book excerpt #2 (Patreon)

"In the Caribbean, our economies were designed under colonialism on the basis of extractivism, facilitated by enslaved labour, for the benefit of colonial powers. Through the extraction of natural resources on our islands, the West industrialised their economies and used our countries as markets for their manufactured products, well past independence.  Centuries of colonialism has generated a feedback loop of the dependence of the Caribbean's economy on global powers. As a result, many of our countries are still financially dependent on our own destruction. The large-scale extraction of oil, natural gas, asphalt, lumber, iron, gypsum, coal, bauxite, silica, and mineral deposits for the profit of multinational corporations and a wealthy local minority has been decimating our natural environments for far too long, and yet we continue to extract and export. We’ve received a steady diet of advertising and have embraced a consumerist culture that is far from sustainable. We rely on ‘development’ pathways built on extractivism, despite the dynamics of global capitalism ensuring that we will always get the short end of the stick. The Global North enjoys the benefits of extractivism while the Global South suffers the consequences.

In the Caribbean, this economic model has not only facilitated the poverty of our people and the fragility of our economies, but it has also contributed to climate change, soil depletion, deforestation, declining biodiversity, destructive monocultures, freshwater contamination, overfishing, overhunting, urban encroachment, and a lack of food sovereignty in our region. Climate change is considered a ‘threat-multiplier’ due to its exacerbation of existing social issues. The consequences have been and will continue to be dire. Even now, we suffer from the trauma of vector-, food-, and water-borne diseases; non-communicable diseases; mental health illnesses; and heat-related illnesses, which are projected to worsen as the climate crisis progresses. Extreme weather events are set to place an even greater toll on already-strained infrastructure and trigger mass displacement and social upheaval, widening the existing inequalities between the oppressors and the oppressed."