We’ve already done so much terrible damage – and yet, even knowing this, we appear to have learnt so very little. But it’s really important we don’t screw up in East Africa and we don’t ignore those voices – whether of the UN or of the tar sands activists in Canada – now sounding the alarm.

This is not an oblique problem either: how oil and natural gas are extracted in Africa will impact all our lives. Yours and mine. Because if we exacerbate social inequality and existing wealth rifts, if we destroy livelihoods and take away people’s sense of control and responsibility, then we will create the ...

 

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