The destruction of dreams

Another instance of propaganda is contained in the ALCOA advertisement that promised that the smelter would create about 800 jobs. Why did this ad not indicate how many jobs would be lost by building this smelter? The apiarists, and their downstream processors, the fishermen, the crab harvesters, and the agriculturalists. One can go further and recognise future entrepreneurial opportunities based on tourism and adventure that will be bulldozed under the smelter.

The ALCOA experts drew reference to the smelters in Brazil, and Australia. But only gullible would compare the small island of Trinidad with those large landmasses. Indeed Trinidad 1,864 square miles) is smaller than one ranch in Guyana. Trust me, the impact on this island would be magnified by as many times that those countries are larger than TT.

Even the most advanced aluminium smelter releases one tonne of fluoride for every 100,000 tonnes of aluminium produced, so we can expect 300 tonnes of fluorides each year. But apart from pollution and the poisoning of the Gulf of Paria, there is the urgent problem of human displacement. People who lived, toiled and triumphed in that corner of Trinidad for generations must now take up their memories and run for cover. Is this not the severest form of oppression, the destruction of dreams?

I wish to assure all our political leaders (the UNC is silent on this issue) that there will be a heavy political cost to bear if a single smelter is built in this country. I again appeal to those environmental clubs in the schools and in UWI, to act on the basis of the knowledge you possess, and agitate for an end to all plans for aluminium smelters in TT.