Global Policy Forum

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

So, what's up with the biggest of the big oil companies -- Exxon Corporation, BP Amoco and Royal Dutch Shell?

Last week, BP Amoco said that it was pulling out of a major lobbying effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. BP wants people to believe that the company is moving "beyond petroleum" -- BP -- get it? -- into the solar age.

Last month, ExxonMobil announced that it was donating $5 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in an effort to save the tiger. At a press conference announcing ExxonMobil's donation the Save the Tiger Fund, the company handed out cuddling little tiger beanie baby dolls for the kids. ExxonMobil wants people to believe that it cares about the natural world and all of its living creatures.

In May 2000, Royal Dutch Shell set up a $30 million foundation to push for sustainable energy and social investment projects around the world. Last week, the Shell Foundation announced that it was spending $3 million on a campaign to raise awareness on how the loss of Louisiana's wetlands will affect the state and to gain support for efforts to save coastal Louisiana. Shell has called on environmentalist Amory Lovins to do an energy audit of one of its petrochemical facilities in Denmark. Shell also has pledged $7 million to the World Resources Institute here in Washington, D.C. to find environmentally sound solutions to the problems of urban transport. And earlier this year, Shell donated $3.5 million to form the "Shell Center for Sustainability" at Rice University.

Now, of course these are good deeds. But why are the oil companies doing this?

Are they doing it because they want to move us away from this fossil fuel economy that is destroying the environment? Are they doing it because they actually want to move us to a solar energy economy? Or are they doing it to greenwash their image and buy silence from their environmental critics? Are they doing it to cover up their past history of oil spills, workers injured and killed on the job, and the spewing of cancer-causing pollutants into the environment?

It was John D. Rockefeller, the turn of the century millionaire, who gave out dimes to children. Why did Rockefeller give out dimes to children? To buy silence and good will. Similarly, the oil companies today are giving millions to environmental groups and activists to buy silence and good will.

Now comes Jack Doyle, who has just completed a remarkable corporate history of Shell titled Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell & the Fossil Fire. The book is published by the Boston-based Environmental Health Fund and is also available on-line on www.shellfacts.org. In documenting hundreds of cases of human rights abuses, oil pollution, worker injuries and deaths, and the manufacture of cancer-causing chemicals, Doyle makes the point that Shell and the big oil companies have a lot to hide. And yet, despite all the rhetoric of moving "beyond petroleum," they continue to secure long term contracts that tie them to the fossil fuel economy, with all of its geopolitical hazards, all of its human rights abuses, and environmental destruction.

Doyle makes the point that while Shell is spending millions of dollars to create the impression that it is a socially and environmentally responsible oil company, the world's second largest oil company remains one of the world's biggest environmental violators. For example, the new Shell refuses to clean up what is now the worlds' largest urban underground oil spill in Durban, South Africa, where more than one million liters of oil have been dumped so far, Doyle reports. The book documents a concerted campaign by Shell to halt critical government reports, rewrite history and cover-up its misdeeds.

Since Shell's alleged involvement in the execution of their highest profile critic, Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria, the company has claimed to adopt a new set of principles aimed at reforming their internal practices and re-making their image. "Despite an ongoing civil trial in New York on Shell's alleged role in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and other activists, Shell has the temerity to advertise itself as a new company committed to human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development," Doyle said. "There is ample reason to be skeptical about this manufactured image, which is wildly at odds with the facts."

Don't believe the hype. Put aside the cute little web sites and beany baby tigers.

There's nothing new about new Shell, Exxon, and BP. They are bought into the fossil fuel economy.

We need to get out.

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