In 2007, the late Pope Benedict XVI warned us that “Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message if we want to survive.” In his 2015 encyclical on ecology, Laudato Si, Pope Francis said that climate change is real and mainly “a result of human activity.”
He continues to speak about the devastating effects of the ecological crisis on people and the planet. He introduces the concept of integral ecology since everything is connected. The climate, he reminded us, is “a common good, belonging to all and meant for all ... Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years.”
While we must all change our day-to-day actions to live more sustainably, on a larger scale, he says, our leaders must be held to account. “Those who will have to suffer the consequences ... will not forget this failure of conscience and responsibility ... Reducing greenhouse gases requires honesty, courage and responsibility.”
To protect Mother Earth, we must hear “both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.”
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, SVG Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves expressed concerns about access to international finance to fund rebuilding and called on richer countries to honour their climate commitments
And while Gonsalves and Grenadian PM Dickon Mitchell are galvanising regional and international support, including an emergency meeting with Caricom, our region continues to face the grim reality that, “although Caribbean states have some of the world’s lowest greenhouse gas emissions, we are among the world’s countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”
The UK Guardian reported that “The Commonwealth secretary general, Patricia Scotland, joined the call for better climate finance support to small and vulnerable countries affected by hurricanes, which have been made increasingly frequent and dangerous by global heating.”
Beryl is the first recorded Atlantic storm to move from Category 1 to Category 5 this early in the hurricane season. Brian Tang, an associate professor of atmospheric science at the University at Albany, State University of New York says that Beryl’s “rapid intensification and strength have likely been driven by unusually warm waters.”
In 2018, the Intra-ACP Global Climate Change Alliance Programme warned that “If current trends continue, the Caribbean region could warm a further 2-3°C this century, more than the 1°C already seen in the last century ... Caribbean sea levels could rise by one to two metres, far exceeding the rise already recorded.”
At least 11 people in the Caribbean have died during the hurricane. St Vincent, Canouan, Union Island and Mayreau, Carriacou and Petite Martinique, Grenada, Barbados, and Jamaica are just some of the islands affected. Our heartfelt prayers go out to those whose loved ones have been injured or have died as a result of the hurricane, and for all those who have lost their homes, farms, and livelihoods. May the Lord grant them comfort, courage, and strength.
As we in T&T braced ourselves, expecting some damage, the storm veered northwest. But we must take heed of the prediction by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of an “above normal” hurricane season this year.
Hurricane Beryl has left a trail of destruction. Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a press conference that Carriacou had been flattened in half an hour. He described “Armageddon-like” scenes of “almost total destruction,” with approximately 98 per cent of building structures damaged or destroyed and an almost complete wipe-out of the electrical grid and communications systems. Ninety per cent of houses in Union have been severely damaged or destroyed.
Natricia Duncan, UK Guardian, reminded us that this should have been a week of celebration in SVG–Vincy Mas. Instead, “... images and videos shared on social media showed apocalyptic scenes in SVG and Grenada: flattened houses; damaged police stations, schools and hospitals; streets strewn with the remnants of mangled and dismantled roofs, and towering swells rushing into roads and properties.”
It will take a while to conduct comprehensive damage surveys. In the meantime, we need all hands on deck to contribute to the relief efforts. People continue to come together in a spirit of compassion, generosity, solidarity and neighbourliness in the service of those in need. Many have lost everything. Please give generously.
Many citizens would have been affected emotionally and psychologically also. Clinical psychologist Dr Katija Khan has reminded us in the past that disaster relief should include both physical and mental resources.