Invitation to build a new civilization

Never before has the close link between the limits of the current development model based of hydrocarbons been seen so clearly.

Never, until now, has the relationship between oil and the networks of power that control the world been so clearly understood, nor have the relationships between oil and the principal causes of misery which affect humanity been so evident.

Behind the worst wars of the last century and the current,
Behind the wastage of industrial, economic and financial resources,
Behind the instability and impoverishment of many nations,
Behind innumerable State coups, dictatorships and manipulations of democracy,
Behind the age-old exploitation of workers,
Behind the most dangerous chemical industries,
Behind the systematic and uncountable extinction of indigenous peoples,
Behind the contamination of the world’s fresh water, the water of the seven seas and the air of our cities,
Behind the accumulation of enormous amounts of chemical and plastic wastes,
Behind climate change that includes cyclones, floods and hurricanes which are ever more extreme,
Behind the appearance and manifestation of numerous degenerative illnesses and therefore, behind the extinction of life on the planet and as main cause of human deaths in the world,

Is Oil.

The 20th century was the century of poisoning and mass death of people and life on the planet. This poisoning is the product not only of the wastes caused during extraction of oil, oil spills on land and sea and acid rain, it is also consequence of agrochemicals, Organic Persistent Contaminants, fuels, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, hospital wastes and other components produced from oil. These are being spilled and accumulated on the planet….and is killing the Land.

During the 20th century we have suffered the worst threats to the sovereignty of our nations causing wars and intrigues due to oil. The large empires define their principal forms of economic and military power in relation to the possibilities of obtaining their own black gold, or to obtain secure access to it in other regions.

The 20th century has been highlighted as the era of supreme power of the transnational, where pressure, manipulation and corruption also promote the loss of sovereignty of nations. That is why one of the most audacious moves of the southern nations was to form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC.

The 20th century has created from its industrial oil bases a culture based on a pattern of energy consumption and the latest and addictive material consumption which has affected in a degenerative manner hundreds of millions of people, whilst it confronted and exterminated thousands of traditional cultures separating them from their healthy and ecological customs. Only very few have managed to survive, in a way that is ever more of isolation, impoverishment and defenselessness.

The crisis of the oil civilization has reached its climax. But how to free ourselves of this crisis is not being carried forward. On the contrary, our exit is delayed whilst the effects of this crisis increase in a manner which is ever more lethal.

Which are the organizations and networks which we could start a positive collaboration in the fight against the oil civilization? Which are the most important social local and global movements that we cannot ignore in our efforts? Which are the international agreements and agendas that we could best take advantage of in this process? Which are the new initiatives that we could and should invent?

To answer these and other needs Oilwatch is inviting sympathetic networks to initiate a joint dialogue of our struggles and launch a global Campaign against the civilization based on oil.

We invite you to send your opinions, considerations and ideas that may consolidate this concept, so that we can build a way together.

We invite you to organize a joint event in which we can establish coordinated work strategies and a common campaign, in which we can see reflected each one of our struggles which currently we work on separately and in which each and every one of our battles develops a new dimension.

OILWATCH

OILWATCH is a network that was born urged by the need of developing global strategies for the communities affected by the oil operations and of supporting their processes of resistance in the struggle against those activities. Among the organization functions are: the exchange of information about oil companies operations in each affected country; about their operation practices as well as about the different resistance movements and international campaigns against specific companies. Oilwatch makes an effort to raising, at the global level, the environmental conscience, exposing the oil operations impacts in tropical forests and in local populations, also establishing the relationship between this activity and the destruction of biodiversity, the climate change and the unpunished violation of human rights.