Oil drives our global economies. Oil is power. Oil fuels the Empire. Iraq and Iran together produce 8.3 million billion barrels a day of the liquid gold (figures from Offshore-Technology). Their joint oil reserves amount to 300,903 million barrels (figures from World Atlas). While the world’s largest oil producer with 12 mbbl barrels/day, the United States has only 39,230 million barrels of oil reserves. Venezuela tops the list with 300,878 million barrels. It’s no accident that the Empire is embedded in the Middle East. Controlling access to all that oil is vital to its continued survival.

Guyana will soon be part of that blessed-accursed herd of oil producing nations. With six billion barrels, and climbing, of oil reserves, Guyana now overtakes Venezuela in the overheated top seat. As a small country with racial divisive politics, the developing CARICOM member nation is easy prey for the Empire. It’s also corrupted at its core—the scourge of former colonial territories rich in natural resources. Trapped under the claws of the Eagle since its conception, the country is now secure in its nest.

In his letter to the editor of Guyana’s Kaieteur News on January 7, 2020, Dr. Gary Girdhari expresses misgivings about the legacy of oil giants in oil producing countries, even within their own home countries.

Guyana’s leaders, he writes, “ignore elemental facts, namely, in Africa, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere where oil wealth is secured in the pockets of Big Oil and a select few government officials and their cronies; and where inequality and extreme poverty spiral downwards.” 

Dr. Girdhari shares my concern about the impact of the fossil fuel industry on Earth’s environment and climate. He reminds the Guyanese people: “The International Press is replete with information regarding fossil fuel and its ruination to the environment – regarding carbon emission, depletion of the ozone layer, and extreme climate change. Already the world is witnessing the effects of permafrost melting in the Arctic and deforestation in Brazil and Africa. The tipping point is approaching sooner than we think.” 

I don’t share his hope “for total disbandment of oil in Guyana…and that good environmentally-friendly judgement triumphs.” I believe that it’s too late in the game. Guyana is already in the pockets of ExxonMobil and other players in the fossil fuel industry. 

To the Empire, only oil matters. It is prepared to use severe economic sanctions and military force to secure and control Earth’s oil reserves. Our lives—we the people of Earth—don’t matter. Let the trees burn. Let the ice caps melt. Let the wildlife die.

The Empire began 2020 with an act of war against Iran and Iraq. Warfare is Big Business. Warfare is barbaric. Warfare is self-destructive: It turns our young men into killers of innocent women, children, and babies. Heroes for the Empire.

I say NO to war with Iran. I say NO to the never-ending wars of the Empire. I say NO to more failed sovereign states. I say NO to ‘rubblized’ cities and uprooted broken families. I say NO to ecocide.

I say YES to ending our dependency on fossil fuels. I say YES to the Green New Deal.