Dear Editor,
The G-7 leaders would have done the world a service, if they had stayed home in their climate-controlled homes, and pristine environments. As far as I am concerned the G-7 Summit was an exercise in trumpet blaring and mutual self-congratulations, on a job well done. Once again, poor nations and their multitudes of poorer people, mostly coloureds, are put in their proper places. Meaning, at the bottom: they belong there, and must stay there. I recognized early that the jig was up, when U.S President, Joe Biden, made a big splash about climate change from the White House porticos, and then started to sway sideways. What a balloon, what a letdown…. I will say this now, and I am speaking for Exxon: the only change of substance happening with climate change is that nothing is changing. Editor, the UN itself said that there is an unprecedented pandemic-driven unemployment crisis globally, and they pick on coal. I say, why not? It has a reputation as black as Mephistopheles, and represents easy pickings. India had better beware: sanctions for excess atmospheric contamination. Oh, and it is another way to put the squeeze on China. But I have to hand it to them, they are smart; slick is more the word. In the quid pro quo for doing nothing, after all the hullabaloos, on climate change, there was corporate giveback of 15% taxes. Smart, isn’t it? Note not much of corporate laments. But in true paternal colonialist fashion, they did stick it to us to the tune of a billion vaccines. Take that, and no grimacing, not even an ‘ouch.’
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
