Dear Editor,
It is amazing how man is systematically destroying the environment and looking at his own version of science to fix what he terms “climate change” and “global warming,”
In the so-called developed world, and in The Bahamas, beach properties are being denuded and stripped of natural vegetation. Concrete and asphalt have taken the place of sand, and porous soil. Man has compounded that situation with the erection of multi-storied brick and mortar buildings, and every year thereafter, when the hurricane season arrives and the wind blows and the rains pour, there is beach erosion.
We look further and because the tide is high and the seawater is coming into our buildings, we say that the land is sliding into the water, and the scientists are saying it is because of global warming and ice melting.
However, what we do not say, what we fail to see and admit, is, the sea reclaiming the space that man has taken from it.
The day will come – perhaps not in our time – and then again, some of us will be witnesses to the sinking of the island of New Providence. Just look at the destruction we have caused over the years to this island of seven miles by twenty-one miles: The mangroves have been removed from the entire northern boundary beginning west of Cable Beach to Yamacraw Hill Road. The same is being done by developers on the south side from Yamacraw Hill Road around Lyford Cay and back to the Cable Beach area.
And when we look at the centre of the island, the protective hills and ridges are continuing to disappear. They are being flattened and excavated to make way for more construction of concrete buildings and asphalt roads.
The Bahamas is joining other countries in the world with beating the drum of climate change. But, like us, these other countries are also destroying their own environments while screaming climate change and global warming.
Signed,
Anthony Capron
