What is the point of negotiating over oil money if climate change will sink us all?

Dear Editor,

One of the most pressing concerns in our modern time is climate change. This past year has shown the disastrous and potentially catastrophic effects of global warming throughout our planet, including polar icecap melting

and coastal flooding. Carbon sink also known as carbon sequestration is in jeopardy because of non-sustainable deforestation. More important is the continued wholesale and indiscriminate CO2 emission from fossil fuel industries. Guyana & Oil

Without exception apparently, it seems to me that most Guyanese are on the bandwagon regarding fossil oil in Guyana. Even the IMF and Global Witness are caught up in the picture. There are areas of disagreements about contracts, and the extreme disparity of oil money, vicariously arcane. Some are asking for re-negotiation. Typically, these are distinctions without significant differences.

I beg to differ.

My position is quite clear. I unequivocally oppose fossil extractive exploration and extraction.

First my apologetics:

I am a scientist. I use the scientific methodology of my discipline; this approach has ‘growed’ upon me – incorporated, morphed, and integrated into my consciousness and lifestyle. As such, evidence, empirical, that can be verified, is primary in transactions and relations, even in the most trivial. I look for causation or etiology. I resist the illogicality of post hoc fallacy. In addition, I adopt the simplicity and elegance of Occam’s razor.

Further, I refuse to be conditioned by the power structure – cogito ergo sum. The way I see it: The bandwagon and the wagon carry dirt and detritus, poison and contagion. I repeat most emphatically that I do not subscribe to fossil extractive exploration and extraction, and related businesses.

Wherever these billion dollars multinationals have gone, they have caused destruction, then they justify their operations with sugarcoated jargon! If one investigates the exploited countries where they have ventured, one finds no real (distribution of) wealth – not even ‘trickling down’ to the masses; but the companies got richer and richer. Bad, unfair and skewed deals and corruption have endemically dogged the poor and exploited countries. The evidence is abundant and easily accessible to support my assertion.

Especially, more important to me is the irreparable damage that these extractive industries have done to the land, seas and air; nonetheless they continue to do so wantonly and unmitigated.

The rich and powerful get wealthier and more affluent, and arrogant – with an acculturated mindset. It is inherently in the prevailing system. It is about greed and an unquenchable lust for more. It is also about insatiable hunger for energy to power industries and businesses. Power does corrupt… absolutely.

Many countries have realized the errors of the past, and are embracing clean energy instead of fossil fuel. A few are adamant and stubborn, including America (and Saudi). They deny and defy the fact and reality of climate change. They refuse to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Such obstinacy and intractability boggle my mind.

And I ponder: when the sweet rain falls it falls on all, and when the acid rain falls it will fall on all of us!

Big business is controlled by big money, and their shareholders! Some others, who believe that their names must be written in the Book of Life, grotesquely welcome an apocalyptic doomsday, and justify having ‘dominion over the earth’; thus abiding with god’s order. Or they may be fakes, con, doing the bidding of the ‘new lord and master’ – for money. Just visit or revisit Davos and Bilderberg.

Climate change is real, Anthropocene, advancing logarithmically. Discussion of climate change is now common routine parlance. Everyone, except one or two big powers, agrees that carbon emission must be reduced, principally by cutting fossil fuel. Yet Guyana and those in the bandwagon talk negotiation. What is the point if we will all sink!

There are other alternative energy to power humankind needs – that are clean. Guyana does not have to re-invent the wheel. What is done now is so important – it is crucial to life on earth as we know it. All further discussions are non sequitur. We must therefore take the courageous step to offset the escalation of CO2 emission, to minimize greenhouse gas, to curtail the depletion of the ozone layer; and thus eradicate environmental threats to the air, seas and land.

I reflect on truth vs. hypocrisy; religiosity vs. religiousness; religion vs. spirituality. I may be a ‘minority of one’. It matters not. The ‘power of one’ is quite apropos. Many good people are protesting the excesses of fossil extractive industries and consequential ecological destruction. It took one concerned and courageous teenager to bring the significance of climate change to the fore internationally. Viva Greta Thunberg!

I beseech you: Stop the grandstanding; stop posturing; stop pretending; stop being a hypocrite. Let us be practical and do the right thing.

Yours faithfully, Gary Girdhari PhD