We, at the Environmental Community Health Organization (ECHO), have noticed, with great concern, a full-page advertisement which appeared in the Stabroek News of January 13 under the rubric, ‘Climate Change is not man made and has little to do with the release of CO2 gases.’ This is a very worrying development and will be strenuously contested by ECHO. In another few weeks, ECHO will set out in the public media why climate change is man made and how it is already affecting the global and local economy. To say otherwise is flatly false.
Beyond the inaccuracies presented in the advertisement in question, we believe that it is really about the miners’ economic interest. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, such interest could do more harm than good if the health of the environment is not properly accounted for in the activities relating to that interest. The environment is the basic unit by which all things exist in this visible world in their present state. Therefore, its health should be a main determinant in our quest for development. In fact, it is this insatiable quest for development by mankind, that has set our planet on fire. We have pushed our natural environment and all of its inhabitants to a place of grave danger. Climate change is real. It is man made.
Yours faithfully,
Royston King
