Arlen,

I am so happy to connect again and so deeply grateful for your support. I write to update you on an astounding development in the media world.

A new commercial made by Oscar-nominated director Adam McKay that mocks Chevron is racing around the world with over 5 million views online. McKay, who directed The Big Short and Don’t Look Up, probably just made the first truthful commercial about Chevron in history. The tagline at the end has a voiceover from a Chevron spokesperson saying to the American public: “It’s hard to comprehend how little we give a f*ck about you.”

I probably get what that means as much as anybody in the world.

This spoof commercial was released on the eve of the one-year anniversary of my sentencing by Judge Preska to six months in jail after Chevron spent decades retaliating against me for helping Indigenous peoples and farmer communities win a $9.5 billion pollution judgment against the company. To this day, Chevron would rather spend money paying lawyers to try to destroy me than paying the Indigenous peoples that it poisoned after deliberately discharging billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste onto their ancestral lands in the Amazon.

Adam McKay said Chevron is murdering us. This is not bombast – he is right. Literally thousands of people in Ecuador’s Amazon have died of cancer after being exposed to Chevron’s pollution. Not to mention many other people around the world in dozens of countries who must deal with Chevron’s toxic waste, as documented in a recent report by the academic Dr. Nan Greer. 

While I appreciate Adam’s unwavering commitment to justice, at the grassroots level we must continue our historic fight to hold Chevron accountable for causing a mass industrial poisoning in Ecuador’s Amazon. Without our grassroots power and support from all over the world, the affected communities in the Amazon will stand little chance against Chevron’s power.

We need to raise $100,000 by October 15 to fund my appeal to the US Supreme Court and to restore my full rights and continue our advocacy campaign to jack up the cost to the company of its inaction. Will you help us reach this goal by contributing $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1000 or more today? If you can make any contribution recurring, that would be deeply appreciated as that allows us to create a more sustainable funding base.