I Will Use Less...Chevron Oil

Posted by Timna Zemel (DRN Intern)

Despite Chevron's best efforts at convincing us it's an environmentally progressive company, I am convinced it's an ecological predator in green guise. “Yes, we produce, refine, manufacture, and sell oil, but we’re actually just tapping the power of human energy,” is Chevron’s slogan. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but billboards displaying sentences such as, “I will leave the car at home,” and “I will use less energy,” make a passerby wonder whether they just saw an advertisement for Chevron or the Sierra Club.

So I was pleased to read in Reuters this past week that while Chevron may have succeeded in fooling countless American consumers, they have not succeeded in hoodwinking a California state judge. On Thursday the judge “ordered Chevron Corp. to halt a $1 billion project aimed at expanding the types of crude oils its San Francisco Bay-area refinery in Richmond, California, can process.” As it turns out, Chevron’s plants do cause immensely significant environmental damage! Who would have thought, that the hydrogen plants that Chevron claims as an “alternative” energy source in its commercials actually do not abate pollution at all, but just allow the oil refineries to run cheaper, heavier grades of crude oil that “reduce costs and increase profits”?

I only hope that the actual news gets more publicity than Chevron’s advertising campaign, and that the average consumer takes the time to read an article instead of just another “I will …” sentence.