Emergildo Criollo attempted to deliver letters to Chevron CEO John Watson on March 2nd 2010.

Exposed: Chevron’s Cover-up of Gross Environmental Abuses in Ecuador

We need to save what is left of the rainforests and replenish what has been lost.   Can people do this in time to prevent runaway climate change?  An area the size of Greece has been cleared away already in the Amazon. This can’t continue. And the Amazon has additional problems.  Industrial wastewater is being dumped into the Amazon and there is a lot of contamination from oil drilling and spills and open oil pits.  It never fails to amaze me what people will do to the environment all in the name of making some money.

Alternet — Chevron claims it’s not responsible for dumping 18 billion gallons of industrial wastewater into the Amazon. A local leader says otherwise. A recent lawsuit has been brought by Ecuadorian indigenous groups against the U.S. oil giant, Chevron, for environmental destruction it allegedly wrought as Texaco in the Amazon rainforest of eastern Ecuador. The suit asks Chevron (which acquired Texaco in 2001) to pay for the environmental cleanup of an area three times the size of Manhattan, pocked with open oil pits and steeped in 18 billion gallons of dumped industrial wastewater. The damages in the case — calculated by a court-appointed expert at a record $27 billion — would also establish a health fund to pay for the estimated 1,400 cases of cancer caused by the pollution — a number that will likely continue to grow until the site is cleaned up. The rest of the damages fall into the catchall category, “compensation.”

The rainforests need more respect and protection than turning them over to the highest fossil fuel bidder.  They are the lungs of the planet, along with the oceans (something else human CO2 emissions are gravely harming).   The Rainforest Action Network gives us the story of Emergildo Criollo, the Indigenous leader from Ecuador.  From RAN’s story.

Criollo met with California legislators and asked for their support in the 16+ year campaign to demand Chevron remediate massive oil contamination affecting over 30,000 people. Along with supporters from Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network, Criollo spoke with lawmakers about the impact of California’s largest company in Ecuador, and what they can do to support his community’s call for environmental cleanup and action to prevent such tragedies in the future. . . . .

. . . .  At the reception, Criollo shared his story. He told the lawmakers about how he was only 6 years old when Chevron (then Texaco) began oil drilling in his community. He spoke of how his family was forced to relocate because of the contamination. About he had to part centimeters of oil off of the river to drink the water. About how he has lost two sons and nursed a wife through uterine cancer because of the contamination. His family drank, bathed, and fished in water that was poisoned [...]