By:
Janelle Husbands
OUR attitude towards the environment needs to change.
This is the view of former Coroner Faith Marshall-Harris as she recently shared her view during a lecture which focused on children, the law and society, with an emphasis on safeguarding the future of Barbados.
The former Juvenile Court Magistrate made the point that a cultural revolution must be staged recognising that all matters directly or indirectly affect the nation’s children as she highlighted what they are likely to inherit from the present generation if changes are not made.
“There are still many sceptics among us, doubtful about the existence of global warming and climate change. But I think if we observe the extreme drought conditions we had earlier in the year, the extreme heat we’ve experienced, followed by torrential rains … it should take little to convince sceptics that something is going wrong and we need to take heed to the scientists about what they would recommend that we do.”
Stressing that all must be done to reverse the catastrophic effects of global warming, she also challenged that something must be done to address the water scarcity problem on the island.
“I hope we will be working assiduously to solve water scarcity problems. I am not suggesting by any means this is all a government project. We should now enforce the regulation that says we must all harvest the rainwater that comes from our roofs as is done in other Caribbean countries and use it for non potable purposes.
Rainwater is ideal for watering plants and could have a variety of uses and this would protect the scarceness of our water. I’m also told it is the perfect thing for washing hair.”
The children’s advocate said the island should be tapping into sources of renewable energy, particularly the sun and the wind. “These alternative energy sources reduce our reliance on fossil fuels since these are predicted to run out. Every house with enough roof area should have a means of converting the sun’s energy. The same applies to government buildings. It should not be the case that new buildings are erected without solar panels and water tanks,” she opined.
As it relates to the argument about the elimination of plastic bags, she noted that some countries have already taken action, recognising the deleterious impact on the environment. Marshall- Harris said she was appalled to hear persons dismissing the idea, since taking a bag or a box to the supermarket was the norm in the past, and is still practised by the larger buying clubs on the island, without complaint from the buying public. (JH)
Section: