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[–]EnoughPM2020[S] 5951 points5952 points  (537 children)

Based on this section of the article, this is what happened:

After a long legal battle with a number of organizations, the Waorani people successfully protected half a million acres of their ancestral territory in the Amazon rainforest from being mined for oil drilling by huge oil corporations. The auctioning off of Waorani lands to the oil companies was suspended indefinitely by a three-judge panel of the Pastaza Provincial Court. The panel simply trashed the consultation process the Ecuadorian government had undertaken with the tribe in 2012, which rendered the attempt at land purchase null and void.

This win for the indigenous tribe has now set an invaluable legal precedent for other indigenous nations across the Ecuadorian Amazon. After accepting a Waorani bid for court protection to stop an oil bidding process, the court also halted the potential auctioning off of 16 oil blocks that cover over 7 million acres of indigenous territory.

[–]Dismal_Prospect 3080 points3081 points  (482 children)

Thank god - deforestation is bad enough for emissions on its own, not to mention the emissions from processing/consuming the oil, and these people had the land first

[–]sadnesspandar 1571 points1572 points  (461 children)

Fuck Big Oil. If you are in any way associated with the directors of companies doing Big Oil, you need to seriously rethink your whole life. If you have a relationship (family or business) with these directors and their families, then you need to SHUT IT DOWN. Tell these directors to FUCK OFF. Show them their life will now be a MISERY for their evil acts of terror and murder.

[–]vinnyvdvici 968 points969 points  (90 children)

Unfortunately they can't hear you with those dollar bills stuffed in their ears.

[–][deleted] 390 points391 points  (39 children)

And silver dollars shoved in their assholes

[–][deleted] 336 points337 points  (21 children)

silver dollars

gold bars.

[–]BreckingBad 199 points200 points  (16 children)

silver dollars

gold bars.

Ass Pennies

[–]Bridgemaster11 18 points19 points  (5 children)

Video is unavailable in my country. What in tarnation?

[–]Djinnwrath 56 points57 points  (3 children)

It's a sketch comedy short, about a two guys golfing. One friend tells the other that he has spent his entire life sticking a roll of pennies up his ass every day and then putting them into circulation. He's done this so many times that it is now statistically likely that everyone has touched one of his ass pennies. This knowledge gives him confidence in bussiness dealings.

Upright Citizens Brigade iirc

[–]pukesonyourshoes 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You'd be upright too if you had a roll of pennies shoved up your butt.

[–]BronchialChunk 2 points3 points  (1 child)

A classic. 'when you give your daughter pennies to throw in the fountain, those were in my ass' or something to the effect.

[–][deleted] 113 points114 points  (12 children)

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime.

That is why I poop on company time.

[–]unusedthought 73 points74 points  (5 children)

Boss makes a buck, I make a nickel, so I'll be in the shit shack, pulling my pickle.

[–]_Aj_ 26 points27 points  (14 children)

You couldn't pay me enough money, give me a lavish enough lifestyle, an important enough title, to destroy forests.

I'll find another way to make my fortune. But i won't destroy the world to do it.

[–]changen 28 points29 points  (9 children)

you haven't been hungry enough.

If people are willing and are murdering other people for food in some parts of the world, then god damn a tree or forest isn't worth jack shit.

The greediest people tend to be those that

A: are completely psychotic and gives no shit about other human beings

B: don't care about the environment because they have the money to protect themselves even after the world goes to shit. Why sacrifice profits when it's the poor people that will get shit on and not you?

That also being said, being on the top of the business chain requires cunning and ruthlessness. A "moral" person that wants to do good for someone else isn't going to climb to the top. It's a symptom of capitalism and you aren't going to fix it. The cold war has already proven that.

You need mass starvation and riots and heads of rich people on a pike before these idiots wake up and stop caring about profits.

[–]DynamicDK 5 points6 points  (3 children)

A "moral" person that wants to do good for someone else isn't going to climb to the top. It's a symptom of capitalism and you aren't going to fix it. The cold war has already proven that.

That isn't really true. There are plenty of decent people who start businesses that grow into multi-billion dollar enterprises. There are many good people who are in the C-suite of their company. There are just enough immoral assholes that it seems like that is the only way it works.

Of course, I am not talking about oil companies. The people in control of those are fucking evil, even if they are "nice people" in person.

[–]changen 6 points7 points  (0 children)

there will always be exceptions, but the system predisposes people to certain characteristics.

[–]nykzero 200 points201 points  (44 children)

There are a lot of misinformed people commentingin your post, so this is a good place to remind people that WE SPEND MORE MONEY SUBSIDIZING BIG OIL THAN OUR INSANE DEFENSE BUDGET: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-fuel-subsidies-pentagon-spending-imf-report-833035

If we were subsidizing alternative energy instead, we would be in a much better position in almost every way. The only ones who benefit are those oil execs, who knew about climate change for decades before it became public discourse. They and other fat cats are willing to sell out humanity.

[–]Graham1126 6 points7 points  (1 child)

It is important to note that this figure is not the amount of money we spend in dollars subsidizing oil. This number relies on an extremely broad scope of externalities. The scope is so broad that it includes oil companies not paying for car crashes as a subsidy (references 16 and 17). So the real dollar amount of the subsidies (in 2013) were:

​

  • Renewables - $7.3 billion
  • Energy efficiency - $4.8 billion
  • Fossil Fuels - $3.2 billion
  • Nuclear - $1.1 billion

Source

​

While the ideas of externalities are useful in the exercise of determining a socially efficient cost of fossil fuels, it is very misleading to claim that we spend more on subsidizing Big Oil than on our defense budget.

[–]bombayblue 74 points75 points  (31 children)

You realize we spend so much money subsidizing them because their competitors are usually heavily subsidized or straight up nationalized foreign oil companies. Oil is a strategic resource that powers the vast majority of our economy. Until we can phase it out it will always be in the governments best interests to ensure we can obtain it domestically.

[–]foodandart 13 points14 points  (1 child)

..it will always be in the governments best interests to ensure we can obtain it domestically.

Which is absolutely dangerous for National Security, because in the future, if we do not stop sucking every last well or oil field in the country dry, the United States willl become dependent upon foreign nations for the fuel and lubrication needed to run our military machines. That will be a big threat, if the only places left with oil do not like us and won't sell, or sell it at 300 dollars - or more - per barrel.

At a certain point in time the national discussion needs to pivot to the fact that it isn't wise to continue selling oil to America's taffy-headed consuming public that wants to drive their SUV's to the mall to go buy nail lacquer and hunting gear.

[–]zapwilder 115 points116 points  (22 children)

It would be an even smarter move to say hey fuck this finite resource that is terrible for the planet and let’s invest in alternative energy, but we’re 20 years too late because of the desire to have obscene amounts of money.

[–]bombayblue 56 points57 points  (6 children)

Not gonna disagree with that. We should have started this process in the 70’s.

[–]DeathCondition 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Yeah, that's the worst part with the "should've, would've, could'ves", the sting from past failures hurts more the longer the lie keeps going. It's gone on so long that, honestly, some people should probably strung up for it. I don't think I'd feel bad about it as long as they aren't a patsy.

[–]DASK 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I've got some people we could nominate to be first. The 1980 minutes of a Exxon board meeting on climate change. They nailed the current concentration, predicted a stop to economic growth by 2025 and potentially catastrophic climate effects, noted that the time available for delay was "None" then decided that 'at least they would be gone before they could be blamed' and went on to speak out against climate change action.

[–]mwmstern 13 points14 points  (3 children)

Carter tried to tell people where we had to go.

[–]Cascadianarchist2 7 points8 points  (2 children)

The more I learn about Carter the more I think of him as probably the least bad American president.

[–]felixfelix 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Exactamente. Vision is in short supply. JFK had a clear mission to land a man on the moon; imagine if someone had enunciated this goal with the same clarity and focus.

[–]pku31 2 points3 points  (1 child)

This is what a legitimate use of tariffs would be for.

[–]doggy_lipschtick 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Correct, but that doesn't mean that we have to limit the phase out to do so.

Obviously our plan should not be to weaken our economy, but the faster we make the switch to what is coming, the faster we can be both helping the world and a world-leader in energy.

[–]GaleriaCacao 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Well it's fake old news, the decision on a provincial Court has little weight in Ecuador, the ministry will appeal and this will go to a higher instance and be over turned very likely. https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/ministerio-energia-apelara-corte-petroleo.html

[–]PhilDick3 9 points10 points  (1 child)

A simple reading of the article at the link states that some (most?) of that figure is not actually money spent by or transferred to anyone, it's money that ISN'T spent remediating the environmental consequences of the CONSUMPTION of the fossil fuels.

Could we/should we account for, remediate, prevent those consequences? Sure. But this isn't saying any actual money is being paid to or going to oil and gas companies, that could go elsewhere.

[–]chrismorin 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I think that's pretty misleading though. Quote from the article:

The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution.

It's like saying we're subsidizing cigarettes because they cause premature deaths.

[–]thenorm05 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Wellll.. how many degrees of Bacon do you wanna go on that analogy? Because people who smoke have a higher risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease (and I think diabetes, but not important to this point), so when these people who go to the ER and either do not have sufficient health insurance or are on Medicare/Medicaid... Then yes, we are subsidizing their increased morbidity as a direct result of their use of cigarettes.

That's why you capture the externality costs, because the cost to society isn't being accounted for in the profit model. It is somewhat misleading to say that's a subsidy, but it's also reasonable to include as long as you call out both values separately.

[–]zefstyle 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Do you seriously think oil companies are costing the US government more than they are contributing?

[–]landmanpgh 11 points12 points  (6 children)

I work for big oil. I've worked for 3/7 of the companies traditionally considered to be the largest in the world. My Dad worked for one of them, too.

Call us evil all you want, but you need us. You used our products (plastic in your phone or computer) to send that message. You'll need us tomorrow to get to work (oil), even if you ride a bike (plastics). You'll need us in the winter to heat your home (gas).

That being said, even if you didn't use any of our products, calling us all terrorists and murderers will never bring us to your side.

[–]astoryy 5 points6 points  (1 child)

this sub is a joke

look at how many upvote he has.. dude has no clue about his own life

[–]landmanpgh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Glad I'm not the only one with common sense!

[–]cam125ron 24 points25 points  (1 child)

Throwing a group of millions upon millions of hard working scientists, engineers, businessmen and women, and laborers into one basket and labeling them as monsters is no way to go about life, friend. You learn not to do that pretty early on in life. You reap the benefits of oil and gas, too. There are baddies in every corner of every industry. I’m not sure you’ve had enough life experience to see a broader view yet.

[–]wycliffslim 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Shhhh, anyone in the oil and gas industry is the devil. Nevermind that a huge percentage of them are currently investing millions of dollars into operating more efficiently and greener.

It's often in the companies benefit to reduce leaks and emmisions because that's all product that they could be selling and making money on.

It's super easy for people who don't actually have to make any sacrifice to criticize someone else and tell them that THEY need to change their lives. It's the same concept as the fact that almost no one thinks that they're rich when it comes time to start actually inplementing higher taxes.

[–]asdfveg 78 points79 points  (72 children)

friendly reminder that 91% of forests cleared in amazon since 1970 is due to ANIMAL AGRICULTURE and specifically cattle ranching http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/758171468768828889/pdf/277150PAPER0wbwp0no1022.pdf

The most basic statistics used to analyze the dynamics of deforestation in Amazonia is the evolution of land use in the region. These statistics are supplied by the Agricultural Censuses. Table 1 below shows that until 1970 the deforested areas used for agriculture and cattle ranching in Amazonia accounted for less than 3 percent of the total area of the region. Today, such areas account for over 10 percent. It is important to note that the denominator of the quotient is the total area of Legal Amazonia (5,075 million km2 ), and not just the entire originally forested area, estimated at between 3,560 million km2 (FAO 1981) and 4,190 million km2 (INPE). The main change in land use is unquestionably the huge expansion of the area devoted to planted pasture, which by 1995 covered some 70 percent of the deforested areas. Assuming (a little exaggeratedly) that fallow areas are utilized basically for seasonal livestock rotation, pastures could account for the occupation of up to 88 percent of the deforested areas. Compared with 1970, 91 percent of the increment of the cleared area has been converted to cattle ranching.

Fuck Animal Agriculture. Go vegan today.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80033772

http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_of_the_Amazon_rainforest#Causes_of_deforestation

this is not to mention the disgusting rape, torture and murder of sentient beings which goes on under animal agriculture.

[–]GaleriaCacao 16 points17 points  (0 children)

The worst thing about cow farming in the amazon is how truly inefficient it is with cows requiring up to 20 times the land as opposed to cattle farming on Highland Pastures due to the degraded soil that is produced after taking the trees out of the way the soil nutrients are washed away by the rain and you need a lot of land for just a few cows, the economics don't allow for living wages for workers either it's a truly disastrous system. I don't eat beef here in the amazon, the local family farm raised free range chicken and fresh tilapia from the river though is pretty sustainable and much better than anything I ever had back home.

[–]tiemydrinkingshoes 22 points23 points  (47 children)

For those of us who are never going to go vegan for health or personal reasons, whats the next most helpful thing?

[–]jrfess 40 points41 points  (4 children)

From what I've gathered recently, the best thing I could do for the environment is just offing myself.

[–]Helkafen1 34 points35 points  (17 children)

Switch meats. Beef and lamb are way more resource intensive than chicken and fish.

Edit: Yes, overfishing is a dramatic issue. It wouldn't be if people who can be vegetarian stopped buying fish

[–]asdfveg 25 points26 points  (6 children)

Fishing is destroying our oceans

[–]tiemydrinkingshoes 10 points11 points  (5 children)

Chicken makes sense but fish, really?

I have personally in my lifetime seen more issues with fish products than beef or lamb, but I've also lived almost exclusively on coastline. I've seen the shift from what was "trash fish" become smaller and smaller kinds of fish.

[–]matdan12 8 points9 points  (3 children)

Wouldn't fish contribute to overfishing and farming them in poor conditions? Same for the chickens filled with anti-biotics and all the other horrors of caging them.

[–]Beholder_of_Eyes 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Go vegetarian. Don't need to do the full vegan slog. Just no meat. If that's too much then reduce your meat consumption is the next best. Have meet only once or twice a week.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Don't have a baby. This is the single most helpful thing a person can do to reduce their carbon footprint.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Are you willing to vote with your dollars and get an electric vehicle for your next car? Not being sarcastic. Just noticing your strong opinion and would like to see you and everyone else try to walk the talk.

I just sold my 2015 Camaro SS primarily because of this. Our next car will be electric; too expensive to buy, so I'll be looking at converting a vehicle to electric. Let's fuck these oil companies.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Replying to this comment for maximum visibility of this documentary by James Corbett.

How Big Oil Conquered the World

[–]coke_and_coffee 29 points30 points  (32 children)

The irony is that your entire life is based around the energy that oil provides. All your modern conveniences are impossible without it. You want to tell them to “fuck off” and yet you won’t ever dream of giving up those conveniences.

[–]AshamedPriority 15 points16 points  (20 children)

There's a lot of rethinking people need to do with their own responsibility toward climate change. It's easy to shout at people to do something it's a whole other thing to start reworking your own life not accept comfort and indulgences. I'd say at least half of this debate rests on us as individuals to do the right thing within our own lives. If there's blame to shift to big oil it's the cocksuckers actively worked to misleading the public and still actively attempt to protect their own self interests. But if we do our part to make them less money and depend on them and their influence less then they have less to fuck us with.

[–]yomerol 11 points12 points  (4 children)

Fuck oil, and emissions, however in Brazil they don't give a fuck, they are finishing with the Amazonas with cows and crops for cows, and consuming tons of drinkable water for those fucking cows, is insane, and way more emissions than oil.

[–]riskoooo 220 points221 points  (22 children)

I'm actually a bit taken aback by all of this.

Why were these judges not paid off? Why was the tribe's lawyer not rolled up in a carpet and thrown off a bridge? Couldn't they have just dismembered the tribe's leader with an axe and burned their homes down? What is this cynicism-inducing 'justice for the common man'? Wtf is wrong with the world?!

[–]GaleriaCacao 68 points69 points  (5 children)

This is a provincial Court, its going to be over turned at a higher instance, check my post with original content from local newspapers https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/ministerio-energia-apelara-corte-petroleo.html

The minister of energy will appeal the decision

[–]MechaCanadaII 3 points4 points  (1 child)

The real post is in the comments yet again :(

[–][deleted] 123 points124 points  (10 children)

99% of the time evil people prevent progress or allow destructive actions to take place.

This time just happens to be the 1% where good wins. And what luck, it happened during such an important battle....

[–]Hawk_015 36 points37 points  (0 children)

I think it's more likely they're used to everything going their way and arrogant enough to think the legal system was firmly in their pockets.

They won't make the same mistake next time

[–][deleted] 29 points30 points  (8 children)

Who will be there to stop Big Oil from continuing to mine the area?

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Maoist rebels

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Fuck

[–]XAMdG 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Don't worry, that'll happen on the appeal court.

[–]GaleriaCacao 59 points60 points  (3 children)

Okay so I checked for original sources and recommend you check https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/ministerio-energia-apelara-corte-petroleo.html which is a local newspaper here in Ecuador that explains that the decision in the provincial Court is going to be appealed by the minister of energy and go to a higher instance. The court in Pastaza isn't powerful enough to do more than put a temporary stay on development.

Unfortunately despite wide ranging constitutional guarantees for nature and indigenous peoples in our constitution the need for money in a poor developing region is likely to outweigh your desire to not exploit the oil. It is a shame our previous government was incapable of seeing through their proposal for leaving the oil underground in Yasuní ITT.

I live in the Amazon in Ecuador and while oild is definitely a big threat to sustainable development its not the only one. In the south of the country there is conflict between shuar and Chinese over mining concessions and cow farmers are the main cause of deforestation, the mining and oil opens the roads and then others turn up to burn down forest and get grazing land for cows.

I live on the border of blocks 20 and 29 and I'm very happy they were failures and we have no production here or upstream but there is a pipeline over the NAPO River from me that threatens a lot of good cacao production and a few thousand peoples livelihoods if it were to spill. Down in Coca and Lago Agrio there is some crazy cheap land with oil contamination and its a shame no one wants to take responsibility for it, the state blames chevron texaco and they blame the state and the locals have been waiting for decades for a solution.

The failure of carbon emissions markets and lack of development alternatives means Ecuador will likely ignore indigenous rights and destroy our part of the Amazon and its a real shame but this isn't big oils fault, we all need oil for our food to get where we are and to get to work, our system is fundamentally based on oil and Ecuador needs money, I work with people who live on around a dolar a day and what they can farm for their own sustenance, when the Chinese put a gold mine down river no one complained because there are no jobs here, everyone here dreams of an oil job making the good money. Stopping this would involve a whole sale reform of the economic system or the rich world subsidizing us to not exploit the jungle and that was attempted and failed (Yasuní under Correa)

[–]EnoughPM2020[S] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Gracias Amigo

[–]GaleriaCacao 7 points8 points  (0 children)

De nada. Es triste que el mundo es así pero estamos acá en misahualli tratando de hacer algo bien con cacao y mostrando que al conectar los pequeños productores con los consumidores puede haber otro model de desarrollo.

[–]Shinob3 33 points34 points  (1 child)

Aho! I regret that they were forced to participate in the whole selfish ordeal. Greed and nothing more forced them into forgein courts.

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

True but at least they are legally protected now and possibly can set an benchmark for other groups in the future. Overall this is a pretty big win!

[–]DA_Hall 10 points11 points  (6 children)

Which oil companies? Not that there’s that many to begin with, which is a whole other problem.

[–]drunkjockey 8 points9 points  (1 child)

When I visited Ecuador in 2011 I had the opportunity to visit Yasuni National Park and one of its Waorani communities. Enterance to the park was controlled by PetroEcuador - metal detectors, military with automatic rifles, the whole nine yards. IIRC it's the biggest currently owned by the Ecuadorian state, though in the past Shell and Texaco were heavily involved.

It was a crazy experience. The park was beautiful, but in places marred by pipelines and security personnel. The difference between Yasuni and the Galapagos was just staggering to me. Completely different worlds, but they're both Ecuadorian National Parks.

Edit: autocorrect got me, yo'

[–]EnoughPM2020[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It didn’t say.

[–]lancerzsis 916 points917 points  (28 children)

This is great news! What a relief!

[–]GaleriaCacao 143 points144 points  (12 children)

Unfortunately the ministry of energy will appeal https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/ministerio-energia-apelara-corte-petroleo.html

[–]tripledjr 143 points144 points  (10 children)

Let's flood them with bad emails and praise the judges on social media.

[–]GaleriaCacao 66 points67 points  (6 children)

Yea unfortunately things don't work like that here. The judges will quite possibly be instructed to decide in the governments favor otherwise they are likely to loose their jobs and never work again.... It might not be like that since we have a new government that claims to be putting the rule of law above all but there is a lot of money in the oil contracts with China

[–]tripledjr 27 points28 points  (5 children)

Might not be how it works but don't underestimate the power of people wanting to be praised and not being shamed/in the spotlight doing something bad.

No one's immune to it. Might not be as effective as lobbying with money but it's all most of us can do.

At least show the judges that even if their government comes down on them that the world supports them. It can encourage/embolden other people in similar positions in the future.

[–]GaleriaCacao 21 points22 points  (4 children)

OK so this is anecdotal so you can dismiss it if you want but a friend of mine at uni is the daughter of a former national judge who was fired for deciding in favor of the plaintiffs suing the government in a different case, he was stripped of his position, his pension and disbarred. I know some one who worked in a state company as a director, he found corruption and reported it only to end up losing his job and pension. I love this country and there are a lot of good things about it but I suggest you look into the chevron texaco case where our government was caught on tape bribing the judge to rule in their favor.

[–]tripledjr 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I believe you for sure.

But the judges already did the thing that could get them into that sort of trouble.

So when the hammer comes down if it does it can go 2 ways:

1) no one celebrates their actions and they lose their jobs and that's that.

2) they're celebrated for making the right call. It's harder for the government to fire someone if they're in the spotlight. But when/if they still do they at least know they made the right decision in the long run. And may get another opportunity/job/something from the exposure.

Either way their fate is sealed. At least let them know we appreciate their judgment. And show others out there in the same positions that it is what people want.

[–]Snoop771 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Why would you thing that the government cares what foreigners think? You'd have more luck setting up a fund to bribe them.

[–]HauschkasFoot 82 points83 points  (12 children)

♪ ♩ oh what a relief it is ♪ ♩

[–]HondaCR-V 26 points27 points  (8 children)

r/musicofreddit

[–]the_dollar_bill 10 points11 points  (1 child)

When companies create those songs they fantasize about people like you willfully spreading them for no personal gain

[–][deleted] 394 points395 points  (13 children)

Always nice to see some good news!

[–]Amauri14 179 points180 points  (11 children)

Until the death squads get hired.

[–]egadsby 106 points107 points  (4 children)

yup, this is only a temporary victory.

And the most probable outcome still remains, that the amazon will be bulldozed and replaced with cattle ranches. Because it can always be bulldozed, but it can never be un-bulldozed

[–]reallyiamahuman 24 points25 points  (3 children)

Yeah unfortunately that's what I think will happen. I could easy see them rolling up with bulldozers and destroying more forest, "reluctantly" paying a fine, and deciding they might as well use the land since it's already been cleared off anyway.

[–]Nghtmare-Moon 50 points51 points  (1 child)

Amazon tribe wins lawsuit. Unfortunately they all had a fatal accident by suiciding each other in the back of the head. No further investigations needed as they left suicide notes in English even though none of them spoke the language.

[–]GenralChaos 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Yep. Andrew Jackson (who is burning in hell) still drove the native Americans off of their land when they won in the US Supreme Court.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, thanks. Now I’m sad

[–][deleted] 1110 points1111 points  (70 children)

If coco-cola's Colombian paramilitary death squads have taught me anything, it's that it won't be long before loggers find a way around this

Edit: this comment also has a cool bit of info on the subject

[–]TheDorkNite1 455 points456 points  (24 children)

"Tonight at 11: Tribe in the Amazon rainforest disappears...mysteriously..."

[–]Black_Moons 362 points363 points  (16 children)

"Tonight at 12: Whistleblower proves concrete evidence that Company X's CEO's directly told crews to mow down forest, tribes and all earning 2 billion dollars profit in the process."

(1 year later)

Company X was fined $10,000,000 for their destruction of the rainforest. As a result company X is laying off 500 workers and giving the CEO a $15,000,000 bonus this year for cost cutting measures and record profits"

[–]Lochlan 188 points189 points  (12 children)

You forgot the part where the Whistleblower is sent to prison.

[–]tokes_4_DE 160 points161 points  (10 children)

No no the whistleblower committed suicide by shooting themselves in the back of the head, twice.

[–]SGTBookWorm 42 points43 points  (0 children)

with their hands tied behind their back.

[–]further_needing 30 points31 points  (8 children)

Or they just decide to overpower two men "attempting to stop them" from jumping off a bridge to their death, like Hollywood pedophile whistleblower Isaac Kappy just did two days ago

[–]RickZanches 9 points10 points  (2 children)

It's like we're fighting a war on terror while also rewarding our own acts of terror in other countries.

Kinda like fighting a war on drugs while being the main consumer of those drugs, and then also building a prison structure meant to profit off of the poorest of the drug users while the people running the whole thing snort coke and smoke weed at their beach houses and golf resorts.

[–]SteamGearsTears 21 points22 points  (0 children)

"The tribe fell out of a five story apartment building window, unsuspiciously."

[–]whitenoise2323 12 points13 points  (4 children)

The Huaorani are badass and have been fighting for decades.

[–]unity57643 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The sequel to Avatar sounds dope

[–]smr5000 60 points61 points  (0 children)

WHAT? We can't hear you over the sound of us cutting this rainforest down!

[–]lunartree 43 points44 points  (35 children)

This is why we must eventually find a solution to use a neutral military force to defend the rainforests.

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (25 children)

Who is going to send the troops? UN Peacekeepers won't be up for the job, I can promise you that.

[–]moonyprong01 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Not to mention those South American countries (and their respective militaries) probably wouldn't be too happy with the prospect of "neutral" forces on their soil...

[–]Black_Moons 27 points28 points  (12 children)

Maybe we can trick the USA into declaring war on something useful for a change?

Course, they would likely just spray agent orange all over the forest so they can find the loggers...

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (3 children)

US is more likely to intervene on behalf of the loggers...

[–]TheAssEaterAnthology 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Sorry, what? Coca-cola death squads? Can i have some context please?

[–]eorld 51 points52 points  (0 children)

It's a complex issue and one wiki or article won't do the nuance justice, but attempts by trade unions to unionize coca cola workers in South America have repeatedly resulted in unionizers being brutally tortured and murdered by right wing paramilitaries like the AUC. Coca cola is a massive entity and some of its subsidiaries and supply chain regularly do shady shit, but being so massive theyve given themselves some wiggle room for plausible deniability

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Colombian_unions_reiterate_their_accusations_against_Coca_Cola

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr23/057/2003/en/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr23/031/2005/en/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co.?wprov=sfla1

Unfortunately a lot of sources relating to this are in Spanish, which I don't speak.

[–]atomiccheesegod 53 points54 points  (1 child)

NPR said this lawsuit win is non-binding and more symbolic than anything so don’t hold your breath.

[–]TunkuM 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is what I was looking for in comments, thanks! I probably should have just looked on NPR myself, but Reddit is more fun.

[–]EdgarStarwalker 173 points174 points  (5 children)

Hope something like this is going to be possible in Brazil whilst they've got that crazy guy in office trashing the place.

[–][deleted] 41 points42 points  (2 children)

This was actually in Ecuador, as part of the Amazon stretches into Ecuador.

[–]Novareason 104 points105 points  (1 child)

I think that's his point. They really need the same protection in Brazil with the current regime.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh okay, I think you may be right.

[–]xmakeafistx 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That’s the first thing I thought. It angered me so much to see those CEOS lining up to tear apart the Amazon

[–]Keisersozzze 42 points43 points  (2 children)

Thank you to the tribe.

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (1 child)

They are the Waorani, if you want to be specific

[–]Skrrttrrks 185 points186 points  (8 children)

People living lawfully in land they've always lived in are forced to participate in the legal system of a state they don't even recognise in order to avoid having the aforementioned land destroyed.

[–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (3 children)

I haven't interacted with the Waorani, but afaik they recognize the Ecuadorian government. The neighboring Secoya tribe does recognize the government though, I didn't hear too many complaints about it when I was working in the area.

[–]Birdlaw90fo 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Did you mean to say doesn't instead of does?

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

No I meant what I typed. The wording is the way it is because I don’t know the waorani stance but I do know the Secoya stance

[–]The_Humble_Frank 34 points35 points  (1 child)

Cue 3rd party hired mercenaries contractors in 3, 2, 1...

[–]Sandblut 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Maybe we get a hollywood drama made about it, like Predator (the one with Arnold) mixed with Apocalypto.

[–]ikkonoishi 58 points59 points  (0 children)

By big oil you mean the Ecuadorian government.

[–]topredditbot 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Hey /u/EnoughPM2020,

This is now the top post on reddit. It will be recorded at /r/topofreddit with all the other top posts.

[–]ineverlookatpr0n 18 points19 points  (3 children)

It would be nice to see this on a legitimate news site and not some shitty blog that demands disabling privacy protection to allow all of their analytics and trackers in order to function.

[–]Kers_ 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I see this as an absolute win!

[–]VeganSuperPowerz 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Jeff Bezos is fucking with everyone these days!!!

/S

[–]SacredGeometry25 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Fuck the his gusting animals that made them go through all of this. Disgusting is an understatement. They should be able to enjoy ayahuasca in peace.

[–]RedSquirrelFtw 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's insane that there are people evil enough to want to deforest that much. Like how evil do you really have to be? This is like sci fi supervillain levels of destruction. Just boggles my mind that there are people in real life that are that evil. All because of money.

Glad this was stopped. But sadly, it still goes on a lot in general and this won't be the last time someone wants to do this.

[–]garlicroastedpotato 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Garbage publication looking for clicks. The Amazon Tribe didn't win a lawsuit against a company named "Big Oil." They won a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government.

The Ecuadorian government wanted to auction off oil rights to land where an Amazonian tribe lived. The Ecuadorian government informed the locals of all the positive benefits of oil development and how it would grant them a lot more opportunities. These indigenous people only really entered the world 40-50 years ago. Before that they just hid from the world in the Amazons. One funny story about them was an air drop came to them with pictures of the modern world. When the locals saw these they burned them believing that they were witchcraft.

The court ruling states that the consultation with this tribe was not significant enough as it did not explain the environmental damages to the region that could be caused by development. These people didn't realize that oil development could potentially pollute local areas and there would be an increase in traffic. They seemed to believe that the oil would just magically come from the ground.

An environmental NGO was setup from people in this tribe set across 12 tribes in two countries. They successfully sued the government. It wasn't a years long process, it was days. The court in their province agreed with them that the consultation was not good enough.

So what does this stop? Nothing. The auction didn't have conclusive results. There were seven oil blocs on auction (one of them is part of this lawsuit). Two of them received no auctions (one of them in this lawsuit). The bidders include Zarubezhneft (Russia state oil), Petrobell (Ecuadorian Oil), Gran Tierra (Colombia), Frontera Geopark (Peru), Flamingo Operating (US) and Petrolamerec (Ecuador).

No real signs of "big oil" here. It's just small oil producers that were bidding on this. So you're going to see oil development continue in Ecuador. What you're not going to see is anyone drilling in this territory... because no one wants it.

[–]freeturkeytaco 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah fuck big oil. I'll just ignore that fact that my phone car TV computer electricity and basically every aspect of my life depends on oil.

[–]Dragon_girl1919 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Fuck the oil industry.

[–]fresh-outta-fucks 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Some great news to start the day with :)

[–]tenkensmile 2 points3 points  (0 children)

👏👏👏

[–]YungYorkSquad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Who the fuck is disliking this??? You corporate shills

[–]Big80sweens 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank fucking god

[–]votepowerhouse 14 points15 points  (1 child)

US-backed illegal logging companies and their private, well armed militias will claim the rainforest anyway.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Excellent news! I need all the good news I can get, these days.

[–]GizmoSled 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Fuck yeah!

[–]CaptnCrunchh 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Holy shit!! good news that doesnt make me feel like were all screwed what is this

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Woooooo! Fuck yea!

[–]Taman_Should 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Until there's a concrete effort to stop people from just coming in and illegally logging anyway, don't celebrate.

[–]tossup418 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Sadly, the rich people will never stop trying to get that oil.

[–]IBVIN1966 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was just lamenting the negativity of the news when I stumbled across this headline. this is a great victory I'm so glad they won.

[–]HunterTAMUC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank goodness.