VENEZUELA’s recent threat to Guyana’s western and northern jurisdictions pales in comparison to the gravest peril to the nation’s literal long-term survival, medium-term mitigation, and promise of a prosperous Regional and World footing.

Such is the dire threat that a nation of less than one million people will have to find the political will to implement policy frameworks that would be sustained over potential change in Governments in the coming years.

SIR SHRIDATH

A forum called ‘Carbon Conversations’ was hosted earlier this week in the Guyana Pegasus Hotel, and such importance was placed on the ground-breaking event that Sir Shridath Ramphal – one of the many luminaries in attendance – was forced to remark that the attendance reflected the acute Guyanese understanding of the very real dangers posed by an adversely changing climate.

Sir Shridath was joined in the Savannah Suite of the Pegasus Hotel by the respected Major General (rt’d) Joseph Singh; Vice President Sydney Allicock; Minister of Governance, Raphael Trotman; and a host of academics, activists and other esteemed local stakeholders, to partake in the nation’s first ever ‘Carbon Conversations’.

An eminent icon on the local and international scene, Sir Shridath was in fact not the premier speaker for the evening, but prefaced world-renowned Professor Dr. Suresh Narine’s lead on the Carbon Conversations with an observation of his own.
Climate Change would form a large part of the evening’s conversation, and Sir Shridath brought home the recent findings of a study conducted by the world’s elitist universities which found that the world has, in fact, entered a new phase of mass extinction.

Human existence is literally under threat, according to Sir Shridath. He said the evidence has accumulated beyond the capacity of the naysayers.

The findings of the study, conducted by the likes of Stanford, Barclay and Princeton universities, was that Climate Change was key among factors for the current threat of extinction that faces the human population, along with a good deal of the other life forms on the planet.
Underscoring the importance of Dr. Narine’s Carbon Conversations, Sir Shridath made it clear, “What we are talking about is nothing trivial.”

CARBON
Having a ‘Carbon conversation’ would require at least a cursory understanding of what Carbon is. Incidentally, this element can be described as almost omnipresent on planet earth; meaning, it’s literally everywhere.

Interestingly enough, while an increase in Carbon in the atmosphere has been blamed for the adverse effects of climate change, in recent years, the professor said, “without Carbon in our atmosphere, we would all freeze to death.”

Professor Suresh Narine made the observation as he opened his Carbon Conversations.

Guyana, as a nation, has made international headlines over its climate change efforts, and credit must, in large part, go to former President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, whom many would say was key among those internationalising the issue in Guyana’s favour.

Earth essentially exists with an atmosphere held in place by a range of factors that will not be discussed in this article, but existing in that atmosphere is what many have come to call the ‘Greenhouse Effect’.

This phrase, Professor Narine said, has in recent years taken on a bad rap, but it is the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ which essentially provides the balanced atmosphere required to sustain life.

He explained, “If we have too much carbon in the atmosphere, then it begins to warm up, and this of course leads to climatic problems.”

GENESIS
But if Carbon exists all around, as has been the case for millions upon millions of years, why has it suddenly become a problem, and why is its quantity rising so exponentially in the atmosphere?
Professor Narine gave some insight.

Planet earth has naturally been regulating Carbon over time using plants. He explained that photosynthesis — a term taught in all primary schools — essentially refers to the act of a plant taking Carbon from the atmosphere and using sunlight and water to make tissue.

But why has Carbon content in the atmosphere increased so exponentially in recent years?
Professor Narine drew the correlation to fossil fuel, oil pulled from the depths of the earth’s crust and released into the atmosphere.
He explained that the fuel used today was in fact formed through millions of years of the earth cooking large deposits of essentially dead plants and other, plankton organisms.

Professor Narine pointed out that those carbon-based life forms, especially plants, would have had dead or decaying tissue deposited over millions of years and trapped between the earth’s crust taking another 800 million years to actually be cooked into crude oil.
The problem arises since oil would have taken the earth millions of years to make, while humans — on the other hand — would have been burning it up over the course of the past 100 years, in the process releasing into the atmosphere millions of years of Carbon stored under the earth’s surface in the form of crude oil.
(To be continued)