Monday I watched as over 150 people marched through downtown San Francisco on the 5th anniversary on one of our country’s most devastating natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina. The energy, if not anger, of the crowd was palpable. Many in the march were asking the same question: why does it seem, five years later, we are calling for the same solutions we were calling for five days after Katrina? The answer is because Big Oil has continues business as usual, and it’s booming. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a most sobering example of what climate change can produce, Big Oil has only increased their record profits and decreased renewable energy investments (or in BP’s case stops it all together).
When speaking to marchers, protesters, and business folks passing by on their lunch break about big oil’s responsibilities’ in the Gulf -and around the world- two climate culprits came up more than any other, Chevron and BP. People weren’t surprised that Chevron was the largest off-shore leaseholder in the Gulf and folks certainly knew of BP’s oil spill. People knew who is responsible, and they wanted to hold them accountable, But they struggled with how.
Standing in front of Chevron’s office, Rainforest Action Network deployed a die-in oil spill at the entrance while people spoke to Chevron’s ill preparedness for hurricane force winds in one of the most hurricane-prone areas in the United States. One million gallons of crude spilled from Chevron’s rigs into the Gulf of Mexico after Katrina simply because Chevron was not properly prepared. Chevron’s inability to be prepared does not stem from incompetence it stems from audacity; the audacity that they are untouchable, they are too big to fail (lets remember their profits dwarf those of the banks) and they revel in their mandate to make the largest profit at any cost.
This is the mode of operation for Big Oil and Chevron alike. Chevron has a history of cutting corners at the cost of communities. Most notably is Chevron’s $27 billion lawsuit in Ecuador for leaving 900+ unlined open crude pits and over 17 billion gallons of toxic waste-water in Amazon communities. Chevron’s cutting corners has paid huge dividends to the corporation. Chevron has -like most of Big Oil- racked $64 million dollars A DAY since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. These profit lines would be impossible if they were not cutting corners. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Big Oil’s corner cutting comes with real cost, people’s lives.
Rev. Kenneth Davis, a long time civil rights leader whom marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma, embodied that message today outside Chevron’s offices.
“While Chevron is making their profits, my community is making funeral arrangements”
Rev Davis and his Richmond CA community have been fighting a Chevron refinery expansion for years. In a county with one of Chevron’s biggest refineries and home some of California’s highest asthma rates this community has said enough, and they are winning.
Richmond shows this fight winnable. We can and must hold Big Oil accountable and in doing so we must transition away from dirty energy. A notion once thought idealist is now essential. We must be as audacious as the Big Oil companies like Chevron and BP. The audacity we see in Big Oil operations must be the same audacity we must use to take on big oil. Today I saw that audaciousness at the BP offices in San Francisco.
The chants in the streets hit a fever pitch as we marched up to BP’s offices. At this point the march has swelled to well over 150 people. Mobilization for Climate Justice, the days coordinating group, began to read aloud the demands of BP in the wake of their oil disaster. Met with only silence from BP officials, protestors began to occupy one of the busiest intersections in San Francisco and the entrance to BP’s offices. What was taking place was largest direct action to date against BP in the US since the Gulf Spill. These people, some risking arrest for the first time, were realizing the need for action. The need for direct action against Big Oil, because five years after Katrina we are witnessing the same Big Oil as five days after Katrina. Nothing has changed.
In all 15 people were arrested outside BP. In the past months we have seen shrimpers confront executives in congressional hearings, we’ve seen community members block shareholders meetings, we even watched as every BP gas Station in London was shut down in protest. People are fed up with Big Oil and scared with our government’s inaction on climate change. That anger and fear is now turning to action.
Will people begin to take more action against Big Oil as global events like 10/10/10, and the UN climate negotiations begin to inch closer? Absolutely. However, today people were resolute that we have to have the audacity to hold Big Oil accountable any day, every day, because Big Oil will not take a day off of having the audacity to profit at the cost of our health and our climate.
