When gas prices rose above $2 earlier this year, most of us complained. Many believed they were being ripped off, that the oil companies behind all this weren't telling them something. When some gas stations charged outrageous prices as high as $4, it was easy to see they were taking advantage of us. But these minor price hikes pale in comparison to the full spectrum of disgraceful actions taken by the worldwide oil industry.
As we drive our cars today, oil giants such as Shell, Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco pursue criminal business policies around the world of which few of us are aware. The oil industry engages in such immoral policies as collaborating with corrupt governments and polluting the environment. But the industry unanimously denies its shady practices, and no first-world government has stepped up to confront the issue.
Local Nigerians have watched for decades as oil production polluted their natural environment. The ecological destruction due to these activities is mind-boggling. In 1999, A Human Rights Watch report titled "The Price of Oil" declared, "approximately 2,300 cubic meters of oil are spilled in 300 separate incidents annually."
Another common practice by the oil companies, gas flaring, routinely igniting mass quantities of oil, causes acid rain and expels greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
These practices eradicate the land, air and water supply, eventually killing all life around it, a condition experts have termed "omnicide." Yet, oil companies maintain that their operations in developing countries such as Nigeria are up to the highest environmental standards.
In the late '90s in Nigeria, Chevron-Texaco faced a popular uprising against its unpopular policies, and the nonviolent campaign "Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People" was formed to protest against the multinational oil companies. In response, Chevron directly supported violent attacks by the Nigerian military on protesters in areas near oil operations. Chevron-operated helicopters and speedboats were used multiple times as transport vehicles for the dictatorial government to suppress nonviolent protesters. People died so an oil company could make a profit.
Chevron isn't the only guilty party.
Oil Watch (www.oilwatch.org) has extensive reports on its website dedicated to the partnerships between militaries and oil industries around the world. In Indonesia, Texaco has collaborated with the genocidal Suharto regime for the last 30 years. TOTAL (of France) and Unocal are partners with a Burmese government, which forces its citizens to work in slave-like conditions. BP (British Petroleum) has been known to make payments to the Colombian Ministry of Defense. The examples go on and on, but the ethical issues are quite apparent.
The oil industry is one of the most important industries in the global economy. Industrialized nations like the United States consume massive quantities of oil. It is probably the most important fossil fuel. But the oil industry is probably also the most glaring example of business ethics giving way to profit motives in modern capitalistic economies.
Oil is dominated by an oligopoly of mega-merger companies, and the big-name players often have been accused of price fixing. Human rights violations long have been a dirty secret of the industry. And recently, oil corporations have been hit by a bribery scandal involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. As the May issue of The Economist put succinctly, "oil and ethics mix about as well as oil and water."
In the face of so much controversy, "Big Oil" executives habitually have engaged in a campaign of disinformation and public denial, much like the tobacco industry a few years ago. Bill Walker, vice president of the Environmental Working Group, describes on AlterNet (www.alternet.org) how the industry has attacked safety studies and withheld information from regulators. Internal memos warning of safety hazards were ignored deliberately.
Change won't occur through politicians; the current government seems to be in bed with Big Oil. But hopefully, reforms will occur in the industry as pressure from third-party groups and grassroots movements grow.
We should be able to purchase a gallon of gasoline under $2, but we should also expect that the gasoline wasn't brought to us through immoral and senseless means.
Ishtiaque Masud is an economics junior. You can reach him at ishtiaque.masud@asu.edu.
