Greenwash or Hogwash? "We Agree" That Chevron's New Ads Are Both

You may remember Chevron's "People Do" ad campaign from awhile back, in which the oil giant tried to convince us that environmental concerns were at the top of its agenda—even as it polluted the air, soil and water.

Well, it looks like they're up to their old tricks.

On Monday, the company launched a new ad telling us they "think renewable energy's vital to our planet."

It's part of a series of TV spots intended to "to identify issues that people have with oil companies and find issues where we can have common ground," Chevron spokesman Morgan Crinklaw told Reuters. The slogan for the campaign is "We agree."

"We're investing millions in solar and biofuel technologies," says the ad on renewable energy.

Millions on renewables? Sounds like a lot, until you know what Chevron's profit was for the three months ended June 30: $15.9 billion. In three months.

Here's what else Chevron has been up to in recent years:

* In Ecuador, the company (operating as Texaco, which it later absorbed) dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest. According to Rainforest Action Network, "Local people have since suffered a wave of birth defects, illness, cancers, and death. Tens of thousands of community members have had their water supply poisoned." The company is fighting tooth-and-nail in the courts to avoid paying for the damages.

* In California, Chevron spent $4.1 million lobbying legislators to change regulations so it can refine a dirtier grade of oil at its facility in Richmond without conducting any environmental review on what the change would mean for the community surrounding it. (It's a poor, heavily minority community, natch.)

* In Washington, it spends millions each year lobbying Congress to make sure we don't get a cap-and-trade bill, or anything else that might harm their profit margins.

* In the Arctic, it wants to drill for oil even though knowing such operations would be risky and hard to clean up.

* It's also one of the chief sources of funding for disinformation about the causes of global warming.

Do you think the world's third-largest company can afford to spend more than around 1/1000th of its quarterly profits to develop renewable fuels?

Well then, we agree. Sign this petition to tell President Obama we need offshore wind, not offshore oil, and check out this spoof that environmental activists managed to pull yesterday, in response to Chevron's ad.

Photo credit: Screen grab of Chevron ad via YouTube

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