17 April 2007Times of MaltaKenneth Zammit Tabona
There was once an island called Malta which, for thousands of years, proudly straddled the straits between Sicily and Tunisia. After many, many centuries of colonial rule this island finally achieved independence and became an island republic. Despite its smallness, this island nation managed to hold its own in the evolving concert of nations that is the EU, becoming a fully-fledged member in 2004.
A microcosm of Europe throughout its long and chequered history, Malta retained in its tradition some North African traces like its language that, although for the most part Semitic, was written using that Roman alphabet and its closed wooden balconies. Malta was poised politically to act as a mediator between Europe and the Maghreb, tempering the growing fundamentalism and soothing the potentially volatile tensions on either side... when, all of a sudden, disaster struck and over half of the Maltese archipelago was submerged during a tremendous storm that killed many, many thousands and left even more homeless and destitute. Gigantic waves were whipped up by cyclonic winds of hurricane proportions while torrential rain washed away trees, soil, crops and livestock. Houses that had for many centuries withstood the elements collapsed with a terrible sigh while churches and cathedrals shuddered when their great bronze bells boomed unaided in the blasting winds. The sea invaded low lying areas of Malta and flooded them with its devastating saltiness rendering them barren forever.
Somewhere in Nostradamus's mutterings is a passage that warns that ships would one day sail unknowingly over a submerged island that was once called Malta!
It was all due to something called global warming. We had heard about it for so long that we were thoroughly bored of it and had long consigned it to some remote cupboard of our subconscious. Even when other nations started taking the issue seriously and started recycling energy from matter other than what was considered to be the norm, like the recycled Wiener Schnitzel oil providing enough power for the entire pubic transport service in Graz, we in Malta merely hike up our electricity bills with incredibly-high surcharges and wait to see which way the global cat is going to jump! The storm to end all storms is then a tragic inevitability.
This, you may think, is a vision that is the product of a prophet of doom like Nostradamus, a madman. My fevered imagination perhaps, yet, if one follows what is being said by those who have realised that the damage we have done to the planet is threatening our very existence, the scenario described is very real and, unless we join the rest of the world in a concerted effort to force the clock back and minimise the damage, we are certainly done for. As we speak, glaciers melt and the icecaps are shrinking, the water level is expected to rise and then what? What happened in terms of annual centimetres before will escalate to metres if we do not do something to stop it... if we still can, of course.
In 2007, the world, after decades and decades of scoffing at the Green parties, Greenpeace and scientists in general, stopped in its tracks as the weather went completely crazy. Rain was scarce in temperate zones while in deserts it rained buckets. Europe had no winter to speak of and by April people were going around in T-shirts. Al Gore won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, which, apparently, can happen the day after tomorrow. Naturally, Mr Gore has his detractors too but the situation is just like the issue of whether to smoke or not; we all know that in some way smoking is bad for us yet many of us persist in doing it. It's the same with the planet. We have developed a way of life that is taking its toll on nature big time. We all know it and, yet, changing our lifestyle is so inconvenient that we will never get down to doing it unless the situation becomes life-threatening.
It is now to be expected that all political parties, unless they are lemmings, will go the green way. What they will do by way of putting their money where their mouth is remains to be seen, however it has suddenly become trendy to be an environmentalist and hip to be green.
Only last week there was an article in this paper saying that southern Europe is going to become a desert. That includes us too I suppose... or doesn't it? I have not come across any study as to how precisely Malta will be affected by global warming. Nor have I heard of a plan to become more eco-friendly. The chimneys of both the power station and St Luke's Hospital, among others, belch forth their noxious fumes periodically. We are still totally dependent on the burning of fossil fuels to obtain the energy we need to provide electricity and water at the lowest level and to the propelling of the thousands upon thousands of cars to ply us back and forth across the couple of miles from one destination to the next. Nobody has opened their mouth about using an alternative source of energy, notably harnessing the wind and capturing the sun, both of which we are abundantly blessed with. Not a squeak from any official quarter.
Are we under the impression that we are exempt? We seem to imagine that we live a charmed life and that the woes that affect other nations will never affect us. We will probably let other nations take appropriate action to stem the devastating tide that is the consequences of global warming while pretending that we in Malta are too small to do anything significant and will in time-honoured fashion carry on regardless, till... till that fateful day when it will all go pear-shaped... when we will shriek and lament as another town or village is engulfed by the sea while we choke with thirst.
This is not a Jeremiad lament but a warning. God helps those who help themselves and the battle to stem climate change and minimise the effects of global warming must become our national top priority before it is too late. Malta, in its smallness, with a little help from our large and powerful EU neighbours, can become a prototype, a shining example of which way the world should go in future to save the planet.
