Commiting Suicide

IN FIFTH GRADE we made maps of Latin America,and learned the names of all the countries and their capitol cities. In seventh grade, we spent one semester of social studies studying Latin America, but, for some reason, I never learned much about Guyana, other than it is a very small country with a poplation of less than one million. It si not a particularly wealthy, with few resources available to ship and trade around the world for sundry consumer commodities. That, however, is about to change. Over the years, it has become increasingly obvious that if you dig deep enough, no matter where you dig, you will eventually strike oil, because basically, there is oil underground under nearly all the ground on Earth. The big fuel companies - I believe that Chevron and Exxon are both involved - have convinced the tiny country that it an greatly increase its national wealth by allowing them, (the big fuel companies) to set up off shore oil drilling facilities, evidently, in sufficient quantity to make a ton of money. (Why bother to even do it otherwise? The plan will probably work, Probably, billions of dollars of oil will be pumped, and the bit fuel compannies will make billions, and Guyana will also. Whether this financial bonanza will be distributed widely among the poor people of Guyana or horded by the already wealthy powerful few is anyone's guess, but, based on what we know about human nature,we can probalby make an educated guess...Weather conditions are such in and around Guyana that the tiny country could just as well set up a massive off shore and on shore solar and wind energy facility, and perhaps eventually make much more money, and help preserve the environment in the bargain. Instead, they are choosing to enhance global warming and facilitate climate change by jumping into the global game of fossil fuel consumption. We the consumers snap it up for our car addiction, and the billionaires sell it to us gleefully, climate change be damned. And because of this irrational attitude and behavior, the atmosphere is in dire jeopardy of becoming an unrecognizable cauldron of super hot poisonous gases, like the plant Venus. Just about all of us are guilty of aiding and abetting, participating in this suicide of the species, in one way or another. Unless I am dreaming, both Exxon and chevron, and in fact jsut about all the huge oil companiesin teh world, have solemnly pledged to begin to fight global warming and climate change, and to transition to cleaner, sustainable forms of energy, especially wind and solar. Meanwhile, what theya re actually doing is trying to push the world to use more fossil fuels, in a last frenzy of consumption and corporate profit before the curtain falls, and the darkness begins. The fossil fuel billionaires are, in general, older. Money has been their entire life, and there is no reason for them to change now. They know full well that the nightmarish environmental conditions their actions and leadership are bringing into being they themselves will not be alive to experience, they will not directly suffer from their own folly. But their children and grandchildren will. Solar and wind energy are growing rapidly, and fossil fuel use is beginning to level off. But not fast enough. We are starting to take action too little and too late. The climate has already drastically changed, for the worse, and will change much more, very soon. We must act now.