To the editor: This Dodgers game is brought to you by … asbestos! Keep the flames out and the cancer in, with asbestos.
See how that sounds? Not great. But, as Sammy Roth writes about in his column about the Dodger Foundation’s support from Big Oil, we don’t bat an eye when an oil company advertises a product that has killed way more people than asbestos.
There are no tobacco ads in Dodger Stadium. It’s not that Phillip Morris wouldn’t love to plaster Marlboro posters across the dugout, but they can’t, thanks to a 1998 civil settlement. The reason is simple: The more you see a product, the more likely you are to buy it. Advertisers pay for space in your brain and the courts decided that addictive sticks filled with poison didn’t deserve the same rights to that space as, say, chewing gum.
We need to take the same approach to Big Oil. Just like Big Tobacco spent a fortune deceiving the public into thinking that their product wasn’t harmful, Big Oil buried their own research and spent billions trying to convince us global warming was a myth. These ads are just another part of their information war against the American people, and it’s time we fought back.
Xander Bernstein, Reseda
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To the editor: For generations baseball has been considered America’s pastime. My earliest recollections of my father include sitting in a field box at Yankee Stadium watching Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Yogi Berra. They were my heroes, mostly because they were his heroes.
We have learned a lot since those days. We have learned that simple activities, such as driving a car, are contributing to the destruction of our planet.
Heroes will always be heroes and what they do and say have a tremendous effect on us. It is a weighty obligation. The Dodgers being so closely aligned with companies like 76 Gasoline and Arco is like a stamp of approval for their climate destructive activities.
Ironically, the very people the team is seeking to help in their Dodger Day efforts are suffering the most from the byproducts of oil production. The rate of asthma among those who live in proximity to oil wells or refineries (largely people of color and economically challenged) is through the roof.
Do the Dodgers really need that money? The Dodger brand is valuable in and of itself. Why not think about really giving back to the community? Cut these sponsors loose.
Tim Knipe, Studio City
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To the editor: Drill baby drill. We need more oil.
David Hart, Carlsbad
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To the editor: What if, instead of waiting for new technologies, green capitalists or our fraught political system to transition us into clean energy, we used our cultural power?
The Dodgers dropping Phillips 66 as a sponsor would be a big cultural move toward energy transition. We are conditioned to accept the ubiquity of oil. It powers our cars, has a deep history with movie-making and how we cook. It sits in the oceans we swim in.
But a fossil fuel divestment by our beloved Dodgers would be a new backdrop for a new story and make L.A. a cultural trendsetter in professional sports.
What would it say to our kids taking the field on Dodger Day, that our home team is part of the green revolution?
Maggie Light, Van Nuys
