Fossil-fueled Fascism

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Available wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin. The few years ago, our old producers were a series of entry and I took a reporting trip to Guyana. We did a whole season on the country

just as it was becoming a brand new oil superpower. Right now, even. There are parts of the East Coast and even here.

“During spring tides, you should see the waves”

coming over the top of the wall. So any kind of rise in sea level, we are in trouble. That was solid, or one of our guides in Guyana. Giving us a tour of the sea wall surrounding Georgetown. The country's capital.

How much do you keep building this wall up? At some point, we are going to have to think about moving. And the government is already talking about it, actually. Moving the capital back in to where the bigger port is. 90% of the country will need to be moved in the next decade or so

due to sea level rise exacerbated by climate change. But the government of Guyana wasn't embracing oil because they thought climate change was a hoax. No, they said they were embracing it to pay for climate adaptation. I asked Dr. Troy Thomas, a professor at the University of Guyana,

whose question the government's decision to allow massive amounts

“of drilling offshore, what he thought of this idea.”

One of them to show me one example where that has happened.

And then show me another example where Guyana was the first to lead

on something and develop something new and show the rest of the world. Show me those two things side by side. In fact show me one of them first. And then I might be interested. Neither of those two things have happened.

And so that to me and it doesn't make sense. You got to release more into the atmosphere. In order to have the ability to clean it up. And if we look at the rate at which, you know, there is no cap on exploration. That's something that I, we are talking about look up on development.

But petroleum exploration and development is open ended. And I've been asking the question, maybe not loudly enough. But how much is enough? How much is enough? It's a great question. If you haven't listened to that season already, go check it out.

We get on to everything it doesn't, doesn't mean for Guyana to be a big oil state. What it means for the people who live there, all of that. For our purposes today though, I'm going to go back to Salvador. And something he told Sarah and I about the early days of Guyana's founding as a country. He and his colleague Jamal let us through a small museum in downtown Georgetown

stopping occasionally to give us some backstory. So as you know, Guyana was actually spelled G, I, E, and E. At one point of time, I went to the British name. You got the true Guyana's, and what they used to call British Guyana, Dutch Guyana, and French Guyana.

Dutch Guyana is surname. What else? Guyana is here, and Spanish Guyana is here, and they are not cool. Spanish Guyana became part of Venezuela. Portuguese Guyana became part of Brazil.

So you've got French, no French, Dutch, and English, but the border got changed. At this point, Salvador stood in front of a big map of the country to show how these former colonies had been divided into new countries. We are changing about this to Brazil, and we gave all of this to Venezuela. So now they claim that this should be border.

So two thirds of Guyana, they say it belongs to them, not that. No way. Sorry. Not happening. In case you missed that, he's saying that Venezuela is linked to a portion of Guyana.

That border dispute has been going on for decades, but the 2015 discovery of oil in Guyana

By that point, Venezuela had kicked out the foreign oil companies.

“We interrupt this program to bring you a breaking news story.”

U.S. oil giant exons strikes oil in Guyana. Exon was the company that felt most screwed over by Venezuela's final nationalization of oil. The government had said, "Hey, you guys can stay, but only as minority partners." And Chevron said, "Okay, but exon said, no way." And its assets in the country were seized.

It already knew at the time, of course, that it was camping out on oil permits in Guyana,

that it had since the '90s.

The reason why we are famous now is that Venezuela has denied the U.S. companies.

“They're right for the share, whatever that may be.”

This is Alfred Boulay, a long-time engineer and energy expert in Guyana. Today he works for Transparency Institute Guyana, which pushes for increased government transparency. He says there had been exploratory oil drilling, often on in Guyana, for decades before exons' big announcement. I knew it was oil being grilled, and certain knowledge of people knew that. Particularly Mr. Boulay, in the 1970s, the former president.

He knew these things. That's former president Forbes Burnham. The country officially gained independence from Britain in 1966. In the lead-up to independence, the most popular party was the People's Progressive Party, the PPP. At that point, it was a cross-racial party led by two men.

One of Indian descent, Chetty Jagan, the other of African descent, Forbes Burnham. Like a lot of other South American political leaders at the time, they were both leftists. And they had strong opinions about who should own and benefit from Guyana's natural resources. It's people. Also, like a lot of South American countries, Guyana was on the CIA's radar at the time,

and they had strong opinions about which of these two men they'd prefer to see in charge of so many resources. That was Burnham, the one who didn't spend quite so much time throwing back mojitos with Fidel Castro. As they have done in so many countries, the CIA leaned on racial differences to split the party into and then backed Burnham. Despite its large stores of oil and relative stability compared to some of its neighbors, Guyana wasn't a big target for its oil for a while, because it sat beneath the ocean floor, some 40 miles off the coast. So from the 70s to the early 2000s, the big US oil companies were concentrating on Venezuela.

So I am absolutely sure that they knew what they was like there. And just when Venezuela is going to play bad, then they said, "Okay, we have oil elsewhere." And then negotiated a very sweet deal. So the people who knew about oil knew these things, but the general public didn't. I have a personal theory that the oil is all connected. And that's one of the reasons Venezuela's don't really want drilling taking place here, because when we drill, there is also the thinking.

If you're hearing a lot of things that sound familiar, it sounds like a little bit about what's happening today with the US, with Exxon and with Venezuela, yeah, I know. After the break, what everything the US and Exxon were getting up to in Guyana had to do with the invasion of Venezuela years later. And how it all connects back to the topic of this mini-series fossil-fueled fascism. I'm Amy Westerval, and this is Drilled. Stay with us.

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Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. I never really stop reporting a story once I've started, so even though it's been a while since my last reporting trip to Guyana,

And I was surprised when suddenly one day last year I saw a tweet from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio praising Guyana for taking action

“to crack down on narco trafficking. In the press release that he quote tweeted, "The Guyana's government had specifically named checked a gang.”

I knew the US government had just invented. The Cardfell de Los Solis." In much the same way that the Trump administration has lumped anyone with progressive politics under the umbrella of Antifa, and designated it as a terrorist organization, Cardfell de Los Solis is the idea, the idea of government corruption, of government officials looking the other way at drug traffickers, maybe even taking drives from them, but it doesn't exist as an actual entity.

I knew from my time in Guyana that they had beef with Venezuela, and that that beef was about oil, and that the oil economy in Guyana was tied more to one company than any other exonmobile. And that that company also had beef with Venezuela, time to dig into what had been going on with Guyana and Venezuela lately turned out a lot.

“Venezuela held a vote asking whether it should take over a portion of neighboring Guyana.”

This was the first story I found on NPR's state of the world, and it was from all the way back in late 2023.

Venezuela voted on what now? Venezuela's referendum was over a jungle region called Essicibo that makes up the western two thirds of Guyana. Okay, I knew that Essicibo was where the oil is in Guyana, so this was starting to make a little more sense. Still, they had a vote on annexing two thirds of a neighboring country. On Sunday, Venezuela's autocratic president, Nicolas Maduro held a news conference urging Venezuelans

to throng to the polling stations. They were asked to approve or reject five ballot questions.

“The most provocative proposal was to annex Essicibo.”

Guyana's prime minister Mark Phillips said in a radio interview that his country was preparing for the worst. You go to war with what you have. We are prepared to defend the Diana with what we have. Venezuela's did vote to annex Essicibo, or whatever a vote under Maduro is worth. It was enough to mobilize the international community.

The international court of justice announced that it has jurisdiction over the border dispute and asked both countries to remain calm until it could issue a ruling. Hending a final decision in the case. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela shall refrain from taking any action which would modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute, whereby the cooperative Republic of Guyana has ministers and exercises control over that area. Meanwhile, various governments pushed for peace talks between Guyana and Venezuela, which did eventually happen, and resulted in a written agreement between the two called the Argyle courts.

Almost everyone seemed to immediately ignore this agreement. It was supposed to be a cool enough period. They agreed to not do anything more around this border dispute until the international court could make a decision. But almost immediately Guyana asked the UK for a show of military support, which it provided. It's an award ship to the Guyana Venezuela border.

A couple of weeks later things calm down for a couple of months. But in April, 2020, for Maduro signed the bill declaring Essicibo part of Venezuela into law. He took a little break after that for a little bit to make sure that he could secure a reelection. But in January 2025, Maduro is back at it. This time appointing a governor for the new Venezuelan state of Essicibo.

For a minute, it looked like the Trump administration wasn't all that concerned about it. The new Trump team didn't seem to mind signalling a rapprochement with Maduro in exchange for Karakas agreeing to accept flights of Venezuelans deported from the US. Trump, though, now says Maduro isn't taking back deportees fast enough. Then in February, Trump cut off an economic lifeline to Maduro's government. An exemption that Biden had passed to allow Chevron to export Venezuela in oil.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that a permit which has allowed US energy giant Chevron to export Venezuela in oil will be canceled.

Venezuela has been under strict U.S. sanction since 2020 instituted by the first Trump administration in an effort to topple authoritarian president Nikolás Maduro.

But in 2024, after banning the strongest candidate to challenge him, Maduro claimed victory for a third term in office despite significant evidence that he had, in fact, lost.

Venezuela's political opposition estimates that Chevron's exemption from those sanctions has provided the Maduro government with roughly four billion dollars.

“Remember, in the first episode of this series where we talked about the red line agreement and how it bred this entitlement amongst the oil companies and the governments that supported them.”

Well, at the same time, all that was happening in the Middle East. Well, companies were doing the exact same thing in Latin America. Standard oil of New Jersey, the company known today as Exxon Mobile, was the first foreign oil company to explore in Venezuela. It began drilling in 1913 there.

Shell soon followed suit and hit a major find in 1922 by 1930.

Three foreign companies, Gulf, Real Dutch Shell, and Standard Oil controlled 98% of the Venezuelan oil market. And then Venezuela did the unthinkable, it took it back. In 1943 it passed the hydrocarbons law, which required foreign oil companies to give half their oil profits to the state. In 2007, Hugo Chavez decreed that all oil projects in Venezuela must be majority owned by the National Oil Company. That's when Exxon left and Chevron stayed.

This brings us up to speed all the way to March 2025 when Mururo crossed a red line.

“Reports emerged of a Venezuelan Coast Guard vessel in Ghana's exclusive economic zone, specifically in the start of block, a site crucial for offshore oil operations.”

Social media quickly spread images and videos of the vessel and Venezuelan soldiers communicating with the prosperity, floating production, storage, and offloading vessel before moving on to other units in the area. Venezuela sent a Coast Guard ship to Exxon's vessels offshore and told them they shouldn't be operating there. Here's part of their message to the ships. According to President, your President is a geographical position, you are operating in the exclusive economic zone of Venezuela. Reporting to your President, geographical position, you are operating in the exclusive economic zone of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Guyana's President, Dr. Irfan Ali, was outraged.

“The patrol vessel transmitted a radio message declaring that the FESO was operating in what it termed disputed international waters.”

Soon after, the Guyana's government confirmed the incursion and President Dr. Irfan Ali swiftly activated diplomatic channels and condemned the actions as a violation of both international law and agreements made between the two nations. We have reached out to all our international partners and all our international partners have responded positively. None more so than the U.S., which issued a statement that Maduro would suffer consequences for his actions. They also sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to deliver this message in person a couple weeks later.

It would be a very bad day for Venezuela and regime. If they were to attack Guyana or attack Exxon Mobile or anything, it would be a very bad day. It would be a very bad week for them. And it would not end well for them. The very next day after that speech that Rubio gave, the U.S. and Guyana conducted joint military maneuvers off the coast of Guyana. On August 19th, so a few months later, the U.S. deployed military vessels off Venezuela's coast, claiming it was going after Garth Elblino's Soleil.

Then just a couple days later, August 22nd, we get this weird Guyana announcement the one I mentioned before were there talking about Garth Elblino's Soleil. Rubio shares it and by September 2nd, the U.S. is carrying out air strikes in Venezuela.

On December 19th, Guyana's oil production surpasses Venezuela's for the first time in history.

On January 3rd, 2026, the U.S. military bombs Garakas and takes Medorone as wife captive. It's one of the clearest examples of fossil fascism. The two are later charged with drug trafficking in New York.

they're not what I would call excited.

President Trump is pushing those oil companies to invest $100 billion in Venezuela's oil infrastructure.

At the White House on Friday, the President promised American oil executives that Venezuela was ready for investment. We're taking back what was taken from us. They took our oil industry. We built that entire oil industry. Now, every company is fully on board with some expressing concern about Venezuelan regulations and security needs for personnel. If we look at the legal and commercial constructs in frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it's uninvestable.

That was exonceeo during wood speaking at the end there. And of course, wood is an interest in Venezuela.

The whole point of this operation, as far as he's concerned, was to protect exons play next door in Guyana.

From the early days of oil right up to the present, the industry has worked to connect itself to American identity. And now the two are almost interchangeable. The fossil fuel industry and American imperialism go hand in hand too. Now their preferred president is in power and those who question oil dominance or dependence are targeted as the enemy, whether foreign or domestic. Fossil fascism is a term used by environmental sociologists to describe the response of the fossil fuel industry.

And it's political allies to the deepening of the climate crisis and increased pressure to transition away from fossil fuels. That response in a nutshell is increasing alignment with authoritarian nationalist or fascist political movements to protect their interests.

“Key markers of this phenomenon are denial and suppression of climate science to protect fossil fuel profits.”

Check. Escape, goding of migrants, ethnic minorities or environmentalists. Check. Authoritarian responses to climate migration and resource conflicts. For example, war and border militarization.

Check and check. Corporate capture of government. Check. The use of nationalism to justify continued fossil fuel extraction. American energy dominance. Check.

All the markers are there and they've been there. Growing increasingly more obvious from the red line agreement to the US invasion of Iraq, to the vilification of protesters. And now today the invasion of Venezuela and Iran.

It's never been more glaring.

“The question is how much longer will we let it continue?”

Drilled is an original critical frequency production distributed by pushkin industries. This miniseries was written and reported by me Amy Westervalt. Our producers are Martin Salts, Austria and Peter Dough. Matthew Fleming did the artwork. Our first amendment attorney is James Wheaton of the First Amendment project.

Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. The world of energy is changing fast. Break through an artificial intelligence of transformed the outlook for energy demand and promised to revolutionise energy supply as well.

“How can global energy systems adapt to meet these challenges?”

I'm Ed Cross. Every two weeks I get together with leading experts to discuss the biggest stories in clean tech, investment and policy. The good, the bad and youngerly of energy today, we break it all down on the energy gang. The energy gang. The podcast wood McKenzie available wherever you get your podcasts.