By Masada Disenhouse, SanDiego350 Executive Director
SanDiego350 strongly opposes the U.S. military taking control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and getting dragged into another war for oil. These actions threaten our climate, the global economy, and democratic self-governance, sacrificing peace, health, and safety to fossil fuel industry profits.
Venezuela is home to the world’s largest oil reserves. Extracting and burning this dirty, hard-to-extract crude oil would lock in decades of massively increased carbon pollution, and perpetuate health problems in frontline communities here and abroad.
Oil fuels conflict, inequity, and health problems around the world, and it is more urgent than ever to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, which is healthier, more affordable, and essential for a sustainable future. Clean energy creates local jobs and promotes economic independence rather than filling the coffers of the oil executives (who Trump is scheduled to meet with Jan 9).
While Maduro’s regime caused decades of harm to Venezuelans, Venezuela is a sovereign nation. The United States must uphold international law, respect the sovereignty of other nations, and not illegally deploy the military, or act unilaterally to bring violence to Venezuela.
Venezuelan oil will not lower domestic energy and gas costs. To the contrary, extracting it will require substantial investment in infrastructure and exploration – which Trump has floated having U.S. taxpayers pay for, hitting American families hard in the pocketbook.
This isn’t only about Venezuela, this is about America’s future as a democracy, about whether we allow presidential powers to cross the guardrails in our constitution, and about whether we invade Greenland, Colombia, and Nigeria (and you name it). It’s also about whether our actions enable Russia and China to aggressively pursue their own imperialist ambitions, tilting our world into violence, volatility, and authoritarian bargains.
We call on San Diego’s US Representatives and California Senators to require congressional authorization for military operations in Venezuela and stop the Trump administration’s reckless actions from leading to authoritarianism, worldwide conflict, and climate disaster.
SanDiego350 is a San Diego-based grassroots nonprofit organization building a movement to prevent the worst impacts of climate change and climate injustice through education and outreach, public policy advocacy, and mobilizing people to take action.