I think you can let people decide the narrative for themselves. The stakes were high on both sides, along with the motivation to distort the outcome, but also this was a time long before PR-blowback was even a consideration by big oil. It seems foolish to think that Chevron put the resources into mitigating environmental damage in some poor country for their oil projects in the 70s/80s. They only factor this in now because of the PR and local political implications.
>It seems foolish to think that Chevron put the resources into mitigating environmental damage in some poor country for their oil projects in the 70s/80s.
No one is claiming they did as I'm reading it. They did however pay $40 million to fix some damage in 1995 and were granted indemnity by the Ecuador government in return. Other environmental damage was found but it likely happened after Chevron was no longer involved in the project. Together that means they're off the hook legally.
> Other environmental damage was found but it likely happened after Chevron was no longer involved in the project
If you're referring to the findings in the case of Chevron vs Donziger[0], Donziger claims that Chevron and the judge colluded. The claim is likely difficult to prove, but when you consider the billions at stake, Chevron have a strong motivation here to dissuade future activist work.
> They did however pay $40 million to fix some damage in 1995 and were granted indemnity by the Ecuador government in return.
Yes, but did that remediation include the the extensive damage to surrounding forests? And the poisoning of 100s/1000s of indigenous people? Cancers, malformed children, ruined water supply, etc.? The class action of the people impacted was warranted, if you've taken the time to look at some of the video. It could be that domestically based or other companies are partly responsible though.
Edit: Attracting inexplicable downvotes on my threads here, including this one which was basically asking for a source. Not sure why someone would downvote a comment like that unless they don't want people to dig deeper.
You provided the source in your comment here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26616258
I think you can let people decide the narrative for themselves. The stakes were high on both sides, along with the motivation to distort the outcome, but also this was a time long before PR-blowback was even a consideration by big oil. It seems foolish to think that Chevron put the resources into mitigating environmental damage in some poor country for their oil projects in the 70s/80s. They only factor this in now because of the PR and local political implications.