We must not let the Western world run us over

Letters

THE global economy is a system within a larger system, the biosphere.
As the global economy grows, it displaces and encroaches upon the biosphere.
We keep consuming the natural resources that keep nature in balance.
The biosphere contains many living systems which have been adversely impacted by industrial activity of the economic system.
This is the fundamental opportunity cost of economic growth. And in the madness of conventional economics, we forgot to check and balance on how our parent system, the biosphere, was coping.
Since industrialisation, greenhouse gases have been accumulating in the biosphere resulting in global warming which then is causing varying climate change patterns.
The hardest problem yet is in pursuing mitigating measures for the effects of climate change through global efforts in the form of protocols, communiqués, agreements, etc.
By mechanism, the mitigating measures in these agreements are all poised to expand the world economy further through various funding facilities under climate change funding mechanisms and the green carbon market, contributing to corporate economic globalisation.
Politicians and corporate leaders the world over are very responsive to wealth, money and the corporate power.
The G-wired politicians and corporate leaders try to respond to the global climate change crisis because they are responding to a much higher power.
That higher power is the control of the fossil fuel industry that empowers the economic system which then enables world political, economic, and technological power.
The corporate leader of the world’s biggest company in this industry has just been appointed to one of the world powers’ most influential positions in the world.
This company is worth more than the sum of total value of all other companies in the whole world. It has significant interests in the petroleum sector in Papua New Guinea.
Whether these various climate change agreements will endure geo-political implications and see their intended results, which could mean reducing carbon emissions output from the use of oil and natural gas in industrial and G-counties, will be determined by oversight of the new Secretary of State on world issues much of which have been influenced by his country, the world’s biggest economy and most powerful country with the most advanced weaponry on earth.
Like other countries, PNG is susceptible to global economic forces, climate change effects, and global power play perpetrated by forces in the control of the fossil fuel industry.
However, we are special people, we are Melanesians. Our lifestyles and livelihoods are totally different from the Western types.
While global forces dictate the development of our society, the reality of our livelihoods must reign and our resources and environment must be prudently managed.

Alois Balar
Bainings, ENB