Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

Who is Online

Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: North America; Published: 28 October 2023; Hits: 4332

Article Index

Page 9 of 17

Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic was our last port before returning to Fort Lauderdale. The port has been setup as a mini-resort, with bars, water sports and retail outlets, designed to separate cruise-ship passengers from their money.

There is a local fort, Fortaleza de San Felipe, that we though might be worth a look, perhaps of historical interest and more than twenty years old. But alas, as it was nearly 2 kilometres (an almost 5 minute drive) away, it would cost us $120, each, to be taken there.

We considered walking but the cocktail bars beaconed. Wi-Fi again.

The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with the country of Haiti. On the UN's Human Development Index, Haiti ranked 163 out of 191 countries in 2021, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries on earth. At the eastern end the Dominican Republic, while almost as corrupt as Mexico, has one of the highest development rankings in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. Same island, different cultures. So, not all cultures are equally beneficial to their possessors. Religion is obviously a factor here.

***

And so it was another relaxing sea day - back to Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale

Our next stop would be Boston

No comments

Travel

Bali

At the end of February 2016 Wendy and I took a package deal to visit Bali. These days almost everyone knows that Bali is a smallish island off the east tip of Java in the Southern Indonesian archipelago, just south of the equator. Longitudinally it's just to the west of Perth, not a huge distance from Darwin. The whole Island chain is highly actively volcanic with regular eruptions that quite frequently disrupt air traffic. Bali is well watered, volcanic, fertile and very warm year round, with seasons defined by the amount of rain.

Fiction, Recollections & News

The First Man on the Moon

At 12.56 pm on 21 July 1969 Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) Neil Armstrong became the first man to step down onto the Moon. I was at work that day but it was lunchtime. Workplaces did not generally run to television sets and I initially saw it in 'real time' in a shop window in the city.

Later that evening I would watch a full replay at my parents' home. They had a 'big' 26" TV - black and white of course. I had a new job in Sydney having just abandoned Canberra to get married later that year. My future in-laws, being of a more academic bent, did not have TV that was still regarded by many as mindless.

Given the early failures, and a few deaths, the decision to televise the event in 'real time' to the international public was taking a risk. But the whole space program was controversial in the US and sceptics needed to be persuaded.

Opinions and Philosophy

Climate Emergency

emergency
/uh'merrjuhnsee, ee-/.
noun, plural emergencies.
1. an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden and urgent occasion for action.

Recent calls for action on climate change have taken to declaring that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency'.

This concerns me on a couple of levels.

The first seems obvious. There's nothing unforseen or sudden about our present predicament.

My second concern is that 'emergency' implies something short lived. It gives the impression that by 'fire fighting against carbon dioxide' or revolutionary action against governments, or commuters, activists can resolve the climate crisis and go back to 'normal' - whatever that is. Would it not be better to press for considered, incremental changes that might avoid the catastrophic collapse of civilisation and our collective 'human project' or at least give it a few more years sometime in the future?

Back in 1990, concluding my paper: Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis I wrote:

We need to focus on the possible.

An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically. Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production, against the benchmark of present technology, before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.

Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work).

Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate “harden” the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm. [I didn't mention fire]

Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet. It is time to start looking for creative answers for NSW and Australia now.

Terms of Use

Terms of Use Copyright