Black Immigrant Daily News

By Erika Schelby

With oceans, countries, populations, and governments inundated by a plague of plastic worldwide, it may be useful to focus on the single-use plastic bag choices made by two cities, in the same U.S. state, located at a distance of only 64 miles (104 km) from each other. Both Santa Fe and Albuquerque share many qualities and conditions, foremost among them a distinctive cultural mix of American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American citizens. But the two communities are also dissimilar, and this is reflected in the way they have dealt with the plastic bag dilemma.

Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in the United States. It is the seat of the New Mexico government and is home to the country’s third-largest art market. It calls itself “the City Different” and has more than 250 art galleries and dealers, a dozen state and private museums, and a world-class opera, for its more than 88,000 residents.

The “costly negative implications for tourism, wildlife and aesthetics” led Santa Fe to ban single-use plastic carryout bags with Ordinance No. 2015-12 in April of 2015. The decision was also made “to protect the environment while reducing waste, litter, and pollution in order to help improve the public’s health and welfare.” In April 2016, an open letter was sent from the mayor and addressed to the local businesses explaining the project and the new rules in detail.

Nearby Albuquerque is also attractive but less rarefied and more of a workhorse city. It is much larger with a population of 562,599 as of 2021, a growth rate of 24.8 percent since 2000, and a metropolitan area population of 942,000 until 2022. It has a total of 49.8 percent Hispanic inhabitants. Most have lived here for generations. Located in the high desert along the Rio Grande, Albuquerque has several museums, an Old Town dating back to 1706, and various cultural and recreational attractions.

After long debates, Albuquerque’s Clean and Green Retail Ordinance became effective on January 1, 2020. Single-use plastic bags were banned from the point of sale. But then came the pandemic, and enforcement was deferred. Doing business at the retail level had already grown difficult and stressful for management, employees, and shoppers. Supply chains were disrupted. With the new challenges thrown up during the pandemic, these changes seemed all too much at once. The city council listened to the plight of constituents and decided to oppose Mayor Tim Keller’s progressive plastic bag ban. It voted 6-3 to revoke it. The mayor bravely vetoed the reversal. Yet on April 4, 2022, the councilors’ motion to override the veto passed with a vote of 6-3 once again. The ban on single-use plastic bags was lifted. Convenience won the battle against environmental concerns but did not win the war.

That struggle is undeniably bigger than one city council’s decision to put off what needs to be done. In 2007, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to pass a law against the use of single-use plastic bags. California followed by implementing a statewide ban in 2014. Puerto Rico and 10 states have enacted legislation to ban single-use plastic bags: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. And in contrast to Albuquerque’s reversal of the ban, a growing number of American cities have introduced plastic bag bans or bans and fees–among them are Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boulder, New York, Portland, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Internationally, a growing number of countries have launched nationwide bans on producing, using, and distributing plastic bags.

Experiencing devastating floods in the summer of 1998, Bangladesh noted that thin plastic bags were clogging hundreds of storm drains and drainage systems during flooding, worsening the situation. This caused an estimated 80 percent of the flooding blockages in cities. So in 2002, Bangladesh implemented a ban on all plastic shopping bags in the nation, becoming the first country in the world to do so. Others followed. “According to a United Nations paper and several media reports, 77 countries in the world have passed some sort of full or partial ban on plastic bags,” reported Statista.

Unfortunately, such prohibitions are not enough. Despite the fact that Bangladesh became the world’s first country to ban plastic bags, their use continued to cause environmental harm. Its Department of Environment confiscated 592,223 metric tons of polythene from 2019 to 2021. The number of illegal polybag manufacturers increased from 300 in 1999 to an estimated 700 to 1,000 by 2021. In addition, until 2019, about 1.2 million metric tons of plastic waste was shipped in from the U.S. and the UK, making a bad situation worse.

Instead of finding solutions to the issues related to plastic pollution, reports by Western nonprofits and companies have, meanwhile, helped push the blame for polluting the world’s oceans onto “a small geographical area in East and Southeast Asia.” In July of 2022, the well-known nonprofit advocacy organization Ocean Conservancy delivered an official apology for the damage done by a report it coauthored along with McKinsey Center for Business and Environment in 2015: Stemming the Tide: Land-Based Strategies for a Plastic-Free Ocean.

Impeccably written, professional in tone, and convincing in language, the report claimed research had shown that more than half of the plastic pollution entering the ocean originated from five Asian countries: China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand. The report claimed that “increasing economic power” and “exploding demand for consumer products” had led these countries to produce and use plastic heavily, and they lacked the infrastructure to deal with the resulting plastic waste tsunami. Consequently, the waste ended up in the ocean. The study argued that the most effective way to deal with this was through recycling. What was meant by this euphemistic term was the deployment of waste-to-energy technology: gasification, and incineration.

Yet burning plastic discharges a potent and dangerous mix of toxins and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and into the communities unfortunate enough to be near the incinerating sites. Moreover, for a number of rich countries with environmental restrictions, the cynical hype for recycling has fostered the export of plastic trash to less developed countries like Bangladesh, resulting in the charge of “waste colonialism.” Additionally, the report created an injurious and false narrative. Although it was removed from the Ocean Conservancy website, it lingers on as a sophisticated and warning masterpiece of greenwashing. It is surprising that it took so long to acknowledge this truth, given the list of the project’s supporters: the Coca-Cola Company, the Dow Chemical Company, the American Chemistry Council, and the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa, among others.

Meanwhile, with a March 2022 UN resolution adopted during the United Nations Environment Assembly 5.2 in Nairobi to end plastic pollution, governments have started to strive for a global, legally binding agreement by 2024. It could not be like another timid 2015 Paris Agreement. It needed teeth. So from November 28 to December 2, 2022, delegates from 150 countries met for the UN’s first session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC1) in Punta del Este, Uruguay, to begin negotiations that will eventually lead to an international plastics treaty. Or so one hopes. “Turn off the tap on plastic,” said UN Secretary-General Ant?nio Guterres. “Plastics are fossil fuels in another form.”

Indeed, that’s what they are: products made from oil and gas. Americans discard 100 billion bags annually, which are manufactured from 12 million barrels of oil. And what makes these flimsy thin, light, cheap, containers especially dreadful is perhaps the fact that globally 500 billion of them are used annually, for an average of only 15 minutes. After that brief moment in time, they are thrown away. Yet they go on polluting the environment and causing health hazards for years.

What is more, most of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic that have been manufactured since the 1950s remain in landfills or within the natural environment. By 2050, it is estimated that around 12 billion metric tons of plastic waste will reside in landfills or the natural environment. Plastic is a synthetic substance. It does not biodegrade. Eventually and very slowly the sun, wind, water, waves, and abrasion break it down into tiny particles. Single-use polyethylene plastic bags will take up to 1,000 years to photo-degrade. Effective recycling, specifically in the U.S., may be a pipe dream. The practical infrastructures, facilities, workers, and readiness to handle this daily flash flood of indestructible waste do not exist and would be expensive to achieve. Incineration is not a solution: it does more harm than good. Therefore it is no big surprise that globally, more than 90 percent of plastic is not recycled. The pile ends up in landfills, rivers, and oceans.

Much of the plastic waste is dumped in landfills. As it breaks down, it leaches hazardous chemicals, contaminates the surroundings, and infiltrates the food chain. According to a fact sheet from EarthDay.org, “Researchers in Germany indicate that terrestrial microplastic pollution is much higher than marine microplastic pollution–estimated at four to 23 times higher, depending on the environment.”

Nevertheless, tossing plastic garbage into the oceans proceeds at a furious pace. A lot of it is swept in from rivers. At least 10 million tons of plastic waste ends up in our oceans each year. If this continues, we may have more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.

Globally, people generate so much filth and debris that these waste products are now beginning to accumulate and occupy significant space, sometimes larger than the size of whole cities and countries. One such example is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), which “is a collection of marine debris” spanning “waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan.” It is already enormous–estimated to be some 1.6 million square kilometers, about twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France–and may spawn a whole family of floating trash concentrations that drift and travel with ocean currents and thereby can reach additional bodies of water. The relentless energy of the sea grinds portions of these garbage vortexes into microplastics. This produces a thick, cloudy gumbo in which larger items are suspended. A share of this mess sinks down to the seafloor. As a result of this, algae and plankton are deprived of sunlight and wiped out, which leads to fish and turtles growing hungry and weak. Many perish. This causes less food for tuna, sharks, and whales, leading to the marine food web being destabilized.

Humans already eat–literally–five grams of microplastics and nanoplastics, or a credit card’s worth of plastic, every week. That amounts to between 39,000 and 52,000 particles of plastic added to our diet every year. Microplastics can be found in animals, fish, and birds, and also in human blood and organs. They even invade the placentas of unborn babies. They are everywhere.

Plastic is affecting human health and reproduction and might have irreparable consequences for the human species, even leading to “human extinction” if uncontrolled use of plastics is not prevented. In mice, research has already shown a decrease in the quantity and quality of sperm and a reduction of total follicles in the ovaries of females. So far, investigations into the effects of microplastics absorbed into the human body have barely begun. Science needs another 10 to 15 years to come up with answers.

The wish for a clean, safe personal space–a home–is hardwired into humans. Indeed, many individuals want to make their homes as beautiful as possible according to their means and their taste. But each person also generates waste and is responsible for it–that’s the flip side of our way of life. In contemporary households, the waste is flushed away or picked up in a trash bin by the waste management services of a city. Residents pay fees for this convenience. But the waste is still theirs. It has simply been relocated–it’s out of sight, out of mind.

That is where the problem lies. Municipalities and landfills are overwhelmed with plastic waste. In 1960, the U.S. generated 88.1 million tons of solid waste; by 2018, this had increased to a whopping 292.4 million tons. America had become a wasteful society that throws stuff away. In 2022, it became the second largest per capita generator of solid municipal waste in the world–surprisingly after Denmark, which is often cited as a model global citizen. Other highly developed countries produce far less waste than the U.S. A special case is Australia’s city of Adelaide, which may have the most effective waste program anywhere. A recent article in the Guardian tells the story of Alice Clanachan, a woman who applied the city’s “reduce, reuse, recycle” plan so resolutely, that for a total of 26 months, she didn’t need to put her rubbish bin out for collection.

Here in the United States, in the state of New Mexico, the city of Santa Fe succeeded in banning single-use plastic bags years ago. Its residents understood that you cannot maintain a beautiful home for long without caring for the surroundings. If individuals loathe the idea of befouling their own interior spaces, they can also leap to the wider view of detesting the squalor inflicted on the entire planet–our common home. Perhaps this was easier to do in Santa Fe. It’s a small place that knows its own mind.

For Albuquerque, the American can-do attitude may reassert itself sometime soon. Civic pride and civic duty will remind the residents that the ban on single-use bags is a rare thing they can control and do right here and now, at the local level. People have done just that before the plastic plague began. And we can even do our shopping by adopting the uncomplicated routine of bringing our own durable and reusable bags. This simple step could help decrease plastic waste and help promote a cleaner way of living and supporting all life on Earth.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Dr Lorraine Sobers

In my latest article I rehashed a selection of themes addressed during 2022. Regular readers and energy sector observers may have noticed the omission of local content, education, ESG criteria, Guyana’s political stability and positioning on climate action, since becoming a major oil producer and, action Guyana can take to avoid the resource curse. This, my final article for the year, will review these outstanding issues.

The Local Content Policy (LCP) and its upcoming legislation were the focus of attention at the end of 2021 into the first quarter of 2022. Education is to local content as sowing is to reaping so at that time I decided to focus on education, writing:

“A solid foundation at the primary school level leads to improvement in performance through to secondary and tertiary education which feeds into the availability of professionals to provide the technical goods and services required by the energy sector.”

“Guyana needs to aggressively pursue a vastly improved quality of education for the majority of Guyanese children in the primary and secondary school system right now. Enhancements of tertiary education institutions alone will not suffice.”

In reference to the energy sector specifically, I agreed with statements made by Prof Cardinal Warde, Executive Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation, during the third episode of Transforming Guyana series stating:

“STEM education can become the means to achieving sustainable socio-economic development for Guyana through technology-based entrepreneurship.”

“Rapid growth is needed in STEM companies working in Guyana to provide real opportunities that translate technical expertise into other industries.”

I also added, noted that education, on its own, is not enough:

“Education may be the passport but it cannot also be the aircraft, fuel and engine all at the same time. The impact of STEM education is intricately linked to policies, legislature and spending in other sectors such as business and banking.”

Without supporting policies and action, those educated in STEM will continue to leave their homeland as documented in “The Guyanese Diaspora” report published in 2020 by the Center for Strategic International Studies.

“Almost 90 percent of Guyanese nationals with a tertiary-level education and 40 percent of those with a secondary education emigrated from Guyana between 1965 and 2000…Based on these statistics, Guyana is thought to have one of the highest levels of “brain drain” of any country on Earth.”

Petrodollars will be spent on a range of projects but where can they be strategically invested? Apart from spending on immediate developmental needs — infrastructure, health care and education — investment is needed in areas such as the manufacturing sector and electricity systems that can, in turn, generate or support the generation of revenue. This is how countries avoid the resource curse:

“Investment in a robust manufacturing sector can shift Guyana away from exporting its raw materials, towards creating more value-added products. As a natural consequence there can be an accompanying increase in the value of exports, reduced demand for importing those products and increased employment.”

“…Guyana’s manufacturing sector will be able to boast of producing products using cleaner and green energy with a mix of natural gas, hydropower and solar power.”

“Guyana’s power sector must meet the demand for the shift from centralized systems of thermal power plants. The inclusion of offshore natural gas bolsters Guyana’s energy security by providing cleaner energy for the growing domestic and industrial power demand. Additionally, there will be a more attractive environment for investment with lower energy cost and greater reliability of supply.”

Shifting to external factors that affect Guyana’s progress, imagine that Guyana retained its abundant resources and completely resolved governance, labor force capability and capacity challenges by 2030. Is that enough to ensure success and prosperity for all Guyanese? Unfortunately, resolving those issues will not be enough. The response of foreign investors and climate change also need to be considered and navigated.

In June I identified some additional “fire clubs” that the country will face starting with the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Criteria:

“ESG criteria are a set of standards used by socially conscious investors to screen potential projects for investment. These standards influence the allocation of funds and management of operations. … In short, fossil fuel production and development in Guyana may be a stumbling block to environmentally conscious investors — this cannot be completely ignored. “

“Meeting ESG standards adds complexity to the energy transition … These challenges call for innovation and new approaches to doing business.”

“The country’s attractiveness to environmentally and socially conscious international investors can also determine its ability to compete for foreign direct investment.”

Guyana’s positioning in climate change policy has also become more complex as it ramps up its oil production:

“Guyana holds a unique position being a longstanding significant carbon sink then swiftly becoming a significant oil exporter, transitioning to clean energy consumption and boosting the development of the nation in less than a decade. The Tyndall report and the IEA are asking governments and oil and gas producers to walk away from hydrocarbon reserves.”

On one hand the country acknowledges the need for action on climate change but on the other hand there is equally valid need for socio-economic development in a country that is eager to modernize and provide a better standard and living for its people while it can do so:

“Guyana’s oil revenue is earmarked advance much needed development in infrastructure, energy reliability and access, telecommunications, health care, education, agriculture housing and national security. The issue is more about survival than it is about progress.”

“…oil demand is expected to decline after 2050 and Guyana is racing against the clock to produce and sell a commodity that is slated to be phased out. Revenue projections indicate that this is a long-awaited opportunity to secure sufficient funds to meet national objectives and absorb inevitable economic shocks.”

There is one gift the people of Guyana ought to give themselves in 2023 and beyond — political stability:

“History will judge the actions and statements of government representatives and the opposition that impact and influence the sentiments and, in turn, demands of the general public. Weak political institutions are a fast track to the dreaded Resource Curse, corruption and inflation.”

“It is quite simple; politically stable countries flourish, politically unstable countries devolve into chaos and poverty regardless of form of government, size of hydrocarbon reserves or the favourability of contracts secured with multinational companies.”

In 2023 optimists can confidently hope for Guyana’s progress and prosperity as long as the country does all within its power to secure political stability. As local government elections approaches in under three months, I say to Guyana: the world and investors are watching.

————–

Dr. Lorraine Sobers is a Fulbright Scholar currently lecturing at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. Dr Sobers has a BS in Chemical Engineering and postgraduate degrees, MS and Ph.D., in Petroleum Engineering from Texas Tech and Imperial College, London respectively. She has 19 years’ experience in the energy sector specialising in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Dr. Sobers is the Project Coordinator for CO2 Emission Reduction Mobilisation (CERM) Project and a Fellow of the Caribbean Policy Consortium.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The American Historical Association has voted to select Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Professor Sir Hilary Beckles as its Honorary Foreign Scholar for 2023.

The Association has annually recognised a foreign scholar since 1885, and the list includes the most acclaimed international historians. Beginning with Leopold von Ranke (1885), it showcases well-known names such as George Trevelyan (1944), Sir Winston Churchill (1963), Fernand Braudel (1966), Eric Hobsbawm (1994) and Ramachandra Guha (2019).

Past President of the Association, and Distinguished Professor at University of Wisconsin, James H. Sweet noted, “It is the judgement of the Association that the contribution of Professor Beckles, to historical scholarship, his efforts to internationalise historical study, and his crucial role as a mentor to other scholars does great honour to the discipline.”

Furthermore, Professor Sweet said, “In addition to his superb scholarship, activism, and administrative work at The UWI, Beckles has been a selfless supporter of scholars from around the world, including the United States. He has served as a Council Member for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, and as International Editor for the Journal of American History. Over the course of his career, he has offered personal support to U.S. professors and graduate students conducting research in the Caribbean.”

The Honorary Foreign Scholar award was presented at the Association’s 2023 ceremony in Philadelphia on January 5, 2023. In response, Professor Beckles noted, “This award by my American peers is among the greatest of academic honours, which I accept on behalf of The UWI that gave me the opportunity as a young historian to develop and contribute at the global level.”

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles is the second Caribbean scholar to receive the award, following the legendary Cuban historian Manuel M. Fraginals in 1998. The 2023 honour also follows Professor Beckles’ 2022 appointment as the President’s Honorary Visiting Distinguished Scholar at Cornell University, for six years.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds. Jan. 25, 2023: US oil giant Hess Corporation is rolling in the oil. The company on Wednesday announced that another oil find was recorded in the prolific Stabroek Block offshore of the South American CARICOM nation of Guyana.

That “significant new oil discovery” was from the Fangtooth SE-1 well. Hess said approximately 200 feet of oil bearing sandstone reservoirs was found. It adds to the estimate of more than 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the Stabroek block, though further appraisal activities are underway.

Hess contended that the new oil find “has the potential to underpin a future oil development on the Stabroek Block.” What that means is that the Fangtooth area could become a new oil production field in the Stabroek Block like the Liza Phase 1 and Liza Phase 2, where the combined production of at least 360,000 barrels of oil per day is ongoing.

Hess is a co-venturer with a 30 per cent stake in the Stabroek Block. Esso Exploration Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), ExxonMobil’s local subsidiary, is the operator in the block, and has a 45% stake. The other partner is China National Offshore Oil Corporation.

Beyond Liza Phase 1 and Liza Phase 2, production is expected to start at the Payara development in the Stabroek Block by the end of this year. Future production fields include Yellowtail and Uaru.

Aside from this new discovery, Hess reported significant earnings in the fourth quarter of 2022- a large sharing drawn from the production in Guyana.

And earlier this week, the company said it would increase spending on capital projects this year by US$1 billion, to US$3.7 billion, mostly for its Guyana’s and North Dakota’s Bakken shale field projects.

ExxonMobil, the operator of the Block is expected to confirm the find on Friday.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Attorney Christine Carla Kangaloo was on Friday elected as the President of Trinidad and Tobago, succeeding outgoing head of state, Paula Mae Weekes, and in the process becoming the second woman to be elected to the position.

Kangaloo, who resigned her position as Senate President earlier this week and was nominated by the government, easily defeated veteran Senior Counsel, Israel Khan , who had been nominated by the main opposition United National Congress (UNC).

The Electoral College, which is composed of all members of the House of Representatives and the Senate assembled together, took just over two and a half hours to vote in support of Kangaloo, by secret ballot.

The government has 38 votes in the College, while the opposition has 28. There are nine independent legislators. The Presiding officer also has a vote.

When the results were announced, Kangaloo received 48 votes, Khan received 21 votes and there were three rejected ballots.

The Presiding Officer, Bridgid Annisette-George, who is also the Speaker of the Parliament, said under the Constitution, “the candidate who has obtained the greater number of the votes cast shall be declared elected.

“Accordingly I hereby declare that Christine Carla Kangaloo has obtained the greater number of votes cast and as such is elected as the President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago,” she said, adding that the necessary instruments would be sent to the President elect later.”

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in nominating Kangaloo, said that the former government minister, university lecturer, had during her tenure as President of the Senate, acted as President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago no fewer than 33 occasions.

“It is with a sense of great pride that as Member of Parliament for Diego Martin West and along with all other members who signed or otherwise endorse her nomination that, as Prime Minister of this Republic that I present Ms Christine Carla Kangaloo as a most worthy candidate for the consideration of this esteemed Electoral College to be elected to the position of President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago,” he said.

Following her election, he said the “well written constitution of Trinidad and Tobago has functioned” properly, a reference no doubt to the claims made by the opposition during the run up to Friday’s presidential election that Kangaloo was an active politician and shoul;d have stepped aside for another nominee.

“Madam Speaker we were called to duty under the provisions of the relevant sections of our Constitution to elect a head of state and today we did so smoothly, dutifully,” he said, adding that “public service is honourable and it is in that vein I would like to congratulate the citizens who put their names forward to be considered for the post of President of Trinidad and Tobago.

“It was an electoral process and Madam Speaker we can still be proud, not knowing of a better way to do it and out of this process…this Chamber by clear majority has chosen a distinguished daughter of Trinidad and Tobago”.

In her brief remark, Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad Bissessar said she has “taken note of this electoral process and I serve notice that the opposition will hold that office to scrutiny in the best interest of the people of Trinidad and Tobago”.

Kangaloo is the only person to serve as both President and Vice President of the Senate. She becomes the seventh head of state and Commander in Chief.

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