Unmute.

Reject fossil fuels NOW!

Quote by Dame Anita Roddick. PHOTO: FFF Newsletter.

The current South-West Asia war of 2026 is a historic precedent for us climate “worriers”. This largest energy disruption ever makes obvious the urgent need to move to renewable energy.[1] Start talking to ordinary people, especially those you do not know, by raising questions! It’s time to speak out!

Ask if South-West Asia war makes sense in a world already reeling from excess poisonous gases. Three combatant countries are running up massive fossil fuel emissions in preparation, in execution, and in future reparations. Other nations are getting pulled into fighting, as well. The dominant media fully ignores the fossil fuel brew poisoning the skies.

This war is a present and future extension of the violence and carbon emissions in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, and possibly Greenland and Canada. Many leaders look the other way without blinking an eye at these emissions and the resulting damages and losses. It’s time to call them out!

Ask who is really driving this war? The common thread is that these powers want to keep oil and gas flowing under their control. The conflict resembles a drug war in which the drug lords agree to keep their product moving no matter what. The obscured but frightening bottom line is: preserve fossil fuel control and addiction for years to come.

Ask whether the price is worth the ends, which, as stated, are unclear, confused, and constantly shifting. These fossil fuel leaders blather on while the war destroys infrastructure and people’s lives at massive expense, and burns carbon. Are US, Israeli, Iranian, and other soldiers and civilians to die or kill in this unnecessary war in order to extend dependence on fossil fuels? It’s time to unmute!

Ask as well what can serve ordinary people the best? A bomb, missile, or drone emitting fossil fuel that demolishes schools, gymnasiums, dwellings, or the same dollars invested as fast as possible in global renewable electrification?

Don’t we ordinary folk and fossil fuel lovers, too, all seek a peaceful life? Instead, the war brings destruction and solidifies massive hardship, instability, and CO2 damage for years to come.

Ask what will make our common future safer and less vengeful; fossil fuel wars in which the poor or their slain relatives, above all of Islamic faith, become victims? Or a peace without this hateful damage and subsequent terror? John Maynard Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) once presciently forewarned of a dim revanchist future. How will victims in Gaza, Iran, or Lebanon react in 20 years to their terrorized world? Consider that every missile or drone strike calls for payback, generation after generation.

Ask who pays for this war, and what do they stand to gain? The beneficiaries reaping huge profits in the short term are oil and gas giants of the global North, from Exxon to Shell to BP to Chevron, and the political leaders who bow to them. But the losers present and future are billions worldwide. Some pay in death or injury. Survivors pay in homelessness, shortages of food, water, and energy, and the costs of rebuilding. Taxpayers see insane dollar amounts allotted to the military, while the national debt balloons. It’s time to hold those oil and gas beneficiaries to account.

Ask who pays for the harms from emissions. We have not yet reached a global peak in CO2 emissions. Leaders and their policies that promote more fossil fuel exploration, new drilling, new LNG terminals, extended global fossil fuel infrastructure, or the methodical shutdown of wind and solar energy are sealing in climate destruction for centuries, global ecocide. We will all pay dearly.

Ask, what is real energy security? The South-West Asia conflict confirms the vulnerability of those who rely on fossil fuels. To the extent that nations have invested in solar, battery, and wind resources, they have lessened their dependence on petrostates and petrocompanies. Expediting the transition from fossil fuels to renewables is not just an environmental cause but in our immediate national interests.

Ask which kind of energy, fossil or renewable, is cheaper, locally accessible, and more easily transportable; kills less and damages less; and meets peace and climate justice goals. Once set up, sun and wind keep on giving, and you are no longer beholden to others for every parcel of energy. This conflict highlights that fossil fuels incite foreign conquest; renewables do not. Sun and wind can be harnessed in our own backyards, are more easily transferable, and can save money. Moreover, ask what creates more jobs and well-being at home; each megawatt of oil combusted means another must be imported, while solar and wind can be locally produced. Delaying going to renewables trades a prosperous green economy at home for wanton conflict abroad, hardly a bargain.

But above all, ask yourself: what can I do to present these questions to reach others with different values, different concerns? For if we endure in confused, stymied silence, we stand to let fossil fuel dependency ruin the present and future. Unmute, empower yourself, speak out!

Iran is a target of Israel and U.S. strikes in the South-West Asia war. PHOTO: Image received by Human Rights Activists Iran (HRA), 2026.

Author Rolf vom Dorp is a Vietnam War resister, peace and climate activist, supporter of FFF, member of NAZCCA.org, and a US citizen residing in Sweden. His brother, a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam, died in 2025 from his wartime exposure to Agent Orange.

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[1] “The war in the Middle East is creating a major energy crisis, including the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market....” International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol. https://www.iea.org/news/new-iea-report-highlights-options-to-ease-oil-price-pressures-on-consumers-in-response-to-middle-east-supply-disruptions