Much of the space taken up in the current full edition of iNews Cayman is all the New Year’s Messages.

Everyone is positive and one, from our Speaker, Hon. McKeeva Bush, touts the building of 50 storey sky scrapers – even if only one is granted, he says.

I can only wonder where that idea came from….?

The positive growth that Cayman has been enjoying over and above our neighbours is, of course, to be celebrated.

The cruise ship berthing controversy was given with differing points of view from our Premier and by our Leader of the Opposition. Both claim they have the backing of the people here, but neither admit our country is almost divided equally on the issue.

Nowhere, in any of the New Year”s messages mention the most important issue – climate change.

Why?

Is it the thinking that Climate Change doesn’t matter at all to the Caribbean countries? Even if it does we are all too small to make our voice heard?

If the US President isn’t going to listen to his own scientists and turns his nose up to all the other major countries opinions, he won’t care a feather or a fig to what we individually say.

Is this the reason for the astonishing silence on the matter?

Singularly, we are like a voice crying out for help in the wilderness. Collectively, however, it is a difference.

The Caribbean is the most vulnerable to Climate Change and we should be the loudest voice screaming on this planet.

Why aren’t we?

Not one of our leaders even mention it.

For heaven’s sake. Doesn’t the word “Hurricane” make you shake in your shoes?

Look at the article carried by IPS (Inter Press Service News Agency) on their website last October – “Caribbean Nations Pay Steep Price for Climate Change Caused by Others”!

Journalist Daniel Gutman rightly states:

Although their contribution to global warming is negligible, Caribbean nations are bearing the brunt of its impact. Climate phenomena are so devastating that countries are beginning to prepare not so much to adapt to the new reality, but to get their economies back on their feet periodically.

“We live every year with the expectation that we will have to go through the experience of rebuilding our communities and our infrastructure,” Molwyn Joseph, Antigua and Barbuda’s minister of health, wellness and the environment, told IPS in the Argentine capital.

“We try to adapt to climate change by building more resilient infrastructure, but the adaptation is not the main issue in our minds. We are thinking about recovery after disasters,” added the environment official of the small island state of some 100,000 inhabitants, located between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Simon Stiell, minister of climate resilience, the environment, forestry, fisheries, disaster management and information of Grenada, told IPS that “We are at the front line of the battle against climate change and the irony of that is that we contribute the least to the course of global warming. Our contribution is absolutely negligible, however we are the ones who pay the price and pay the price dearly.”

Yes, “we are the ones who pay the price and pay the price dearly.”

So, why don’t we even mention Climate Change in any of our New Year’s Messages?

And a 50ft high building will be the most vulnerable!

And a cruise berthing facility….??!!