As a teenager I was diagnosed by my eye doctor as having myopia or shortsightedness. “Not to worry, my white eyed doctor exclaimed; this condition is easily corrected with suitable glasses”. On my return to his office in a few days, he handed me a pair of quarter inch thick, horn rimmed, and spectacles.

I was devastated!! These were the hip 1970’s ,in the Big Apple, New York, New York , US of A; where cool black men or brothers as we were called ,wore dashiki ,bell bottom pants, big heel shoes and sporting huge hairstyles called an ‘Afro’; while we preened ourselves to look like our movie idol, a brother called ‘Superfly’. “Put them on he beckoned; at least now you can see the world around you”. I sheepishly complied and was mortified to see myself. ‘Doc, I exclaimed, I look like Super Geek and no babe (girl) is going to be seen, even dead, hanging around with me’.

As I left his office I could hear him muttering, “But at least now you can see”. And as I contemptuously dispatched those goggles to the bottom of my shoulder pouch, to keep the company of my afro comb, breath mints and Brut cologne, I made the choice that seeing the world around me wasn’t worth it at all. And as I glided along the densely populated streets of Brooklyn New York, literally half blind, gawking at each and ever girl, guided by the hidden hand of a then unknown hormone, my myopia was a thing to just ignore. So the world looked a little fuzzy, but heck, the girls all appear simply gorgeous. Not seeing is bliss!  ‘Hey babe, sexy mama, guess who is looking at you kid.’

But this article is not about my teenage vision problems and serves only to contrast with another. Several thousand years’ prior, myopia was then diagnosed. As related in the Bible “Without vision the people perish” This is deep stuff! It did not say; if myopia is left uncorrected, the world just simply appears fuzzy or hazy. It says “the people perish”, as in die, el finito, kaput! Obviously myopia or shortsightedness at this level, at the level of leadership of a people, cannot be simply ignored. The stakes are too high!!!

Now I was in attendance at a mass Jamaica Labor Party Rally some two plus years ago , in Mandeville square, when the then Opposition Leader , Bruce deDriva Golding  referred to the Jamaican state as a bus and signaled his intention to be the driver. My astute reader ought to begin to see where this is heading. Explicitly stated, ‘one is courting disaster to be driving a bus, in Jamaican terrain, precipice and such likes all around, with uncorrected myopia or short-sightedness’.

And as one firmly seated on this bus, I must be pardoned if I lose my usual calm deportment and composure; ‘fi bawl out’, seeing the bus careening towards seemingly everywhere, precipices. I will leave the prescription for fixing our finances, the economy etc to those better gifted in those matters to focus on my beloved yet bedraggled energy sector because it symbolizes the general malaise of the country:  myopia or short sightedness.

There is more per capita installed solar energy technologies in Japan, Germany or England compared with Jamaica. The salient comparison is that these nations located in significant northern latitudes are miserly endowed with solar capital; northern climes where the sun loathe shining. While in sun drenched Jamaica satiated with the consumption of old energy, which increasingly we are unable to afford, we are half blind (myopic) to the times. Not to go wide scale to solar technologies is myopic, lacking in vision and without vision the people perish or as a minimum they will be increasingly left in the dark.

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink, so goes the refrain.  And as people in Kingston experience the brunt of our most recent and increasingly ever present drought conditions, I must remind Bruce de Driva that I have preached John de Baptist style, ‘desalination and allied technologies. We as an intelligent people can no longer tether ourselves to the vagaries of an insentient nature to provide the sine qua non of human existence, water. Not to go desalination is myopic, lacking in vision and without vision … at a minimum the people go thirsty.

I hope you my esteemed reader grasp the point that I have groped with, to make clear here. The distinction between the shortsightedness of an average person certainly has consequences for his/her life; those of a leader, for the ‘life of a nation’. This researcher, disciple and devotee of the Science of Energy indict the Bruce Golding led administration of shortsightedness as it relates to many aspect of Jamaica’s national life. Nevertheless I’ll confine my criticism to the handling of the energy sector.

What else does one call a situation where the bedraggled Jamaican people are asked to fork out US$2.5 billion to bring energy to our shores in the cargo holds of ships when every unit of that hard bought energy is locally abundant! Indigenous endowment of clean energy in quantities that dwarf the imported varieties, yet inexplicably we choose not to exploit. I unapologetically call it myopia! I stand corrected if our wise leaders have another name for it…

What else does one call it; when we put this hard bought imported energy into 25% efficient processes where 75% of that hard bought and paid for energy is literally dumped into the Caribbean Sea? I call it emphatically myopic. I stand corrected if our caring leaders have another name for it…

What else does one call it…when the very sector (energy) with the most potential to pull the Jamaican economy out of the lethargy that has mired it down is given over to energy neophytes with their endless dithering, flip-flopping and pedestrian advise? I pointedly call it myopic .I stand corrected if our esteemed Prime Minister has another name for it!

Finally let me state that notwithstanding the truism “without vision the people perish” I somehow believe we Jamaicans are an exception. Have we not survived myopic leadership in the past… or is our Waterloo finally come!

Trevor (Energy Man) Bogle - Committed to taking the science of energy to the Jamaican people
Founder of J.A.M.E.S (Jamaicans for a Modern Energy Sector)

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