A GROUP of Guyanese individuals living in and outside of Guyana plus a number of organisations run by Guyanese publicly wrote that Guyana must stop oil production right away.

They wrote: “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 is an existential threat to Guyana. We cannot support government’s policy to produce oil and gas when every ton of greenhouse gas pollution cause [sic] loss of life in African countries. In light of the above we call for a national moratorium on all petroleum operations in Guyana – offshore and onshore.”

Here are the names that composed the absurdity: Vanda Radzik, Alissa Trotz, Vidyaratha Kissoon, Karen de Souza, Pauline Melville, Christine Samwaroo, Danuta Radzik, Maya Trotz, Susan Collymore, Joy Marcus, Halima Khan, Vanessa Ross, Wintress White, Gary Girdhari, Nicole Cole, Abbyssinian Carto, Nigel Westmaas, Joan McDonald, Duane de Freitas, Akola Thompson, Joan Cambridge, Immaculata Casimero, Terry Roopnaraine, Colin Klautky, Earl John, Janette Bulkan, Sandy de Freitas, Sherlina Nageer, Jocelyn Dow, Elizabeth Deane-Hughes, Mosa Telford, Suraiya Ismail, Leila Jagdeo, Gerald Perreira, Romario Hastings, Paulette Allicock, Daniel Allicock, Isabelle de Caires, Luke Daniels, Red Thread, Amerindian Peoples Association, the South Rupununi District Council, The Breadfruit Collective and the Makushi Research Unit.

I chose to highlight the names just in case you know some of these people and recognise the type of life they live and the zero contributions they have made or are making to Guyana. I never heard about the “breadfruit collective,” but I know about the breadfruit I constantly buy for an aging lady, and I would welcome a collection of some free breadfruit from the breadfruit people so my financial burden could be reduced.

In two previous columns, I outlined the status of a majority of those people and where they live and how they live. I will do so in a third column. The main point in their publication which I quoted above is that we, in Guyana, must save the planet by stopping oil production. Here are other examples of the call for Guyana to save the planet.

Stephen Sackur who interviewed President Ali for his BBC programme titled HARDtalk, told the President that oil production will release two billion tons of carbon missions and said to the President: “Does that give you the right to release all this carbon….” Even a moron would know the main point of Sackur. It is why Guyana should do this to the planet, meaning, we should stop those two billion tons of emission to help save the planet.

Secondly, the Stabroek News in its editorial noted last Monday: “Guyana retains a moral culpability over this combustion, considering the grave climate consequences the planet faces … that is the amount of oil that must be extracted and monetized. The rest should be left in the ground until needed or the climate crisis is abated.”

In all the examples I have offered, one fundamental motif stands out – Guyana must save the planet. Don’t forget, this Third World country that is billions of miles away from the type of infrastructure and economy and modern life that the West has, must regulate or stop oil production to save the planet.

Someone sent me this information and asked that I include it in my writings: “A carbon bomb is created every day by the top five oil producers at forty seven million (47,000,000) barrels of oil. In 18 months these five countries produced twenty four billion barrels of oil. Guyana at peak production of 3.5 million barrels daily would take 20 years to produce 24 billion barrels of oil.”

This kind of information, however graphic and fact-based is not going to stop some folks in this country, including a leading newspaper, from calling on Guyana to stop oil production. John Mair, commonly known as Bill Cotton, told me that the owner of Stabroek News, who lives in an oil-producing country, the UK, is very wealthy. In her piece on oil in Guyana in the New York Times (see my column yesterday), Gaiutra Bahadur featured a photograph of the colonial-style plantation house that one of the anti-oil lobby persons lives in.

In that same editorial, here is what the Stabroek News had to say: “The rest should be left in the ground until needed or the climate crisis is abated. There is no such thinking at Freedom House or the Office of the President, in Parliament or even in the ranks of the opposition. Guyana and its people are being poorly served by its leaders.”
For trying to feed the people of Guyana from our rich oil fields, the leaders of Guyana are not serving the people. I wonder if Stabroek News is properly serving the Guyanese people.