http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/mayo/mier23/nobody-wants-to-take.html
Havana. May 23, 2007
Translated by ESTI
Reflections of President Fidel Castro
Nobody wants to take the bull by the horns
ON March 28, less than two months ago, when Bush proclaimed his
diabolical idea of producing fuel from food, after a meeting with the most
important U.S. automobile manufacturers, I wrote my first reflection.
The head of the empire was bragging that the United States was now the
first world producer of ethanol, using corn as raw material. Hundreds of
factories were being built or enlarged in the United States just for that
purpose.
During those days, the industrialized and rich nations were already
toying with the same idea of using all kinds of cereals and oil seeds,
including sunflower and soy which are excellent sources of proteins and oils.
That's why I chose to title that reflection: "More than 3 billion people in the
world are being condemned to a premature death from hunger and thirst."
The dangers for the environment and for the human species were a topic
that I had been meditating on for years. What I never imagined was the
imminence of the danger. We as yet were not aware of the new scientific
information about the celerity of climatic changes and their immediate
consequences.
On April 3, after Bush's visit to Brazil, I wrote my reflections about
"The internationalization of genocide."
At the same time, I warned that the deadly and sophisticated weapons that
were being produced in the United States and in other countries could
annihilate the life of the human species in a matter of days.
To give humanity a respite and an opportunity to science and to the
dubious good sense of the decision-makers, it is not necessary to take food
away from two-thirds of the inhabitants of the planet.
We have supplied information about the savings that could be made simply
by replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones, using approximate
calculations. They are numbers followed by 11 and 12 zeros. The first
corresponds to hundreds of billions of dollars saved in fuel each year, and the
second to trillions of dollars in necessary investments to produce that
electricity by merely changing light bulbs, meaning less than 10 percent of the
total expenses and a considerable saving of time.
With complete clarity, we have expressed that CO2 emissions, besides
other pollutant gases, have been leading us quickly towards a rapid and
inexorable climatic change.
It was not easy to deal with these topics because of their dramatic and
almost fatal content.
The fourth reflection was titled: "It is imperative to immediately have
an energy revolution." Proof of the waste of energy in the United States and
of the inequality of its distribution in the world is that in the year 2005,
there were less than 15 automobiles for each thousand people in China; there
were 514 in Europe and 940 in the United States.
The last of these countries, one of the richest territories in
hydrocarbons, today suffers from a large deficit of oil and gas. According to
Bush, these fuels must be extracted from foods, which are needed for the more
and more hungry bellies of the poor of this Earth.
On May Day 2006, I ended my speech to the people with the following words:
"If the efforts being made by Cuba today were imitated by all the other
countries in the world, the following would happen:
"1st: The proved and potential hydrocarbon reserves would last twice as
long.
"2nd: The pollution unleashed on the environment by these hydrocarbons
would be halved.
"3rd: The world economy would have a break, since the enormous volume
of transportation means and electrical appliances should be recycled.
"4th: A fifteen-year moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power
plants could be declared."
Changing light bulbs was the first thing we did in Cuba, and we have
cooperated with various Caribbean nations to do the same. In Venezuela, the
government has replaced 53 million incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent in
more than 95% of the homes receiving electrical power. All the other measures
to save energy are being resolutely carried out.
Everything I am saying has been proven.
Why is it that we just hear rumors without the leadership of
industrialized countries openly committing to an energy revolution, which
implies changes in concepts and hopes about growth and consumerism that have
contaminated quite a few poor nations?
Could it be that there is some other way of confronting the extremely
serious dangers threatening us all?
Nobody wants to take the bull by the horns.
Fidel Castro Ruz
May 22, 2007
5:10 pm
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