“The Great Carbon Divide” is a meticulously researched document just released. It is a product of a joint effort by Oxfam, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Guardian newspaper of the UK.
To digest the horrible revelations of who is guiltier of climate damage, you need to know about that infamous letter published on November 13, 2020 in the Stabroek News. It was an advocacy for Guyana to immediately come out of oil production.
Among the 46 signatories were co-owner of Stabroek News, Isabelle DeCaires; Dr, Alissa Trotz, of the WPA, Red Thread and columnist with the Stabroek News; her sister, Dr. Maya Trotz; Terry Roopnaraine, son of Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine; the opposition aligned Amerindian Peoples’ Association; Karen de Souza of Red Thread; Guyanese novelist, Pauline Melville; the two sisters from the Vieira family, Danuta and Vanda Radzik; Gary Gildarie from the Oil and Gas Governance Network; Dr. Nigel Westmass of the WPA; Joycelyn Dow of the WPA; Dr. Janet Bulkan; Elizabeth Deane-Hughes; African cultural activist, and Stabroek News columnist, Mosa Telford; Vidyaratha Kissoon; and Akola Thompson, African cultural activist and Stabroek News columnist.
Below is the residency status of many of the persons in the anti-oil lobby that signed that November 13, 2022 letter.
1 – Dr. Janet Bulkan serves the University of British Columbia.
2- Dr. Alissa Trotz serves the University of Toronto
3- Dr. Nigel Westmass serves Hamilton College in New York
4- Dr. Maya Trots serves the University of South Florida
5 – Isabelle DeCaires lives in her homeland of the UK where her son plays cricket in the county championship for Middlesex.
6 – Abyssinian Carto is of Rastafari orientation that lives in New York. He left Guyana a very long time ago.
7- Dr. Gary Gildarie lives in New York. He left Guyana years now.
8 – Terry Roopnaraine lives in his homeland of the UK. He may be nearing his fifties.
9 – Pauline Melville moved to the UK since the early 1950s.
10 – Christina Samaroo moved to New York in 2008
11 – Luke Daniels lives in the UK
That research on the foreign domicile of those named above was contained in my column of Tuesday, November 22, 2022 titled, “A conversation on two subjects: Slavery and the diaspora.” Now let’s quote from that November 13, 2022 missive: “We are deeply concerned that the Government’s policy to pursue economic development based on oil and gas is bad for Guyana. Oil and gas production are an existential threat to Guyana. We all know that burning fossil fuels pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gas (GHG) and causes global warming. Global warming is damaging the global climate system leading to extreme weather. We cannot support government’s policy to produce oil and gas when every ton of greenhouse causes loss of life in African countries. We ask for a national moratorium on all petroleum operations in Guyana – offshore and onshore.”
Even a kindergarten child could understand what this advocacy is all about. It wants Guyana to come out of oil production right away. In 40 years, this country will earn perhaps trillions of American dollars to shape a meaningful future for this nation. In reaction to the anti-oil lobby, Professor Clive Thomas made two observations. Now, remember Dr. Thomas is no supporter of the government but is a relentless critic of the PPP government.
First, he said the call to abolish the oil industry is crass inhumanity when one takes into consideration the drastic poverty reduction that oil income can achieve. Secondly, he said why these people are looking to Guyana to ensure climate change when richer countries can do far more than Guyana but are not doing so. Here is where the climate report cited above comes in.
Before I state what the report concludes, I need to mention that in that November 22, 2020 letter of mine exposing those named cited above, I wrote: “In the countries these names above live, the fossil fuel industry is in full operation.”
I now quote from the Guardian of the UK on what the climate document contains: “The report shows that in 2019 – the most recent year for which there is comprehensive data – high-income countries (mostly in the global north) were responsible for 40 per cent of global consumption-based CO2 emissions, while the contribution from low-income countries was a negligible 0.4 per cent. Global emissions continue to rise, and governments in the global north provided $1.8 trillion to subsidise the fossil fuel industry in 2020, contrary to their international pledges to phase out carbon emissions.”
So what do you think of the Guyanese who wrote that letter about Guyana getting out of the fossil fuel industry after you would have read that report? Some people are just lost souls; lost forever in life’s maelstrom of stupidities.
