Environment

“[…] As the applause faded, I thought about our inconsistent and unreliable water schedule, even in the rainy season. I’ve seen farmers complain about losing 35% of their crops to relentless heat. “[…] Data centres are water and energy monsters… This is not development—it is deferred reckoning…” The following Letter …

There is a strange irony in the national conversation now unfolding. We are being asked to consider hosting artificial intelligence (AI) data centres but most of us know remarkably little about what they are, what they consume or what they may demand of the country. As a result, most of …

“[…] (John Aboud’s Superior Hotels) consistently refused to adjust the project’s scale, design, or mitigation strategies, demonstrating a profound lack of understanding regarding the severity of the impacts on the sensitive marine environment. “[…] A development of this magnitude at this specific coastal location is fundamentally incompatible with the two …

I first noticed the candlestick tree at the back of Garden with Wings in the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was one of those trees that seem to be quietly at work without asking to be explained. Its flowers and fruit hang directly from the trunk and branches: long waxy “candles”, …

There is something quietly disarming about watching a child see a giraffe in the zoo for the first time. The pause. The widening of the eyes. The small hand tightening around yours, as though this impossibly tall, gentle creature might suddenly look back. In that moment, something happens that medicine …

A recent comment from a visiting sailor has stayed with me in a way that is both embarrassing and deeply concerning. He shared that as he approached Trinidad by sea, he did not need a map to know where he was. The number of plastic bottles floating in our waters …

In 1818, the Royal Botanic Gardens in Trinidad were established under British colonial administration. That same year, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein: the story of a scientist who assembles a living being and then abandons it. Nearly eighty years later, HG Wells wrote The Island of Doctor Moreau, where natural life …

“[…] Writers from tourism-oriented Caribbean states mainly target free-spending first-worlders seeking sea, sand and stress-free living in preferably sunny climes. “[…] Dr Clarena Spencer has spent much of her adult life as a secondary school teacher and it’s easy to tell from the text. Best Vacation Ever is an educational …

Last week I dealt with this Government’s commendable moves to deal with the problems arising out of the use of amplified sound at Carnival fetes and similar events outside the Carnival season. The explosive sounds of fireworks are also a major problem for citizens. The recent amendment of the Summary …

On most maps, Trinidad and Tobago is a small smudge near the mouth of the Orinoco River. In real life, it is a place of astonishing biodiversity, and a place that bigger powers have long treated as useful. Empires, oil routes and warships have passed along this coast, rearranging both …

There have been recent announcements that will disrupt the output of the Carnival sector and its interconnected networks of employment and economic diversification. Additionally, another recent round of terminations of state enterprise steelband sponsorships will disrupt music education, youth and community development. The Prime Minister has declared prohibitions on the …

A few days ago, Nemme McSweeney sent me the link to a YouTube video featuring the man behind Moruga Hill Rice, Mark Forgenie. I know it’s long, she said (just over an hour), but Mr Forgenie encapsulates so many healthy concepts we keep ignoring. It was riveting: a combination of …