A Populist Uprising Against the Oiligarchy — A Guest Op-Ed by Peter Backes
Pro-democracy activist Peter Backes weighs in on what the world needs now
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As I have written many times, it’s the small conversations that occur when meeting like-minded people in real life that lead to the bigger solutions.
When Anne Nelson and I spent time together in Palm Springs at the world premiere of the film Bad Faith, based largely on her book, Shadow Network — the main event was the Palm Springs Film Festival, but it was in the chit chat that I gained more clarity on how best to defend democracy. It was also in the small conversations that I walked away with a dozen more stories.
Such is the power of in-real-life interactions, which is why I am so grateful to the Bette and Byline community for making it possible for me to travel to meet the great warriors of our time — those who understand that we are a target nation of information warfare, who understand the stakes, and who bravely walk into the fire.
So on a lunch break last weekend at TEDxMidatlantic, I turned to my pro-democracy friend Peter Backes at an Irish pub & restaurant, and I asked him, “What do you think we need to do?”
He said, “We need a populist uprising against the fossil-fuel oligarchs.”
High Fidelity, my podcast partner, who was enjoying a Guinness on the other end of the table, added: “The Oiligarchs.”
And a theme was born.
Upon returning from my epic DC adventure, I reached out to Backes, and asked him to draft us an op-ed to begin the conversation about people rising up to defend what remains.
A Populist Uprising Against the Oiligarchy — A Guest Op-Ed by Peter Backes
#EndTheOiligarchy
#SaveHumanity
Record breaking fires, floods and storms. Coastlines eroding at a record pace. Glaciers melting. Monkeys and birds dropping dead out of trees. People collapsing and in some cases dying from heat exhaustion.
What do all of these things have in common? They are the results of the atmosphere and oceans being poisoned by an excess of carbon dioxide. Why is humanity allowing this to happen? Because a group of petrostate despots and fossil fuel industry oligarchs are controlling the narrative on climate change, undermining scientific authority, and hindering government action in transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Even as there is a ongoing campaign to undermine liberal democracies around the world, so there is one to protect the vested interests of the petro-elite - the ‘oiligarchy’ if you will - by undermining the natural environment. In fact, the membership of the oiligarchy and the enemies of democracy are largely overlapping.
Ordinary citizens turning the tide on the oiligarchy (along with many foes of democracy) will be a daunting task. A possible route would a global populist uprising that leverages the inevitable suffering that will result from climate change that has already been baked into our future by emissions to date and those that are destined to come before humanity can transition.
The messaging should be simple and avoid overtly political themes that opponents can leverage and use to distract. It should include:
Your suffering and loss is the result of a selfish and uncaring elite - the oiligarchy
Your suffering and loss can only be remedied by bringing the oiligarchy to justice
Acting together we end the oiligarchy and implement solutions for the crisis of climate change
The oiligarchy and their enablers should be identified and named including:
Petro-state leaders
Fossil fuel industry leaders especially those that disseminate propaganda designed to undermine scientific consensus and climate action
Anti-science propagandists many if not most of which are funded by the oiligarchy
Captured and enabling politicians
The oiligarchy should be subject to the full weight of the law at the national and international level including criminal and civil action as well as international tribunals that could use Nuremberg as an inspiration.—Peter Backes for Bette Dangerous
Peter Backes is an IT professional who has had a life-long interest in democratic institutions and the environmental movement. After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Peter's interest in defending democracy and fighting climate disinformation became supercharged, which led to his *discovery* that there is a significant intersection between the forces undermining democracy and a livable climate.
I think about my Zero Days to Waste thread, where I documented the regulations rolled back during the Trumpocene and how oil rich countries breed dictators. I also think about how much money has been spent to interfere with our understanding of global warming by a billionaire class that is trying to capture earth’s resources, because they know it’s coming.
I believe the 33 people who died last month in India from heat while working election polls to be just the tragic beginning of this long, hot summer.
But I also recall when I was working at Al Jazeera America, producing half-hour specials on climate change and the problems with plastic, etc., thinking that we are the problem. Our continued dependence on fossil fuels and unwillingness to kick our bad habits pins much of the blame on us.
I learned during that time that the best we can do for the environment is work from home or close by. Do you recall when the earth stood still during the pandemic? Guess who immediately began funding interference on our understanding of science and attacking stay-at-home orders? Fossil-fuel funded obfuscators. Why? Because Putin never diversified.
“These are people who are willing to destroy our world as long as their wallets are fat — suffering, starvation, death — none of this matters to them,” said High Fidelity, in our chat with Backes in DC. “What are they going to do when everything on the planet is dead?”
The thing is, they can’t eat their cash.
I think we should heed Backes’ advice and form a populist uprising against the oiligarchs to push criminal and civil action against those knowingly producing and profiting off what is marching earth and its inhabitants to a C02-saturated gas chamber.
#EndtheOiligarchy
#SaveHumanity
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