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PROTECTING THE EARTH

Sep 23, 2017 Editorial

The importance of the earth to all living creatures, especially humans, is self-evident. We must protect and save it. The earth is the only planet whose name is derived from the old English and German tradition and not from the Greek/Roman mythology.
In Roman mythology, the Goddess of the earth was Tellus—the fertile soil. In the sixteenth century, the Polish-born mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a paradigm of the universe that placed the sun and not the earth at the centre of the universe. Formed around 4.54 billion years ago, the earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in the solar system. It is the largest and densest of all the terrestrial planets.
The earth is the only planet that is the habitat for human beings. Every living organism known to science obtains all of its resources—food, water and oxygen—from the earth. Without the earth, humans and all living creatures would be doomed to extinction, unless they are able to adapt to conditions on another planet.
The Earth has many different habitats, including deserts, forests, grasslands, lakes, rivers, swamps and oceans, all of which have been a blessing to us. Therefore, as a nation, we must not follow others and work to destroy the earth. We must protect it. It has blessed us with an abundance of natural resources, including oil and gold, oceans, lakes, rivers, swamps, forests, wild animals, reptiles, mammals and different species of birds.
It is time for us to pause and reflect how fortunate we are in Guyana. We must nurture, protect and save it for future generations.
We should not destroy the earth in the name of progress. In Guyana as in other countries, there will always be conflict between the desire for profit and the protection of the earth, but we must do the right thing and protect it.
The thirst for greater development and wealth should not be at the destruction of the earth. We must not sacrifice the earth for short-term luxury such as development because it would destroy the quality of the air we breathe or the waters we drink. We must not mortgage the eco-system in the name of progress.
Rather, we must find the right balance between development, create wealth and protect the earth for our children and civilization. We must ensure that all developmental projects subscribe to strict environmental guidelines, and existing ones should have deadlines by which to adapt and meet those standards or face stiff fines. Although we are at the point of extracting oil, we must transition decisively away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, including wind and solar.
The time has come for us to create new enterprises with renewable energy such as wind, solar and biofuel. This should be a start, and the authority must play a meaningful leadership role to make this happen. We ought to learn from the damage done to the environment by the ExxonMobil oil spills in the United States and in other countries and the catastrophic nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union at Chernobyl in 1986.
The clogging of our rivers by the wanton and indiscriminate dumping of garbage, including plastic and Styrofoam containers must stop. We should move forward with a common understanding that we owe it to ourselves to protect the only earth that we have in order not to deprive our children and generations yet unborn in the name of progress and development. Saving Mother Earth is a blessing that will make us feel proud. It will help us to move to greater and better things in life.

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