Guardian UK: How far should we let Big Oil go?

How far should we let Big Oil go?
An alternative annual report for the oil company Chevron looks at the deep costs paid for the world's oil addiction

Antonia Juhasz
guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 May 2010 19.00 BST


In the month since BP's oil rig exploded in the US Gulf Coast, what has struck me the most is not, unfortunately, the magnitude of the spill, the damage caused that is likely to continue for decades, the inability of BP or federal agencies to clean up – much less stop – the spill, or the revelations of BP's pre-explosion lobbying, which likely contributed greatly to the disaster taking place.

I have instead been most moved by the rapid, overwhelming and broad-based demand from people all across the US and the world for a fundamental rethinking of just how far they are willing to let Big Oil go in pursuit of the world's remaining oil.

As I prepare for the annual general meeting of the fourth largest global oil company – Chevron (BP is the third largest) – I am confronted daily by people who are looking around their own communities and out across the world with new-found attention to the deep costs paid every day for our oil addiction.

A new alternative annual report for Chevron, The True Cost of Chevron, of which I am an author and the editor, will be released at a press conference on 25 May in Houston, Texas – just a few hundred miles from the sites where oil is washing up on shore following the explosion on BP's rig. Written by dozens of authors from 16 countries and 10 states from across the US who either live in, or advocate on behalf of, communities where Chevron operates, the report criticises Chevron's record on human rights, the environment, the climate, public health, worker safety and treatment of indigenous populations. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/may/24/oil-chevron-alternative-annual-report