To: Mark Walter, owner, Los Angeles Dodgers
We the undersigned ask you to immediately end the Los Angeles Dodgers' sponsorship deal with Phillips 66, owner of the 76 gas-station brand whose logo and ads are emblazoned throughout Dodger Stadium.
Climate change threatens the very fate of civilization and all living things. Big Oil is a major contributor to this threat and to the pollution that kills millions of people yearly. Yet, it has engaged in decades of climate denial and greenwashing, even as carbon emissions keep rising.
Using tactics such as associating a beloved, trusted brand like the Dodgers with enterprises like 76, the fossil fuel industry has reinforced deceitful messages that "oil is our friend," and that "climate change isn’t so bad.”
It is that bad. With record-breaking temperatures reminding us of fossil fuels' lethal effects, António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, has called on all countries to ban fossil fuel advertising. California attorney general Rob Bonta is suing oil and gas conglomerates — Phillips 66 included— for disinformation campaigns designed to conceal and mislead the public about the catastrophic health and environmental damage resulting from the use of their products.
This moment offers the Dodgers a new opportunity to lead. The team, whose association with Phillips 66 and its predecessors dates back decades, can maintain the status quo, mimicking other teams backed by Big Oil. It can continue to make a fossil fuel brand, the sort associated with deadly fires, floods and air pollution that causes cancer and respiratory disease, seem as wholesome as one of America's favorite pastimes. Or the Dodgers can drop their dangerous greenwashing, reinforcing Los Angeles' standing as one of the most innovative cities in the world, a city that has put forth powerful goals and policies to fight climate change and protect human health and fragile ecosystems.
Unfortunately, the Dodgers Foundation, which has spent millions on programs helping youth, has also engaged in greenwashing, just this spring hosting health and education events for kids, at Gonzales Park, sponsored by the ARCO gas station chain. This amounts to "a scheme to make us forget that fossil fuels are terrible for our health, even as their fumes scar our lungs and roast the planet," as The Los Angeles Times recently wrote. ARCO is owned by oil giant Marathon Petroleum, which has a part interest in the Dakota Access Pipeline that's been the target of national outrage over the dangers of fossil fuels and unjust treatment of indigenous peoples for nearly a decade.
We urge the Dodgers Foundation to immediately cease its shameful greenwashing. We urge the Dodgers organization to drop its Phillips 66 sponsorship and reject any fossil fuel sponsorships. All of this would tell the world it's time to stop giving cover to producers of climate chaos, deadly pollution and biodiversity loss. It would tell the world it's time to champion clean energy as we move together toward a sustainable, healthy future for Los Angeles and the world.
Click here for full letter
Among Signatories:
Climate activist Bill McKibben, science historian Naomi Oreskes, actors Kyra Sedgwick and Mike Farrell, the Doors’ former drummer John Densmore, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, Earthworks, “Don't Look Up” director Adam McKay’s Yellow Dot Studios, and Breathe Southern California.
The Dodgers are sending fans the wrong message through sponsorships that implicitly endorse fossil fuel companies, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter director Morgan Goodwin told The L.A. Times. “It’s like the Dodgers are giving their 16-year-old a new car with a set of keys and a bottle of rum and saying, ‘Go for it!’” Goodwin said.
Please join us on Sunday September 22nd at Dodgers Stadium! Environmental advocates will deliver an updated petition demanding the Los Angeles Dodgers cut ties to Big Oil by immediately ending the team's sponsorship deal with oil giant Phillips 66, owner of the 76 gas-station brand whose logo and ads are plastered across Dodger Stadium.
- What: Rally and press conference: Campaigners deliver anti-Big Oil petition to Dodger owner and chairman Mark Walter and co-owners Magic Johnson and Billy Jean King
- When: Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, noon.
- Who: Speakers include Zan Dubin, campaign lead; Morgan Goodwin, senior director, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter; Jordan Howard, community strategist. Others to be announced.
Press contact: info@zdscommunications.com
