Guyana has most important resources of the future – Dr. Suresh Narine

Apr 24, 2009 News

… arable land, fresh water, and skilled labour force

Director of IAST, Dr. Suresh Narine

By Tusika Martin
Climate change will result in major flooding in Guyana, limiting citizens’ ability to produce crops. It will also hinder the citizens on the coast lifestyles.
This was the sentiment shared by Head of the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, Dr. Suresh Narine, on Wednesday during a lecture organised to recognise Earth Day 2009.
The lecture, which focused on ‘Guyana and the Biological Revolution: Carbon as a Commodity and Opportunities for Guyana,’ was organised by the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Guyana.
The carbon cycle and its capacity to keep the level of carbon in the atmosphere constant is being outstripped by the rate at which carbon is introduced into the atmosphere due to the use of fossil sources of carbon, the Professor from the University of Alberta said.

He said that plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and make food by process of photosynthesis.
In a reciprocal process, the same plants, he noted, respire and various parts of them (leaves, limbs,) decay, resulting in the carbon that was fixed by photosynthesis being released into the atmosphere.
The rates of sequestration and the rates of fixation are commensurable, leading to a small net amount of carbon being semi-permanently fixed, about one giga-ton per year, he told the audience within which was Prime Minister Samuel Hinds.

“The world in its pristine state would have only a total sum of carbon in the atmosphere…so the greenhouse effect is useful also…Indeed, without a certain amount of carbon in the atmosphere providing the greenhouse effect, the planet would be uninhabitable.”
However, there is another source of carbon, which is released into the atmosphere—carbon, which was fixed 500 million years ago and which now exists as deposits of fossil fuels in the earth’s crust.
This carbon is released when fossil sources of carbon are used to produce chemicals, materials, and fuel, Dr. Narine said.

This, together with cement production and deforestation, results in about one giga ton of carbon being released into the atmosphere annually.
Clearly, the Professor noted, the rate of sequestration is greatly outstripped by the rate of release, due to cement production, fossil fuel usage and deforestation. Equally clear, the Professor said, strongly supporting President Jagdeo’s proposal to the world on avoided deforestation, the more plants the country has, the more carbon will be sequestered.
In addition to avoided deforestation, the world still needs to find methods of supplanting the use of fossil fuels by utilizing renewable sources of carbon, which can be removed from the atmosphere and fixed in the crop cycle of cultivation, he said.

“The continued utilization of fossil carbon for the production of chemicals, materials and energy without abatement will continue to upset the carbon equilibrium.”
Because of this, he added, Guyana has a significant advantage, and together with many developing states fortunate to have significant arable acreages and abundant water, is poised on the cusp of a Biological Revolution.
The most important resources of the future, the Professor boldly said, are arable land, fresh water, and a skilled labour force, all of which Guyana possesses.