The unbridled hypocrisy on display in Gaston Browne’s self-published Facebook video “No Planet B” is enough to make one want to vomit and defecate at the same time.
This video, which the Prime Minister or someone acting on his behalf has posted to his official page, begins with a clip from one of his addresses where he says: “There’s no planet B. The consequences of climate change will be catastrophic. For some small island states, it already is.” A song then cuts in and over the song, we again hear Browne saying, “There is no Planet B,” adding, “We must fight unrelentingly to protect our planet and our civilisation,” before a climate change themed song takes over, with lyrics such as “Right now is where change must start. No planet B, nowhere to run, we stand as one, for every forest, for every sea, no profit is worth our destiny.”
Worse, he posted the video with the partial caption, “This is the embodiment of my climate advocacy during the past ten years.” Let us be clear. It is not. It is rather the embodiment of the environmental hypocrisy which has for so long characterised the behaviour of his government. Gaston Browne is not a climate justice warrior by any stretch of even a madman’s imagination. The most outrageous thing was suggesting that anything he has done resonates with the words “no profit is worth our destiny”.
Gaston Browne’s administration has prioritised profit and its warped, unevolved 20th-century vision of “development” over sound development control polices and enforcement and sound environmental management practices consistently. This 1970s worldview, in which the salvation of a poor and developing tropical island nation is to be found in the promise of wealthy magnates who swallow up the shoreline and make decadent nests for the world’s elite, and where vegetation and wetlands are converted into lush golf courses, remains fundamental to Labour Party development philosophy.
How many environmental controversies has this government found itself in? How many times has it demonstrated its contempt for both environmental advocates, scientific professionals, and ordinary citizens who mount any form of opposition to anything which the government deems necessary for development, necessary to create jobs, or necessary to move the nation forward? Barbuda gets the absolute worst of it. Gaston Browne, recycling the 50-year-old obsolete and dangerous development vision of the Bird era, envisions Barbuda as “another Jumby Bay” (his own words). In pursuit of that objective, the government rolls over for mega developers with plans that are clearly harmful to the coasts and ecosystems.
Anyone who opposes this ecocidal stupidity and calls instead for the government to work with developers to reduce the negative impact of planned projects is labelled an “economic terrorist” (the Prime Minister’s words)
In response to those who voiced opposition in 2015 to the Paradise Found and Callaloo Cay projects, the Prime Minister once decalred, “I also want to make it abundantly clear that those who may intend to become economic terrorists in this country, to block investment and retard the progress of the people of this country to keep our people unemployed, they would have to face the full extent of the law for any infractions whatsoever.”
That was 2015. This is 2025. Please do not be fooled by a nonsensical jingle on the Prime Minister’s Facebook page. Let his words speak for themself. His legacy on climate and environment over the last 10 years involves making overt threats to environmental advocates, consistently ignoring Antigua and Barbuda’s own environmental laws, granting approvals for developers to build in unsound ways, displaying a total contempt for the idea of retaining any shoreline vegetation whatsoever, having zero effective policy toward preserving inland forestry especially during land clearing, which is highly unregulated; and lax enforcement of fisheries laws and regulations.
In fact, the only thing he does is talk. Ever since Hurricane Irma in 2017, he has been darting around the world on the backs of the taxpayers of this country, presenting himself as some sort of messenger of a climate-doomed people, asking for money, when in fact, he does not have an environmentally conscious bone in his body. It is an embarrassment to watch this man on the world stage speaking about how we are victims of a climate crisis we did not create, when he is actively contributing to various localised environmental and climate-sensitive crises by the warped and idiotic polices of his decrepit and archaic government.
I swear this man is Lester Bird reborn. Same dead ideas. Same yestercentury vision for turning us into a giant luxury crypto stem cell casino. Same unethical and self-serving politics. Same mismanagement of lands. Same contempt for the environment. The only difference is that Lester Bird had more class.
Richard B. Connery
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Father in heaven save us from the mad king govering 🇦🇬..
I’ve praying day and night for deliverance!
Father…hear our people cries.
In Jesus name.. amen..
@ Richard B Connery
I fully endorse this message.
You can go ahead criticize Gaston, he have the lyrics to extort monies, he can dub, Gaston would a just leave Antigua giving PLH or any other white people authority to bulldoze the mangrove and swamps, then jump on a plane and alight to a platform crying with handkerchief to his eyes pitifully about the destruction of the environment so he can get monies, haven’t you ride the subway train in new York and see how these beggar have clever poetries and fantasy scholarship to achieve that break your heart and you give them monies, that’s Gaston.
@Richard B. Connery…
I read the first paragraph, that puke and 💩, at the same time, drove me straight to the end of this opinion piece, to see if, the author had penned their.name, even though, the Connery is a legit name, you could still be pulling, a James Bond on the readers.
Well, regardless, you made some strong remarks and references, to the Gaston Browne Administration and its lack thereof, of many things which makes for good governance.
OK! Now that we have Bond, to the rescue, and James Bond is always in the know, when it comes to espionage, international crooks and their nefarious dealings in the Caribbean, and on her open seas, what are the recommendations to counter the #Gaston_Effect?
Maybe, Dr. No can put us in the #know!
Damn Gaston are you that deadly, that James Bond is after you too?
Jumbee_Picknee aka Ras Smood
De’ole Dutty Peg🦶🏾Garrat Bastard
Vere Edwards
Connery’s piece did not tell me anything I didn’t already know. Gaston doesn’t give a fig about the environment. His actions speak much louder than his words, the dude enjoys conning Antiguans and unfortunately most of us fall for the bull***t
We still living in the space where ONLY a white face have knowledge. In 2025 are you KIDDING me. Haven’t we LEARNT ANYYHING from 300 YEARS….. YEARS!!!!!! of slavery. Where 5 white men had control of 300 slaves because we WE YES WE did not believe anyone that looks like us can have common sense.
Someone needs to vet these articles before we publish BULLSHIT! YES I SAID IT!!!! BULLSHIT.
If a white face had come and present the SAME EXACT DAM PLAN we would be eating it up as the BEST thing since slice bread.
WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GAD-DAM LEARN!!!!!!
AWE YOU SSICK TUMMUCK
I hear it’s a secret deal to take deported Mexicans and place them over Barbuda and politicians are paid by the USA government, under the facade tat they are trades men, we been tricked by Gaston.
The truth is there are Mexicans on Barbuda at the PLH sites as well as Nobu Resort site.
The Mexicans will move on when the projects are over.
What should be of concern is the arrogant English man who came to Antigua in a raggedy sail boat is now Antigua and Barbuda largest contractors of highend homes.
He is not only building in Barbuda but he just formed a landscape firm with other PLH manager to do all the landscaping on these new properties
This is a prime example of the sad reality.
When the Prime Minister gives his budget speech each year the GDP growth is key figure underlying his budget speech
Who benefit from the GDP growth in Antigua and Barbuda?
As bad as Gaston is; UPP is not stepping up Gaston gives them so much as ammunition and they fail to use it against him m.
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