argumentative essay on mobile phone a blessing or curse

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Cell phones: a blessing or curse?

Colin McGovern , Writer December 30, 2015

In recent years, the accessibility of portable devices, like cell phones, has skyrocketed to the point where most everybody has one. A study made by the Pew Research Center in 2013 has shown that roughly 78% of teens have cell phones. Obviously, since then the percent of people owning cell phones has since risen due to the fact that children are receiving them at an earlier age. In BFA specifically, phones have become a bit of a problem. Students are using them during classes when they’re not supposed to and are getting distracted by them.

Polly Rico, a teacher at BFA, is somewhat known for her method of keeping students’ cell phones in a basket for the duration of class. “Actually I got a lot of push back when I first started doing it a couple years ago, but then I noticed that once students put their phones in the basket it’s sort of a relief that they don’t have to think about it.” Rico said.

Rico’s stance on cell phones is definitely a negative one. But even she knows they most definitely can be helpful in the classroom. “Because not every classroom is one-to-one computing sometimes cell phones can fill in that gap if you have to research or do any kind of google docs.” Rico said.

Another use that most cell phones carry is the ability to listen to music anywhere at anytime. Everybody loves listening to their favorite artists while doing dull or boring tasks. So a lot of students do this while working on a long assignment. Studies show that listening to classical music while studying or doing an assignment can stimulate a student’s learning. But then again most kids aren’t listening to Beethoven. It’s been shown that the opposite can happen to a lot of kids while listening to music because it distracts them too much.

Cell phones aren’t too great for school although, since their intended purpose is to communicate with others. This often leads to students distracting each other with texts to each other during class. “Cell phones create a huge distraction. For instance students are constantly getting notifications and constantly getting text messages… I can’t imagine how somebody can focus on the task at hand when they are getting constantly poked by their cell phones 16 times a day.” Rico said.

Recently in the art rooms a rule similar to Polly Rico’s, phones are being kept away from students. Jamie Bedard, one of the art teachers has explained that cell phones have become enough of an issue to where this needs to happen. “I would say this year because we, all of the art teachers, have said ‘let’s put the cell phones away’ it’s really helped kids stay focused.” Bedard said.

A lot of behavioral problems at BFA are caused by students refusing to stop using their phones or to give their phone up when asked to. This is because a lot of students can’t control themselves when they know there is something they can be replying to. This is what prompts some teachers that are fed up with students not paying attention to their class to want phones to be banned during class time to be a mandatory rule.

“The use of cell phones, cameras, and any other digital recording devices to record, or take pictures of students, faculty, and /or staff, is prohibited unless approved for academic purposes.” This is the exact rule regarding cell phones in the BFA Handbook. So it is not a problem of a lack of rules, it’s a lack of punishment of said rule breakers. But it’s not all black and white for it’s easy to argue that cellphones are being used for “academic purposes.”

Phones could be viewed as either a distraction, distracting students from their education. On the other hand they could be viewed as useful tools that help out in the classroom. Either way, blessing or curse, phones have a large impact in most schools in the United States, and definitely BFA.

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Are mobile phones a blessing or a curse

Are mobile phones a blessing or a curse?

Mobile phones can either be a blessing or a curse; this is determined by the way in which they are used. Since the late 1990’s there has been an increasing amount of concern over whether mobile phones can cause some types of cancer or infertility in men.

The first mobile phone was invented by the American scientist, Martin Cooper, in 1973. Martin Cooper was an executive and researcher at Motorola who are today a major mobile phone producing company. The design of the first mobile phone was very different to the way the mobile phones of today look and operate. Mobile phones were introduced into society in the mid 1980’s in parts of Northern Europe. Countries such as Finland and Switzerland, Japan and the USA launched the first cellular networks which meant that any mobile phone connected to that network could communicate with each other. Now, nearly all countries are connected to at least one network, such as O2, Orange or Vodafone. This means that two mobile phones, for example one in the UK and one in Hong Kong, can wirelessly communicate with each other by sending and receiving radio signals to and from each other via a network. When the first mobile phone was invented it could only perform one function, which was to make a telephone call with another mobile phone on the same network. Now, however, mobile phones have transformed from being a simple communication appliance to an entertainment device. Mobile phones can now allow the user to listen to music, watch videos, play games, look at pictures and even take pictures or record video with a built in camera.

Today mobile phones are becoming increasingly popular due to the numerous functions which can be performed on them. In countries, particularly those in Europe, there are now more mobile phones than people. The country with the highest percentage of mobile phones to people in 2007 was Luxembourg which had a percentage of 158%, which means that per 100 people in Luxembourg there were 158 mobile phones owned between them. Other countries with more than 100 mobile phones owned by 100 people were Lithuania, Italy and Hong Kong with percentages between 139% and 157%.

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Mobile phones have become much more portable since the first mobile phone in 1973. Apart from the way mobile phones have advanced in the way they operate and their portability, they have also changed in appearance and in size. The early mobile phones appeared as large, black brick-like objects, whereas now all mobile phones look different and are far smaller. For example they can be of any colour or be designed to open by flipping open the cover or by sliding the screen up to reveal the keypad. Somebody who wants to buy a mobile phone today can pick from a number of colours, functions and styles and buy a mobile phone designed to their choice. Whatever their choice, the phone will be just a fraction of the size of the original mobile phone.

Mobile phones can be seen as blessing or a curse. They can be seen as a curse by many people because of the potential health risks of being in continuous contact with them and the often large amounts of money they cost.  

Mobile phone emissions can be a risk to human health if in continuous contact. This has been investigated several times over recent years. Several reports indicate that mobile phones cause no health problems. But, it has been established by many researchers that mobile phones can cause infertility in men and even some types of cancer if a person is in constant contact with a mobile phone. If a mobile phone is kept in a man’s pocket at least 5 days a week it has been found that it has caused men to become in fertile due to the thermal radiation that mobile phones give out. It has also been found that tumours have occurred in some people wherever they keep their mobile phone for long periods of time. For example it you use a mobile phone for around 4 hours a day 5 days a week and you hold your mobile phone to your right ear then you could suffer from a tumour on the right side of your head or brain.

In 2004 it was discovered that terrorists that were involved in the Madrid train bombings used mobile phones to detonate some of the bombs that had been planted on the trains. Since then it has become well known that this is how many terrorist detonate their bombs. Recently there have been many worldwide cases of a new form of bullying, cyber bullying. This is way of bullying by recording a person being bullied on a mobile phone and then sending the video clip to people or posting it on websites such as YouTube.

In the UK, laws have been passed to prevent car drivers from using a mobile phone whilst driving. The law has been put in place because it has been discovered that talking on a mobile phone whilst driving distracts the user from concentrating on the road. The law also allows prohibits using just a single hand on the steering wheel for obvious reasons!

Despite these problems, mobile phones also have many positive features such as if you are in an emergency it is almost certain you will be able to contact someone for help by using a mobile phone. Mobile phones can now also be used as an entertainment device. This means that a mobile phone user only has to bring their phone to listen to music, take photos or play games. This makes it convenient for the mobile phone user as they do not have to bring their mp3 player or camera with them everywhere as they are already functions featured on their mobile phone.

Short Message Service (SMS) is a type of communication which has been invented recently and can only be used on mobile phones. It is better known as text messaging. Text messaging is a quick and cheap alternative way to communicate with other mobile phone users simply by sending each other quick short messages, rather than having a long conversation which will almost always cost more.

Mobile phones can be used in either positive or negative ways and can be considered either a blessing or a curse depending on the way a particular person views the whole subject. There are many positive points to do with mobile phones but there are also many negative points; it is simply up to you whether you believe they are good or bad for society or whether you want to own one or not.

Whatever your view, the popularity of mobile phones is undeniable. In 2007, 1.15 Billion mobile phones were sold globally, a number set to rise in coming years. The next significant development, which has already begun with today’s most advanced mobile phones, is the ability to access the internet. This ability will once again change the way people see mobile phones as a necessary everyday accessory.

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Mobile phones: blessing or curse?

Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: mobile phone

Nowadays mobile phones are everywhere: their bleeping ringtones go off behind you in the train; gormless-looking zombies stand around on the street “texting” illiterate messages to each other, while even children see them as an indispensable accessory. Clearly, mobile phones have come to be a normal and accepted part of most people’s lives, but does this necessarily mean they are a boon? I would say that while mobiles are potentially helpful in some situations, they generally have an adverse effect on one’s quality of life.

The strongest argument for owning a mobile phone is that it can prove useful in an emergency or make you feel secure when walking down a dark street, for example. However, you should not forget that mobiles actually cause emergencies when people drive and talk simultaneously, and get into accidents. Furthermore, mobiles are one of the items muggers are most interested in, which means that carrying a mobile actually increases your chances of being attacked.

On the face of things, mobiles make life more convenient. They allow you to be much more flexible or spontaneous when making arrangements with friends, so that you can ring ahead, for example, if your train has come to a standstill. They also mean that you can stay in touch with work colleagues even when you are travelling and do not have access to a landline. There is a flipside to these arguments though. If people can be more spontaneous then they are more likely to wriggle out of arrangements, or let others know at the last minute, which can be far from convenient. Moreover, if you are always contactable, particularly by people from work, then you are enslaved in a sense. Employers are able to encroach on your leisure time and make demands of you, wherever you happen to be.

The Essay on Mobile Phones Phone Million People

In the UK alone twenty seven to forty million people own mobile 'phones and the number is growing each day. Eight million of these are school-aged children. It is expected that four hundred and eighty three million mobile 'phones will be sold worldwide in 2003. The first cellular phone was tested in 1978 and since then mobile 'phones have become hugely popular and a controversial issue. How can ...

Mobile phones are also anti-social in some ways, and encourage unpleasant behaviour. We have all heard the loud salespeople on trains boasting about their latest deal, or passengers who broadcast the finer details of their tedious social life. Equally rude are friends who start texting someone else while you are in the middle of a conversation with them.

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Mobile Phones: A Blessing or a Curse Essay Example

• Pages: 5 (1160 words)
• Published: November 14, 2021

Is the 21st Century Mobile Phone a Blessing or a Curse to the individual, particularly the teenagers of the western world? There have been many negative and positive effects to both society and the individual stemming from the 21st century phones particularly the likes of the Blackberry and The Iphone. In this essay I aim to address the main areas of contemporary concern for phone use; Social life, Safety, growing interconnectedness, Technological convenience, accessibility of information.

Mobile phone technology provide the ability to reach someone anytime anywhere in the world through calling and texting and with the emergence of new smartphones, through the internet as well (allowing them to access the epitome of socialness, Facebook). This means people can be in contact constantly which promotes social behaviour. The Blackberry messenger is a relatively new applic

ation that has caused somewhat of cult amongst users. It’s a messenger service is similar to the networking site Twitter, allowing people to post status’ about their current activities creating a new level of social telephony.

Evidence of its success can be seen in the fact it has more than 70 million users, BGR (2011) and also the outrage of many when BBM stopped working for a week which caused a huge public uproar, BBC (2011). Unfortunately, mobile phones have also brought about anti-social behaviour as well. Siegel (2008) mentions that because people don’t have to answer to face to face consequences it’s easier to engage in abuse and antisocial behaviour such as sexting and cyber bullying, which according to the BBC (2009) is on the rise. Conversely, Mobile Phone technology has provided the benefit of security.

Parents buy their children phone for safety

and security reason according to AMTA (2011). By children having phones they can always keep in contact with their parents so if anything goes wrong they can ring for help. For the rest of the public, it means being able to dial 999 and reach emergency services straight away or report a stolen item immediately. This constant communication can also impact negatively on society and the individual. With BBMs allowing one to post their statuses many choose to divulge their locations which leave them open to harm from mal-intentioned individuals.

Furthermore, the privacy of mobile phones means that crime can be organized easily and is difficult for the police to intercept as strict privacy laws prevent hacking. An example of this was in august 2011 where riots took place in most major UK cities. The Time (2011) “suggested that BlackBerry Messenger — the smart phone's instant-messaging service — may have played a more significant role in the mayhem” as people used them to tell each other where they were going to loot and encourage criminal behaviour at the time illustrating that phones hence pose a problem of safety both to the private life and the wider public dimensions. Another perk of the mobile phone is how it enables the user to access information easily through its various apps and links to the internet. Perhaps mobile phones are a ‘Necessary evil’ for the world. As detailed above they do pose issues to Safety, Social behaviour and independency of the average individual but the without the convenience of them, the world would be worse off. For example, take the Middle Ages, when people used carrier pigeons and post

to send messages across to each other which often took weeks to arrive and months if you were sending messages across countries.

Back then the economy was also less advanced and slower because any communication between business and countries would take a considerable amount of time and hence by there were long lead times between ideas and plans and their execution. Furthermore, not everyone you sent mail to could reply back – it was often expensive to send mail or carrier pigeons hence limiting such communication to the wealthy and aristocracy. Even though the negatives seem to outweigh the positives when it comes to the aspect of mobile phones, they cannot be held solely accountable.

With the existence of social networking sights such as Facebook which have demanded a need for more social interconnectedness, mobile phones appear to only be a tool in which such achieves this, especially when relating to teenagers. If one could imagine a world without Facebook or any social networking sites at all then surely the use of mobile phones would be greatly reduced and so would some of the public – private issues such as safety and anti-social phone behaviour and overdependence on cell phones.

For evidence of this theory, one simply has to look to the late 1990’s, a time where mobile phones were firmly established in society and there were no such networking sites like twitter etc. Much of the problems mentioned above were not significant or of a great concern as such issues did not feature in the Media often or at all suggesting they were not a big public dilemma. Moreover mobile phones were used primarily for calls and

texts and the occasional browsing of the internet and they were affordable, so to a certain extent they were very similar to today. And yet, less people used them as frequently as they do today – Why?

Partially because there was no need as there were no networking sites like today. That said, I do not mean to accuse Facebook, twitter and the likes solely for the growing addiction to mobile phones. Obviously, the improvement in mobile phone technology that allows people to use it as PDAs, the growing importance of it as a fashion statement and the development of Apps that has also changed phones into entertainment devices are also responsible, But I single out Facebook because in my opinion it is the most influential factor among the target population this essay looks at, Teenagers.

In conclusion, Mobile phones are more of a ‘Blessing’ to the western world than a curse. They were created to provide convenience to everyday life and keep people connected to each other by making communication easier. Yes, there are several negative effects arising from them, Safety being probably the most prominent one in today’s society but these issues are being efficiently tackled by society and in several years they may not be an issue anymore.

One can conclude that that the negatives only appear after overuse of phones which leads to the real problem, which is dependency. Lastly, the evidence of the blessing of cell phones can be seen in the years before 1835, where mobile phones did not exist and communication was tiring, and also from 1835 onwards where the invention of mobile phone helped evolve not only the economy and

society but the individual as well.

• http://www. bbc. co. uk/newsround/15276543
• http://www. bgr. com/2011/09/16/blackberry-market-share-in-q2-may-have-hit-single-digits/
• http://news. bbc. co. uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_8181000/8181443. stm
• http://www. amta. org. au/articles/amta/Parents. choose. to. buy. mobiles. for. their. children. for. added. safety. and. security
• http://www. time. com/time/world/article/0,8599,2087337,00. html#ixzz1f1cz2AXS
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last index=2 Array ( [0] => [1] => true-stories-lifestyle [2] => science-technology [3] => mobile-phone-blessing-or-curse ) WP_Term Object ( [term_id] => 110 [name] => Science/Technology [slug] => science-technology [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 110 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 208 [count] => 135 [filter] => raw [cat_ID] => 110 [category_count] => 135 [category_description] => [cat_name] => Science/Technology [category_nicename] => science-technology [category_parent] => 208 ) check====science-technology True Stories & Lifestyle Advice  ⁄  Science/Technology

Is the mobile phone a blessing or a curse.

“I can’t live without my mobile phone!” is what I often hear people say as they lament about how mobiles have become an indispensable part of their lives. The blurring of personal and work lives brought about by the device are posing challenges to many.

The all so common sight of heads bent, eyes staring intently at mobile screens and fingers busy tapping away repeats itself across major cities around the world. Whenever there is a moment to spare while on the train, taxi or waiting in a queue, people busy themselves with their mobile devices. Some even confess to checking in with their phones while out on a date!

Such unhealthy obsession with mobile devices is disrupting how we appreciate the little things in life or miss the moments that matter. The truth is that technology overall should be seen as a tool to enhance our way of living and not as a backfill for the good things that we as humans naturally enjoy.

Mobile phones have certainly made a significant impact on our lives, but I truly believe it’s for the better.

It’s changed the way we communicate, whether for work or play. We are now less constrained by time and geographical location. With my mobile device, I can dial into conference calls while stuck in a traffic jam, or reply to urgent e-mails while on the go. I can send a text message or share photos and videos with friends who aren’t living in the same country. My phone calendar keeps my life organised, and even Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging are now accessible from mobile devices!

Smartphones are more than just a means to stay connected; they are also a key source of entertainment. The game of Snake was one of the first mobile games that I got hooked on way back in the 1990s. Today, the market’s flooded with mobile apps – we’re so spoilt for choice! And it’s not just games. There are apps to help you find your way around literally anywhere, apps that let you listen to your favourite music, apps to book cinema or concert tickets, and even apps that teach the alphabet to toddlers.

The mobile revolution isn’t just changing the lives of urbanites like myself. I know of a young Bangladeshi woman named Shompa Akhter who has a passion for fashion and design. She dreamt about starting her own business and she did just that, opening a boutique in Kushtia featuring her own creations. Dealing with suppliers in different towns was a hassle for Shompa – purchase orders had to either be hand delivered or mailed out to suppliers. Shompa also found it tough publicising her business to potential customers outside her town.

Before using a mobile phone, Shompa had never heard of e-mails! The technology intimidated her and she was sceptical about how a mobile phone and e-mail could help her business. But once she got the hang of it, she was hooked. Mobile e-mail is a blessing in her life. The 25-year-old entrepreneur now stays in touch easily with her suppliers.

I hear inspiring stories like Shompa’s from so many other countries. Teachers, like Edna Cas and Imelda Pontejos from Ligao East Central School in the Philippines, have brought lessons to life in the classrooms by downloading multimedia content via smartphones using the Text2Teach programme and linking it to television screens to show to their students.

Farmers, like Edi Sugara Purba in North Sumatra, Indonesia now have access to weather information critical to crops. With the information gained through his mobile phone, Edi can quickly decide how to best protect the coffee and oranges he grows. He also gets information on crop prices to help him negotiate better and decide on how to price his crops competitively.

Who would have thought that mobility could effect such monumental change? It shouldn’t really be a surprise though. Information is empowering. Just ask Shompa, Edna and Edi.

Still, close to six billion mobile phone users don’t own a smartphone. Another 3.2 billion people don’t own a mobile device at all. The mobile revolution is here but there are still many out there who have yet to experience its benefits. We’ve only just begun.

Neil Gordon worked for many years as the Vice President for Sales at Nokia in the Southeast Asia Pacific market.

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Mobile Phones: A Blessing or A Curse?

Essay by yamna   •  November 30, 2012  •  Essay  •  376 Words (2 Pages)  •  3,251 Views

Essay Preview: Mobile Phones: A Blessing or A Curse?

Mobile phones: A blessing or a curse? Discussion

Mobile phones are becoming a very arguable topic of today. In this

discussion I will present reasons from both sides of the argument.

The technology of today is constantly increasing and the world has to

be accepting of this. Mobile phones have become a definite essential.

Communication between people is easier and fast. Though, the

disadvantages brought along with the fast grown technology cannot be

ignored. These problems not only influence people personally but also

the society.

Symptoms caused by the radiation of mobile phones are one of the main

problems. Scientists believe that the radiation from mobile phones may

cause the users to have headaches, earaches, blurring of vision and

even cause cancer. Though, these problems are still under research and

although it can be seen a disadvantage, users are told to minimise

their usage to reduce the risk even more which is about 1 in 11 000

users getting cancer possibly caused from this radiation.

Mobile phone addiction is a big social problem. The age drop of the

mobile phone users is increasing , most teenagers now own their own

mobile phone. Teenagers are becoming more and more engaged on their

mobile phones all the time, on phone calls, using SMS texting ,

personalising the mobile with ring tones and pictures etc. Besides

this, they are constantly being upgraded ,new models are released

nearly everyday, so you have to spend more money trying to keep up

with the latest trends.

Mobile phone bullying is also another issue among the disadvantages of

mobile phones. Mobile phone bullying is using offensive words and

behavior vis SMS texting. Not only with bullying, but generally,

people tend to say things in a text message that they normally

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Write an essay on a comparison between the uses and abuses of mobile phones.

Mobile phones have brought the world so closer that it has really shrunk into a global village but still there are a few who consider mobile phone either a blessing or a curse., mobile phones: a blessing or curse: an outline.

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Mobile Blessing or Curse/ Paragraph

(Points- Introduction-uses – misuses – Conclusion)

It is very tough to say whether mobile phone is blessing or curse. It has some good uses and bad uses also. Firstly, mobile phone is one of the wonderful inventions of science. It has done miracles to our life. This incredible technology has made our life easy and comfortable. It is a popular means of communication. Internet on mobile phone is a part and parcel of modern mode of living. Mobile phone helps to grow international brotherhood among the people. In contrast, use of mobile phone at the time of driving a car and crossing a road is very dangerous. These may causes of accidents. Excessive use of mobile phone may cause of brain and throat tumour. Nowadays students are very addicted to mobile games and detach themselves from study. The mobile phone is misleading teenagers to use internet on mobile for downloading adult songs and videos. Students are involving themselves in different types of crimes. So finally we can say, if we use mobile phone properly it is blessing to us, otherwise it is curse for misuse.

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Dec 8, 2012

Cellphones or Mobile a Blessing or a Curse Essay for Class 8

This subject (Cell Phones or Mobile a Blessing or a Curse) has not yet cached by school teachers or by students. But it is one of the most wanted subject for essay competition. We here discuss it as blessing or curse in very interesting and expressive way.

Disadvantages (Curse): Let first we think about the bad gift of today's communication advancement and its effect on  us and analyse it whether we are cursed or incredibly blessed. Satellite exploded the communication industry throughout the globe. They played a magical lead role for commercialising the cellphone market , but equally endorsed and penetrate the threat of large electromagnetic wave encircling our cities  and villages. At the time of  growing Cellphone industries , It's goodness covered its dark destructive effect but eventually we started feeling the danger of microwave. The diseases like skin disease, hearing disease , DNA damage,bones weakening, sleep disorders, increase in Cancer risk may be caused if someone remains in the area microwave energy of  beyond permissible energy density limit. In  India   safe radiation level adopted of power density is 4.7 W/sq m. for GSM900 band. GSM-900 is the frequency band adopted in India. It uses 890–915 MHz to send information from the mobile station to the base station.

Technical Explanation of microwave effect on our body - If we assume a human body of average 5'2"  height and 34" waist and if our body is assumed to be cylindrical in shape then our body surface area will be 1.479 sq. m [ 2πr2+2πrh] . Therefore human body will receive 6.9513 watt (4.7x1.479 W). In one hour energy received will be 6.9513x3600= 25.025 kw-second. In one day it will be 25.025x24=600.59 kw-second. That means our body can be safe up to this limit as per safety norms. This means that our body can bear the 500W rating micro oven radiation for about 20 min [{(600.59/500)*1000}/60].   Let us know how a mobile receive signals. The signals here our voice is carried with the help of large carrier wave. The signal.

Other than Technical: Young Girls and boys are talking and communicating at their premature age without their parent's permission and due to this many unsocial events are happening thereby destroying their lives (particularly girls). Excess communication are wasting vital time of students. Thieves,terrorists, Maoists and murderers are efficiently planning and communicating to harm the social balance. Cricket match fixing is being possible because of cellphone. Tax are evaded by many by doing mobile Satorias activities.   Kidnappers are using this device for their escape.There are many example like these. Personal very small information (simple gossip) are swimming at lightening speed through the wireless communication and are being suffering from more disclosure  among the society thereby causing  smooth relationship of the near and deers.

Advantage (Blessing) of Cellphone or Mobile: Everybody knows that mobile communication is become a need of the world. It is because it proved its tremendous value of bringing the globe for any purpose within fraction of second and supported and strengthened the decision making. It has completely changed the way of living and has become the strongest player of today's strong economy. Now one by one I am explaining its advantages (blessings).

Always remains connected from anywhere at anyplace One can feel this tremen dous value of cellphone if he forgets his phone at his home. Previously Landline phone was good communication , but it is the best because of its mobility. All time connectivity has solved huge problems of rapidly growing world.

SMS: It is used as security interlock by many banks for money transfer on the internet. It has removed the yearly expenses of sending greeting cards and in a click delivering messages to many persons at a time thereby reducing huge time loss. It has become the better substitute for written communication. It is because of differences in pronunciation written communication become the king and in many cases it is preferred to calling.

Entertainment: Mobile phone is providing offline and online entertainment . Listening mp3 music , watching videos, Live cricket, Chatting with friend, are providing full entertainment on move.

e-Assistant: Cellphone is now become our electronic assistance and solving  many requirements of our daily life. Mobile banking, reminder, calender , internet browsing , online air and rail ticket status checking , driving direction finding  in metro cities, e-dictionary etc are the services that has enhanced tremendously our daily performance at large scale. Now a days if someone is not taking this services from his mobile or cellphone then he will be far behind to the today's professional  in achieving his objective. He can not fill the gap if he misses these one what I just explained above.

Conclusion: So we see that there are disadvantages and advantages of the cellphone. But it depends on the user behaviour. There are much advantages of the mobile. Although it has many disadvantage, yet we can not proceed without it in today's sense. So cellphone is undoubtedly a blessing without which we can not perform.

6 comments:

good and useful one.. thanks

mobile is useful for us and mobile is also harmful for us because many of diesses caused by cell like slow brain cancer, eye side week, low heard level,so be careful teenagers

I love reading through a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing for me to comment!

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Is Guyana’s Oil a Blessing or a Curse?

More than any single country, Guyana demonstrates the struggle between the consequences of climate change and the lure of the oil economy.

With the discovery of offshore oil, Guyana is now building a natural gas pipeline to bring the byproducts of oil production to a planned energy plant. Credit...

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By Gaiutra Bahadur

Photographs by Keisha Scarville

• March 30, 2024

Basjit Mahabir won’t let me in.

I’m trying to persuade Mr. Mahabir to open the padlocked gate of the Wales Estate, where he guards the ramshackle remains of a factory surrounded by miles of fallow sugar cane fields. The growing and grinding of sugar on this plantation about 10 miles from Georgetown, Guyana’s capital, ended seven years ago, and parts of the complex, its weathered zinc walls the color of rust, have been sold for scrap.

I plead my case. “I lived here when I was a little girl,” I say. “My father used to manage the field lab.” Mr. Mahabir is friendly, but firm. I’m not getting in.

The ruins are the vestiges of a sugar industry that, after enriching British colonizers for centuries, was the measure of the nation’s wealth when it achieved independence.

Now the estate is slated to become part of Guyana’s latest boom, an oil rush that is reshaping the country’s future. This nation that lies off the beaten track, population 800,000, is at the forefront of a global paradox: Even as the world pledges to transition away from fossil fuels , developing countries have many short-term incentives to double down on them.

Before oil, outsiders mostly came to Guyana for eco-tourism, lured by rainforests that cover 87 percent of its land. In 2009, the effort to combat global warming turned this into a new kind of currency when Guyana sold carbon credits totaling $250 million, essentially promising to keep that carbon stored in trees. Guyana’s leadership was praised for this planet-saving effort.

Six years later, Exxon Mobil discovered a bounty of oil under Guyana’s coastal waters. Soon the company and its consortium partners, Hess and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation, began drilling with uncommon speed. The oil, now burned mostly in Europe, is enabling more global emissions — and producing colossal wealth.

The find is projected to become Exxon Mobil’s biggest revenue source by decade’s end. The deal that made it possible — and which gave Exxon Mobil the bulk of the proceeds — has been a point of public outcry and even a lawsuit, with a seeming consensus that Guyana got the short end of the stick. But the deal has nonetheless generated $3.5 billion so far for the country, more money than it has ever seen, significantly more than it gained from conserving trees. It’s enough to chart a new destiny.

The government has decided to pursue that destiny by investing even further in fossil fuels. Most of the oil windfall available in its treasury is going to construct roads and other infrastructure, most notably a 152-mile pipeline to carry ashore natural gas, released while extracting oil from Exxon Mobil’s fields, to generate electricity.

The pipeline will snake across the Wales Estate, carrying the gas to a proposed power plant and to a second plant that will use the byproducts to potentially produce cooking gas and fertilizer. With a price tag of more than $2 billion, it’s the most expensive public infrastructure project in the country’s history. The hope is that with a predictable, plentiful supply of cheap energy, the country can develop economically.

At the same time, climate change laps at Guyana’s shores; much of Georgetown is projected to be underwater by 2030.

Countries like Guyana are caught in a perfect storm where the consequences for extracting fossil fuels collide with the incentives to do so. Unlike wealthy countries, they aren’t responsible for most of the carbon emissions that now threaten the planet. “We’re obviously talking about developing countries here, and if there’s so much social and economic development that still needs to happen, then it’s hard to actually demand a complete ban on fossil fuels,” says Maria Antonia Tigre, a director at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Still, she insists, “we’re in a moment in the climate crisis where no one can get a pass.”

This struggle between the existential threats of climate change and the material gains dangled by fossil fuels bedevils rich countries, too. The International Energy Agency predicts that oil demand will peak in five years as big economies transition to renewable sources. But it is a transition of indeterminate length, and in the meantime, the Biden administration approved drilling in the Alaska wilderness just last year, and the United States is producing more oil than ever in its history. A country like Guyana, with an emerging economy, has even more reason to jump at temptation.

The country has already been transformed. Next to its famously elegant but decaying colonial architecture, new houses, hotels, malls, gyms and offices of concrete and glass crop up constantly. Trucks carrying quartz sand for all this construction judder along the highways. While nearly half of Guyanese still live below the poverty line, the country is bustling with possibility, and newcomers arrive from around the world. During a five-month stay there, I met a logistics manager from Sri Lanka, a nightclub singer from Cuba, a Briton developing a shrimp farm and a Nigerian security guard who joked that a sure sign that Guyana had become a hustler’s paradise was that he was there.

As I survey the stranded assets of the sugar works on the Wales Estate, imagining the steel pipes to come, the gleaming future Guyana’s government promises feels haunted by its past as a colony cursed by its resources. The potential for the petroleum boom to implode is in plain sight next door, where Venezuela — which has recently resurrected old claims to much of Guyana’s territory — is a mess of corruption, authoritarian rule and economic volatility.

For centuries, foreign powers set the terms for this sliver of South America on the Atlantic Ocean. The British, who first took possession in 1796, treated the colony as a vast sugar factory. They trafficked enslaved Africans to labor on the plantations and then, after abolition, found a brutally effective substitute by contracting indentured servants, mainly from India. Mr. Mahabir, who worked cutting cane for most of his life, is descended from those indentured workers, as am I.

Fifty-seven years ago, the country shook off its imperial shackles, but genuine democracy took more time. On the eve of independence, foreign meddling installed a leader who swiftly became a dictator. Tensions between citizens of African and Indian descent, encouraged under colonialism, turned violent at independence and set off a bitter contest for governing supremacy that continues to this day. Indigenous groups have been courted by both sides in this political and ethnic rivalry.

It wasn’t until the early 1990s that Guyana held its first free and fair elections. The moment was full of possibility. The institutions of democracy, such as an independent judiciary, began to emerge. And the legislature passed a series of robust environmental laws.

Now that Exxon Mobil has arrived to extract a new resource, some supporters of democracy and the environment see those protections as endangered. They criticize the fossil-fuel giant, with global revenue 10 times the size of Guyana’s gross domestic product, as a new kind of colonizer and have sued their government to press it to enforce its laws and regulations. The judge in one of those cases has rebuked the country’s Environmental Protection Agency as being “submissive” toward the oil industry.

Addressing some of these activists at a recent public hearing, Vickram Bharrat, the minister of natural resources, defended the government’s oversight of oil and gas. “There’s no evidence of bias toward any multinational corporations,” he said. Exxon Mobil, in an emailed statement, said its work on the natural gas project would “help provide lower-emissions, reliable, gas-powered electricity to Guyanese consumers.”

The world is at a critical juncture, and Guyana sits at the intersection. The country of my birth is a tiny speck on the planet, but the discovery of oil there has cracked open questions of giant significance. How can wealthy countries be held to account for their promises to move away from fossil fuels? Can the institutions of a fragile democracy keep large corporations in check? And what kind of future is Guyana promising its citizens as it places bets on commodities that much of the world is vowing to make obsolete?

A land of new possibilities

Oil has created a Guyana with pumpkin spice lattes. The first Starbucks store appeared outside the capital last year; it was such a big deal that the president and the American ambassador attended the opening. People still “lime” — hang out — with local Carib beer and boomboxes on the storied sea wall, but those with the cash can now go for karaoke and fancy cocktails at a new Hard Rock Cafe.

The influx of wealth has introduced new tensions along economic lines in an already racially divided country. Hyperinflation has made fish, vegetables and other staples costlier, and many Guyanese feel priced out of pleasures in their own country. A new rooftop restaurant, described to me as “pizza for Guyana’s 1 percent” by its consultant chef from Brooklyn, set off a backlash on social media for serving a cut of beef that costs $335, as much as a security guard in the capital earns in a month.

This aspirational consumerist playground is grafted onto a ragged infrastructure. Lexus S.U.V.s cruise new highways but must still gingerly wade through knee-deep floods in Georgetown when it rains, thanks to bad drainage. Electricity, the subject of much teeth-sucking and dark humor, is expensive and erratic. It’s also dirty, powered by heavy fuel, a tarlike residue from refining oil. In 2023, 96 blackouts halted activity across the country for an average of one hour each. A growing number of air-conditioners taxing aging generators are partly to blame, but the system has been tripped up by weeds entangling transmission lines, backhoes hitting power poles and once, infamously, a rat.

The country’s larger companies — makers of El Dorado rum, timber producers — generate their own electricity outside the power grid. Small companies, however, don’t have that option. This year, the Inter-American Development Bank cited electrical outages as a major obstacle to doing business in Guyana.

The government’s investment in a natural gas pipeline and power plant offers the prospect of steady and affordable power. The gas, a byproduct of Exxon Mobil’s drilling, tends not to be commercialized and is often flared off as waste, emitting greenhouse gases in the process. But at the government’s request, Exxon Mobil and its consortium partners agreed to send some of the natural gas to the Wales site. The consortium is supposed to supply it without cost, but no official sales agreement has been made public yet.

At international conferences, rich countries have pledged to help poorer, lower-emitting ones to raise their living standards sustainably with renewable energy, but the money has fallen short . Natural gas is cleaner than the heavy fuel Guyana now uses, and the country’s leaders claim that it will serve as an eventual bridge to renewable energy. The fact that it’s not as clean as solar or other renewable sources seems, to some local manufacturers, beside the point because the status quo is so challenging.

During blackouts, Upasna Mudlier, who runs Denmor Garments, a textile company that makes uniforms, fire safety jackets and lingerie, has to send home the two dozen seamstresses she employs. That means a big hit in productivity. A chemist in her late 30s, she inherited the company from her father. Ms. Mudlier was nervous about networking in the burly crush of the male-dominated local business elite, but she nonetheless attended an event hosted by a business development center funded by Exxon Mobil. She leaned in, and it paid off: She won a contract to make a thousand coveralls for workers building an oil production vessel headed for Guyana’s waters.

It was a bright spot nonetheless dimmed by her electric bill. An astounding 40 percent of her operating budget goes to paying for power. Ms. Mudlier is eager for the natural gas plant. Cheaper, reliable energy could allow her to price her products to compete internationally.

Textiles are a tiny niche in Guyana, but hers is the kind of manufacturing that experts say Guyana needs to avoid becoming a petroleum state. Ms. Mudlier agrees with the government’s messaging on the gas project. “It will create more jobs for people and bring more investments into our country and more diversity to our economy,” she said.

Widespread anxiety that the best new jobs would go to foreigners led to a law that sets quotas for oil and gas companies to hire and contract with locals. Komal Singh, a construction magnate in his mid-50s, has benefited from the law. Mr. Singh, who directs an influential government advisory body on business policy, works as a joint partner with international companies building the Wales pipeline and treating toxic waste from offshore oil production.

“We say to them, ‘It’s you, me and Guyanese,’” he told me. “If Guyanese are not part of the show, end of conversation.”

Guyana has lost a greater share of its people than any other country, with two in five people born there living abroad. So the oil boom and the local partner requirement have set off something of a frenzy for passports and have fueled debate over who, exactly, is Guyanese. I met a British private equity manager with a Guyanese mother who obtained citizenship shortly after his second visit to the country. One local partner’s contested citizenship became a matter for the High Court.

With the value of land and housing skyrocketing, some local property owners have profited by becoming landlords to expats or by selling abandoned fields at Manhattan prices for commercial real estate. But to many Guyanese, it has seemed as if “comebackees,” the term for returning members of the diaspora, or the politically connected elite are the most poised to benefit from the boom.

Sharia Bacchus returned to Guyana after two decades living in Florida. Ms. Bacchus, who has family connections in the government and private sector, started her own real estate brokerage. She rents apartments and houses to expats for as much as $6,000 a month.

I shadowed her as she showed a prospective buyer — a retired U.S. Marine of Guyanese descent — a duplex condo in a coveted new gated community. She eagerly pointed out amenities that comebackees want: air-conditioning, a pool and, of course, an automatic backup generator.

“If you lose power at any time, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said, reassuringly.

The ghosts of the past

As glimpses of this new Guyana emerge, the ghosts of the past linger. A year ago, a Georgetown hotel, hustling like so many to take advantage of the new oil money, staged a $170-a-head rum-tasting event called “Night at the Estate House.” I’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to interview Exxon Mobil’s top brass in Guyana. When I heard rumors that its country manager would attend, I bought a ticket and, though he was a no-show, I found a seat with his inner circle.

As we sipped El Dorado rum in the garden of a colonial-style mansion, one of the event’s hosts gave a speech that invoked a time when “B.G.,” the insider’s shorthand for British Guiana, the country’s colonial name, also stood for Booker’s Guiana. Now, the speaker observed matter-of-factly, “it’s Exxon’s Guyana.”

Booker McConnell was a British multinational originally founded by two brothers who became rich on sugar and enslaved people. At one point, the company owned 80 percent of the sugar plantations in British Guiana, including the Wales Estate. The Exxon Mobil executive sitting next to me didn’t know any of this. His face reddened when I told him that the speaker had just placed his employer in a long line of corporate colonialism.

Independence came in 1966, but the U.S. and British governments engineered into power Guyana’s first leader, Forbes Burnham, a Black lawyer whom they deemed more pliable than Cheddi Jagan, a radical son of Indian plantation laborers, who was seen as a Marxist peril. But Burnham grew increasingly dictatorial as well as, in a twist of geopolitical fate, socialist.

Booker, which would later give its name to the Booker Prize in literature, still owned Wales at independence. But in the mid-1970s, Burnham took control of the country’s resources, nationalizing sugar production as well as bauxite mining. Like other former colonies, Guyana wanted to make its break with imperialism economic as well as political.

Burnham pushed the idea of economic independence to the breaking point, banning all imports. Staples from abroad, such as cooking oil, potatoes, wheat flour and split peas, had to be replaced with local substitutes. But Guyana didn’t have the farms and factories to meet the demand, so people turned to the black market, waited in ration lines and went hungry.

Guyana was 15 years free when my family arrived on the Wales Estate, by then part of the nationalized Guyana Sugar Company; my parents, then in their 20s, were young, too. My father, the son of plantation laborers, had just earned a natural sciences degree from the University of Guyana, founded at independence to educate the people who would build the new nation. As field lab manager, he tested sucrose in the cane to determine harvest time and oversaw the trapping of rats and snakes in the fields.

We lived in a former overseer’s house two doors from the estate’s main gate, where Mr. Mahabir now stands sentinel, and my mother taught high school in the guard’s village. My parents had only ever studied by kerosene lamp or gas lantern — but this house had electricity, generated on the estate by burning sugar cane trash.

I can remember at age 6 the cold delicacy of a refrigerated apple, a Christmas present from American aunts. It wouldn’t be long before we joined them.

Rigged elections kept Burnham in power for two decades of hardship and insecurity, both ethnic and economic. As soon as our long-awaited green cards allowing entry to the United States were approved, we left, participating in an exodus that created a “barrel economy,” with many communities sustained by money and care packages sent in barrels from relatives abroad. That exodus gutted Guyana: Today, less than 3 percent of the population is college educated.

Burnham’s death in 1985 touched off a series of events that began to change the country. Within seven years, Guyana held its first free and fair elections. Jagan, by then an old man, was elected president. Soon, a younger generation of his party took office and wholeheartedly embraced capitalism. Private companies could once again bid for Guyana’s vast resources. Corruption, endemic in the Burnham era, took new forms.

Then came proof of the dangers of unchecked extraction. In 1995, a dam at a Canadian-owned gold mine gave way. The 400 million gallons of cyanide-laced waste it had held back fouled two major rivers. Simone Mangal-Joly, now an environmental and international development specialist, was among the scientists on the ground testing cyanide levels in the river. The waters had turned red, and Indigenous villagers covered themselves in plastic to protect their skin. “It’s where they bathed,” Ms. Mangal-Joly recalled. “It was their drinking water, their cooking water, their transportation.”

The tragedy led to action. The next year, the government passed its first environmental protection law. Seven years later, the right to a healthy environment was added to the Constitution. Guyana managed to enshrine what the United States and Canada, for instance, have not.

For a moment, Guyana’s natural capital — the vast tropical rainforests that make it one of the very few countries that is a net carbon sink — was among its most prized assets. Bharrat Jagdeo, then president, sold the carbon stored in its forests to Norway to offset pollution from that country’s own petroleum production in 2009. Indigenous groups received $20 million from that deal to develop their villages and gain title to their ancestral lands, though some protested that they had little input. Mr. Jagdeo was hailed as a United Nations “Champion of the Earth.”

And then Exxon Mobil struck oil.

The vision of a green Guyana now vies with its fast-rising status as one of the largest new sources of oil in the world. The country’s sharply divided political parties stand in rare accord on drilling. Mr. Jagdeo, who is now Guyana’s vice president but still dictates much government policy, is a fervent supporter of the Wales project.

But a small, steadfast, multiracial movement of citizens is testing the power of the environmental laws. David Boyd, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, describes the country as a front line for litigation using innovative rights arguments to fight climate change. It includes the first constitutional climate change case in the region, brought by an Indigenous tour guide and a university lecturer.

Not all critics of the petroleum development are environmentalists. What unites them is the belief that the nation’s hard-won constitutional protections should be stronger than any corporation.

‘The rule of law is the rule of law.’

Liz Deane-Hughes comes from a prominent family. Her father founded one of Georgetown’s most respected law firms, and in the 1980s, back in Burnham’s time, he fought against repressive changes to the constitution. She remembers her parents taking her to rousing rallies led by a multiracial party battling Burnham’s rule. When she was 13, she came home one day to find police officers searching their home. “I lived through the 1980s in Guyana,” says Ms. Deane-Hughes, who practiced at the family firm before quitting the law. “So I do not want to go back there on any level.”

I talked to Ms. Deane-Hughes, now an artist and jewelry designer, on the sprawling veranda of a colonial-style house built on land that has been in her family for five generations. The government has claimed part of it for the natural gas pipeline, which crosses private property as well as the Wales Estate. But the issue, she told me, is bigger than her backyard.

Last month, Ms. Deane-Hughes joined other activists, virtually, at a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, making the argument that oil companies have compromised environmental governance in Guyana. This coterie of activists have spoken out and filed suits to bring the corporation under the scrutiny of the country’s laws and regulations.

Ms. Mangal-Joly, who responded to the cyanide disaster that prompted those environmental laws, says the government has failed to fulfill its oversight duties. As part of her doctoral research at University College London, she found that Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency had waived the environmental assessments for every facility treating toxic waste or storing radioactive materials produced by offshore oil production.

The gas plant, too, has been given a pass. In January, the E.P.A. waived the environmental assessment for the proposed Wales plant because Exxon Mobil, although it isn’t building the plant, had done one for the pipeline.

The E.P.A. defended the decision. “It is good and common practice” to rely on existing environmental assessments “even when done by other project developers,” wrote an agency spokeswoman on behalf of its executive director. The agency asserted its right to waive assessments as it sees fit and noted that the courts hadn’t overturned its exemptions, saying, “This no doubt speaks to the E.P.A.’s high degree of technical competence and culture of compliance within the laws of Guyana.”

Ms. Mangal-Joly notes that the power plant sits above an aquifer that supplies drinking water to most of the country. “Our water table is shallow,” she says. “There’s a generation, and generations to come, that will not inherit clean water. We are despoiling a resource far more valuable than oil.”

The waiver infuriated Ms. Deane-Hughes. And the independence of the board that hears citizen concerns struck her as a sham. Its chairman, Mahender Sharma, heads Guyana’s energy agency, and his wife directs the new government company created to manage the power plant. At a hearing of the board, Ms. Deane-Hughes cited the mandate against conflicts of interest in the Environmental Protection Act and asked Mr. Sharma to recuse himself. “I would like you not to make a decision,” she told him.

Six weeks later, the board did make a decision: It allowed the power company to keep its environmental permit without doing an impact statement.

Mr. Sharma, the energy director, dismissed the critics as a privileged intellectual elite sheltered from the deprivations that have led many Guyanese to welcome the oil industry.

At the Inter-American commission meeting, Mr. Bharrat, the minister of natural resources, argued that it is his government’s right as well as its responsibility to balance economic growth with sustainability. “Our country’s development and environmental protection are not irreconcilable aims,” he told them. And he reminded them that they can turn to the courts with their complaints.

Guyana’s highest court has dealt the activists both setbacks and victories. In one of the more consequential cases, activists have thus far prevailed. Frederick Collins, who heads the local anti-corruption group Transparency Institute of Guyana, sued the E.P.A. for not requiring Exxon Mobil’s local subsidiaries to carry a more substantial insurance policy. Mr. Collins argued that the existing $600 million policy was inadequate in the extreme. Major oil spills aren’t rare — two happen worldwide every year. The biggest blowout ever, at BP’s Deepwater Horizon, cost that company $64 billion. The deepwater drilling in Guyana is the riskiest kind.

A retired insurance executive and Methodist preacher, Mr. Collins had been feeling pessimistic about the case ever since the judge allowed Exxon Mobil, with its daunting resources, to join the E.P.A. as a defendant a year ago. In legal filings, the defendants had dismissed him as a “meddlesome busybody” without legal standing to bring the suit.

But in May, the judge, Sandil Kissoon, pilloried the E.P.A. as “a derelict, pliant” agency whose “state of inertia and slumber” had “placed the nation, its citizens and the environment in grave peril.” He found that the insurance held by Exxon Mobil’s local subsidiary failed to meet international standards and ordered the parent company to guarantee its unlimited liability for all disaster costs — or stop drilling. The case is being appealed.

An Exxon Mobil spokesperson said by email that the company’s insurance is “adequate and appropriate” and that a $2 billion guarantee it recently provided, at the order of the court considering the appeal, “exceeds industry precedent and the estimate of potential liability.”

At a news conference, Mr. Jagdeo, the vice president, criticized the ruling and called on Guyana’s courts to make “predictable” decisions. “We are playing in the big leagues now,” he said. “We are not a backwater country where you can do whatever you want and get away with it.”

To Melinda Janki, the lawyer handling most of the activists’ suits and one of the few local lawyers willing to take on the oil companies, the question is whether Exxon Mobil can get away with doing whatever it wants. She helped shape some of Guyana’s strongest environmental laws. “Even though this is a massive oil company,” she said, “they still have to obey the law. The rule of law is the rule of law.”

The dissidents are deploying the law in their fight against the oil giant and the government, but with billions on the line, they’re also combating the currents of public opinion.

A fossil fuel economy in a changing world

For all the misery wrought by sugar during the colonial era, its legacy as an economic powerhouse lingers in local memory.

In Patentia, the village closest to Wales, where I attended first grade, laid-off sugar workers remember the estate as the center of the community. When its 1,000 workers lost their jobs, thousands more were sent reeling, as businesses from rum shops to mom-and-pop groceries folded.

The Guyana Sugar Corporation, then the country’s largest employer, eliminated a third of its work force, leaving about a fifth of the population coping with the effects of unemployment.

The timing of the closures, a year after the oil discovery, raised hopes that the petroleum industry might somehow fill the void. Seven years after the closures, however, most sugar workers haven’t found new jobs. Certainly, very few are employed by the petroleum industry.

Their struggle raises a crucial question for Guyana as it wrestles with the transition from the old economy to the new: How can Guyanese without the skills or education for petroleum jobs benefit? Nested within that quandary ticks another: What if the new economy isn’t so new? What if its petroleum-driven vision of progress is actually already outdated?

Thomas Singh, a behavioral economist who founded the University of Guyana’s Green Institute, has argued for transforming the still-active sugar industry’s waste into cellulosic ethanol, a cutting-edge biofuel. But Mr. Sharma, the energy agency head, says the industry is too small for its cane husks to power very much. Some of the jackpot from Norway for carbon offsets has been earmarked for eight small solar farms, but Mr. Sharma, who drives an electric car and has solar panels at his house, maintains that solar energy is too expensive to be a primary power source, despite arguments to the contrary . The giant hydroelectric project the Norway deal was supposed to fund, powered by a waterfall, has long been stalled.

What dominates the local imagination now is oil and gas. During my stay in Guyana, I kept hearing the calypso song “ Not a Blade of Grass ” on the radio. Written in the 1970s as a patriotic rallying cry and a stand against Venezuela, which threatened to annex two-thirds of Guyana, it has made a comeback with a new cover version. (So, too, have Venezuela’s threats .) The lyrics, to an outsider’s ear, sound like an anthem against Exxon Mobil: “When outside faces from foreign places talk about takin’ over, we ain’t backin’ down.” But in Guyana, it has been invoked recently to assert the nation’s right to pump its own oil. The voices against drilling, however outspoken, remain isolated; the more passionate debate is over whether Guyana should renegotiate its contract to get a bigger take of the oil proceeds.

Oil is seen as such a boon that even questioning how it’s regulated can be branded unpatriotic. Journalists, academics, lawyers, workers at nongovernmental organizations and even former E.P.A. employees confided their fear of being ostracized if they spoke against petroleum.

Since becoming an adult, I’ve returned to Guyana every few years to research the country’s past and its legacies. During this recent trip, an elder statesman I interviewed told me that it was time I moved back permanently. The thought points to a hope, reawakened by oil, that Guyana can reclaim its lost people. But from my recent trips back to the country, it’s hard to tell now what Guyana is becoming, and who will thrive there as it evolves.

The house my family lived in on the Wales Estate still stands. It has been freshly painted and refurbished, with a daunting sign outside threatening trespassers with closed-circuit television, dogs and drone surveillance. It has passed into private hands. Exactly who owns it is a matter of speculation. The rumor in Patentia? A former sugar worker from Wales repeated it to me: “Exxon owns that house.”

Do you have a connection to Guyana?

It’s still early days in Guyana’s transformation, and the events unfolding in Guyana will have a notable impact worldwide. We’d like to hear your perspectives on where the country is heading. We especially want to engage Guyanese people and those with family or ancestral connections to the country.

The Headway initiative is funded through grants from the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors serving as a fiscal sponsor. The Woodcock Foundation is a funder of Headway’s public square. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of the Headway initiative.

Gaiutra Bahadur is the author of “Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture.” She teaches English and journalism as an associate professor at Rutgers University in Newark.

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