential areas of the Greater Darwin region from oil and gas development”.
“Whilst the Country Liberal government is open for business, we know it is not practical to have oil and gas development in the middle of the Greater Darwin Region”, said mines and energy minister Willem Westra van Holthe.
Despite a Victorian state moratorium since last year barring the use of “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) to extract gas, communities across the state continue to protest against gas drilling and exploration.
Sixty locals protested at a test drilling site in Yarragon in Gippsland, east of Melbourne, on October 19, where Greenpower Natural Gas holds a licence to explore for coal seam gas (CSG). The moratorium on fracking does not prevent exploration works such as drilling and flaring off.
Selected people in Australia recently received the following invitation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: “Dear TPP Stakeholders, As part of the Australian Government’s ongoing public consultation process on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiations, the TPP negotiating team will be visiting Sydney on 30 October 2013 to meet with interested members of the public, and business and civil society stakeholders.
“The meeting will provide an update on the negotiations and an opportunity for further stakeholder input.”
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