Our oldest daughter, Mayim, is on a four-day solo wilderness experience. She was given a sleeping bag, a tarp, and a bag of bagels and the instructions to leave the campsite better than she found it. I wonder how it will change her, this experience of sleeping next to a rushing river. Will these 100 hours without her cell phone, by herself, inform the choices she will make going forward? Will she notice new things? Will she fall in love with the natural world and choose to protect it in a way she might not have if she hadn’t slept out under the moon in a rainstorm?
While I don’t know how this trip will change Mayim yet, I do know this: if we change course by one degree— a fraction of a centimeter, a deviation so small you barely notice it— over time, we end up in a very different place. We all have moments and experiences, portals of some sort, from which we emerge changed and pointing in a new direction.
My friend Steven Donziger has had one such experience. In 1993, he traveled to Ecuador with a delegation of lawyers and activists to document the toxic waste that the oil company Texaco (now Chevron) left in the wake of its drilling. Sludge that they left behind in open pits had seeped into the rivers and soil, poisoning the fish, causing rashes and birth defects, and cancer of the stomach, liver, and throat. Children’s feet were covered in oil. People had died, as did cattle and other animals. Everyone on that trip committed to helping. As a human rights lawyer, Steven worked with a legal team to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the indigenous communities and the farmers that had borne the brunt of this environmental damage. The case was successful. In 2011, the Supreme Court in Ecuador upheld a historic settlement of 9.5 billion dollars to fund the clean-up of the contamination.
Rather than comply, however, Chevron executives moved their assets out of Ecuador and proceeded to pour 2 billion dollars into mounting legal battles to extinguish the judgment. The case took on a life of its own, moving from country to country as people in rooms at the ends of long hallways in buildings thousands of miles away from the Amazon River made decisions about who was to blame and what should be done about it. In 2014, a US Judge ruled that the settlement that Steven and the communities he worked with had been fraudulent and dismissed it outright. For good measure, Chevron went after Steven specifically. He was made liable for millions of dollars of Chevron’s legal costs, his license to practice law was suspended and Chevron was granted seizure of his cellphone and computers containing all of his private and client messages. When Steven refused on the grounds that this was unconstitutional, he was hit with a criminal contempt charge.
As of today, Steven has spent 641 days under house arrest. On Monday, May 10th, a hearing in a New York City will determine whether or not he will go to jail for up to six months. The trial will take place in a closed courtroom with one judge who will act as both fact finder and jury. 68 Nobel Laureates, six members of the U.S. Congress, and Amnesty International are demanding the DOJ review Steven’s case.
I’ve spent all week trying to figure out how this story relates to pleasure. There are ways in which Steven has found pleasure in this fight, the way a boxer loves being in the ring. But there is more than that. This story feels like a parable of our time: David and Goliath in the post-industrial world. It is the story of the scarcity of fossil fuels v. the abundance of intact ecosystems of our planet. It is a story about the desire to meet our needs and pleasures, even, and at the same time, to leave the world in better shape than we found it.
This story is fundamentally about the pleasure of truth and harmonious action and an understanding that we are a part of a collective and that the future of our collective depends on every action by every individual. Every moment, from this moment forward, is an opportunity to course-correct.
There is so much more that I can fit into a newsletter. This video can convey the environmental damage more than my words can. These petitions and links to donations are ways for you to engage. And this document— a fax sent in 1980 by one individual recommending that the oil pits remain open because to cover them, at a cost of 4 million dollars, would be prohibitively expensive—will break your heart. Had someone, at that moment, made a slightly different decision, this story would be on an entirely different trajectory.
The experience Steven had 30 years ago changed the course of his life. While the results are not what he, nor any of the indigenous communities were hoping for, what has happened is a galvanizing of a much bigger community, an awakening that has connected farmers and villagers to advocates and legal scholars around the world. It has brought attention to other environmental defenders. It has opened many eyes to the ways in which the US justice system can epically fail.
I pray that this gathering at the courthouse at 500 Pearl Street on Monday will have reverberations in courtrooms and board rooms around the world. Even if Chevron’s response is to buckle down and retaliate even more, this is a moment for the rest of us to step through another portal, to change course, if only by the slightest margin, towards healthier, more sustainable practices. It will result in a healthier, more pleasurable world.
Institute for Pleasure Studies
If Steven’s story calls to you, there are several ways to engage:
If you are in NYC, come to the courthouse at 500 Pearl Street Monday morning, May 10th at 8:30 AM for a rally and the trial.
Follow Steven’s Twitter feed to get updates.
The Pachamama Alliance, in partnership with indigenous leaders, trains individuals to become environmental protectors, and they are working to secure permanent protection for a region in the Amazon Rainforest.
What does it mean to leave the place better than you found it? Here’s one example: Restoring the Worlds Forest. It can be done.
Writer and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, writes in the New Yorker that investment firms that have divested from fossil fuels have profited not only morally but financially.
And finally, if you’re enjoying The Pleasure Report and you haven’t already done so, please subscribe. It means the world to us. And, your financial contribution, if you feel called to do so, is so warmly welcome.