Dear Editor,
There are two mentions of Guyana in Rachel Maddow’s book, “BLOW-OUT”, currently the New York Times number one non-fiction bestseller. The banner above the title on the front cover reads: “Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth”.
The first reference to Guyana is on page 352. The second reference is an entire paragraph starting on page 353 and continuing on page 354. It includes a derisive riff about Guyana’s eighteen million dollars signing bonus, and it unfairly, in my opinion, invites comparison to the kleptocracy in Equatorial Guinea. Then, she astutely teases about ExxonMobil’s “amazing footwork that must have led to those improbable deals” with Guyana.
In her book, Maddow asserts that big oil companies “corrode”, “corrupt” and “sabotage” as part of their modus operandi. She was particularly blistering on ExxonMobil.
She hardly glanced at the benefits that oil and gas has brought to Mankind, such as clean water for billions; kerosene for cooking instead of burning wood; gasoline for cars and buses instead of horses; diesel for tractors and agricultural machines instead of bullocks; fuel for boats instead of oars; jet fuel for airplanes; tar for roads; electricity for powering household and hospital equipment; feedstock for fertilizers and utensils; and energy for making cellphones and medicines and myriads of necessities we often take for granted.
Editor, while I believe that it is okay to point out, even attack, the deleterious effects of oil and gas, I think it is equally important to mention the benefits it has brought.
I hope that other, less polluting sources of energy will be as cheap, efficient, plentiful and reliable as the energy we currently get from energy-dense oil and gas. Certainly, solar and wind are on the cusp of becoming cheap and efficient, and once research, innovation, technology, money and human ingenuity overcome the limitations caused by these sources’ innate intermittency, the world can fully embrace these cleaner alternatives, their high initial cost of entry, notwithstanding.
Editor, for full disclosure, I have benefited from oil and gas directly and indirectly; and more so from renewable, green gas-plants in Texas and Louisiana. I am a former president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, Library and Hall of Fame, in Midland, Texas; and I am a supporter of the Oil and Gas industry here in the Permian Basin in West Texas.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Tulsi Dyal Singh
