Megazwendel onder groene dekmantel
'Big Green' versus 'Big Oil'.
Onder de titel, 'Chevron vs Big Green: Capitalism Finally Grows a Pair', schreef James Delingpole, die thans voor Breitbart werkt:
This week the environmental movement suffered its biggest defeat since Climategate. And at the hands of its most hated enemy: Big Oil.
Here are the reasons why the court ruling by a US federal judge that Chevron should not have to pay $9.5 billion in damages to victims of oil pollution in Ecuador is a victory for common sense and justice which we should all be celebrating.
It's not about David v Goliath.
Though, of course, that's how it was spun by the left-liberal media: on the one hand, plucky maverick New York lawyer Steven Donziger, representing thousands of Ecuadorean natives whose forest lands had been polluted; on the other, the oil giant Chevron, America's third largest company.
But if anyone was being bullied here, it was Chevron. As Donziger well knew, it is almost impossible for an oil company to get a fair hearing in a world brainwashed by environmentalist propaganda. Chevron knew this too. It could have settled for much less out of court - and most oil companies in its position probably would have done. However, Chevron's chief executive John S Watson took the bold and principled decision to fight it all the way.
Chevron had done nothing wrong. No really.
The damage was done in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties in the Oriente region of Ecuador by Texaco and the national oil company Petroecuador.
Texaco later reached a settlement with the Ecuadorian government whereby it paid $40 million to clear up the 37 per cent of oil damage for which it accepted responsibility; the rest were assumed to be the responsibility of the Ecuador national oil company (which didn't clear up its share).
Chevron has never drilled in Ecuador. But when a Chevron subsidiary absorbed Texaco in 2001 it became a target for environmentalists who still held Texaco partly responsible for the remaining pollution.
The case against Chevron was rigged.
In 2011, an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay $19 billion in damages to the native people allegedly poisoned by oil spills. This was subsequently reduced by the Ecuadorian National Court of Justice to $9.5 billion. Chevron appealed on the grounds that the case was fraudulent - extortion of "greenmail" masquerading as concern for the environment. This has now been confirmed by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a 500-page ruling.
Read the ruling: it's great entertainment!
Vervolgens legt James Delingpole omstandig uit hoe de vork in de steel zat. Hij concludeert:
The reason this case is so important is because it very nearly didn't happen. Though environmental activists like Michael Mann, James Hansen and Al Gore often like to claim that their enemies are in the pay of Big Oil, the truth is the exact opposite.
Few corporate entities pump quite so much money into environmental causes as the Big Oil companies - Shell sponsored the Guardian's environment pages; BP invested heavily in renewables as part of its Beyond Petroleum rebranding under the card-carrying greenie CEO Lord Browne - because for years they have been running scared of the green movement, because they're big enough to wear the additional costs of green regulation and because it suits them to "greenwash" their image.
What none of them seems to have learned is that when you pay Danegeld to your natural enemy it only makes him greedy for more of the same.
This is why we should all be applauding the decision by Chevron's CEO John S Watson (no relation of Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson, it seems likely) to fight this case. It represents a victory not just for the Chevron shareholder, but for all those who believe in the capitalist system and are sick and tired the way so rarely it seems prepared to grow a pair and stand up for itself.
For too long it has been held hostage by a minority of hard left, deep green activists whose anti-capitalist agenda has been given a veneer of respectability by the intervention of high end law firms, glossy environmental consultancies, Hollywood campaigners, "caring" grassroots pressure groups, expert scientific witnesses, "independent" moviemakers and sympathetic mainstream media coverage.
It happens all the time, all around the world, and usually they get away with it. This time they didn't. The good guys fought back - and won.
Lees verder hier.
Een leerzaam stukje! Er zijn altijd weer gewetenloze lieden die een slaatje proberen te slaan uit de groengelovigheid van mensen.
Voor mijn eerdere DDSbijdragen zie hier.
