This is a story I stumbled upon almost completely by chance. I was researching hemp-related information when a link to the video below caught my eye. It is a story of corporate greed, oil, and the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader of the African Ogoni people, who are located in Nigeria. The story spans a fourteen year period, culminating in a final settlement between the parties on the eve of trial. This isn’t the type of story you hear about on the news, and it isn’t something that will make headlines. But I thought it was an important story nonetheless, as it relates to an issue that I believe is one of the most critical for humanity to resolve as soon as possible – that being the issue of our dependence on foreign oil to sustain our way of living.

Ken Saro-Wiwa’s story is essentially of a man who witnessed the destruction of his home by the Royal Dutch/Shell Company’s Nigerian subsidiary but still urged his people to peacefully resist the destruction of their home and to stand up for their rights without bloodshed. I simply can’t do justice to Ken Saro-Wiwa’s saga so I leave it to the video below, which does a great job so please check it out. It’s an interesting 8 and a half minutes and well worth your time.

Now, some fourteen years later, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s son and other victims have received a settlement from Shell in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, on the day before their trial was scheduled to proceed. Shell agreed to pay a total of $15.5 million, which will be used to establish a Trust to benefit the Ogoni people. The case stands as a landmark legal case, as it establishes a strong precedent that a multi-national corporation could be held accountable for human rights violations. But the real lesson I seem to have picked up is that for the right price, anyone can get away with murder, even a corporation. $15.5 million is chump change for Shell, who still has a huge vested interest in Nigerian oil as operations continue to this day. In humanity’s constant search for resources, human rights seem to fall by the wayside. Thus, the question becomes, are we capable of changing our dependency on foreign oil in a way such that killing and exploitation of indigenous people will become a thing of the past?

Exploitation and destruction of the Ogoni people’s Niger River home aside, westernized countries have depended on oil for far too long now. This dependence has led to a willingness to overlook both atrocities committed in the name of obtaining oil and other more sustainable fuel and energy sources, which is why there is be no better time than now to make radical changes in our energy and transportation needs.  Oil conglomerates wouldn’t have the need to go around the world destroying land and homes to get to oil if the demand wasn’t there.

Hybrid vehicles, electric cars and vehicles capable of running on bio-fuels must be integrated into our societies as the norm and not the exception. I’m no expert on automobiles, but if Henry Ford and Rudolf Diesel thought that a car could run on hemp, then I don’t see why the smartest engineers today can’t find a way to make that dream both feasible and practical for the long term. This is just another reason why industrial hemp should at the very least be considered as an option, not just as a potential alternative fuel, but also for the numerous other uses that it has. However, as with most issues, politics and lobbying muscle have stunted what should be a rapid change to alternative energy sources that would benefit humanity in the long term. Just think, if cars needed to be charged or ran on cleaner burning bio-fuels as opposed to gasoline, corporations like Shell would have less leverage in determining our energy needs.

Of course, there are trade-offs to switching to “green” vehicles, but the inconveniences ought to be far outweighed by the benefits. Currently, bio-fueled cars have shorter ranges and produce less BTU’s than traditional gasoline engines. Isn’t this just a problem with the current technology? If the same engineering muscle was put behind bio-fueled cars, doesn’t it make sense that we’d see some form of technological advancement eventually? And ultimately, what is more important: having to stop to refuel a bio-fuel engine or electric car more often than a gasoline engine, or continuing our reliance on foreign oil and having human rights atrocities such as the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa occur for a paltry $15.5 million? Personally, I would gladly make three stops on a drive to Las Vegas than the current one I need to make it there if it meant oil companies would lose their grip on foreign oil operations, returning those interests to their rightful owners.

If you want to find out more about the story of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni people, check out wiwavshell.org for videos, court documents and other information.