Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1498223
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 APRIL 2023 10 OPINION We can't expect Gozo to remain a 'virgin', while we continue raping her sister-island FOR some time now, I have been discerning a vague parallel between the local 'overdevelop- ment' issue – especially, where Gozo is concerned – and the general global discussion about Climate Change. Not just in the most self-evi- dent way that those two issues could realistically be com- pared: i.e., that both are cases where 'The Environment' - on a micro and macro scale, re- spectively - is 'under threat from human activity' (and let's face it: not much is being done to actually deal with the threat, on either level...) There is that too, naturally; but the parallel I have in mind is slightly different. It's more about how both those issues are actively being 'exploited', to create entirely unnecessary divisions between different categories of 'haves' and 'have- nots'; with the result that... well, like I said just a second ago: not much is being done, in either case, to address the problem at hand. But tell you what: let's jump right into the analogy itself, shall we? (One last thing, how- ever: for reasons of brevity, everything you are about to read is obviously going to be a MASSIVE over-simplification. You have been warned...) Ready? Here goes: For the past couple of centu- ries, those parts of the world we now refer to as 'developed' – Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. – have been undergoing an intense process of 'industrialisation'. And we all know what that means, in practice. They have been burning fossil fuels, to power up their ever-burgeon- ing industrial needs; all the while deforesting the land- scape, to accommodate more pasture-land; more factories; more industry, more railways; more highways, more... any- way: you get the general idea. But then – from around the mid-1980s onward – a slow re- alisation starts to dawn on the developed world. Actually, two. The first is that: "You know what? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea, after all, to cut down all those vir- gin forests; or to burn all those fossil-fuels..." Because (in the interest of keeping this part as brief as possible) we now have solid, scientific evidence, that: a) the greenhouse gases that we've been pumping into the atmosphere, ever since the early 19th century, have had the unforeseen consequence of transforming the entire planet into equivalent of a 'pressure cooker', and; b) around the only thing we know of, that might actually ab- sorb some of those gases, are... well, what do you know? For- ests! You know: those 'greeny, leafy, tree-y' things, that the Western World has spent the better part of the entire In- dustrial Revolution, 'chopping down' at every conceivable op- portunity... In any case: it wasn't exact- ly the most 'reassuring' reality the world could have woken up to, 30 years ago; and let's just say that... clearly, large parts of the world still haven't actually 'woken up to it', at all. For one thing, because a size- able percentage of the global population still evidently pre- fers clinging to even the most outrageous conspiracy the- ories, rather than accept the scientific reality of Climate Change... And for another, because – unconscionably – we've ac- tually managed to pump out MORE greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, over the past 30 years (yes, even after scien- tists had first raised the alarm) than throughout 300+ years, since the earliest invention of the Steam Engine. But this brings me to the sec- ond realisation, that dawned on (other parts of) the world, at roughly the same time. Ever since around the 1980s – varying from country to country, naturally – all those countries that had previously been considered 'developing' [Note: a few decades earlier it was 'Third World'; but nev- er mind), were finally coming round to the idea that: "Hey! Isn't it high time that we, too, start enjoying all the luxuries associated with industrialisa- tion?" (And let's face it: who can possibly blame them? Af- ter all, the Western world has been treating those countries as nothing but glorified 'mar- kets', for their own consumer goods/products, for time out of memory...) So I suppose you can work out the rest for yourselves. Coun- tries like India and (especially) China, transformed themselves into 'massive industrial pow- er-houses', almost overnight... ... and we now have coun- tries dotted all over the so- called 'Developing World' – in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-and-Central Ameri- ca, Asia, etc. – all falling over themselves, in the mad scram- ble to emulate precisely the same sort of 'economic mira- cle', themselves.... Ah: but what, pray tell, was the developed world's reac- tion? "Sorry, folks, but... NO CAN DO! We've just issued the Kyo- to Protocols, you see... and what they mean, in practice, is that: countries which are only just starting their own indus- trialisation process, must now limit their national CO2 emis- sions to within certain... shall we say, 'restrictions'. "It's all for the good of the planet, of course: but you now have to cap your emissions at the precise level that will – by pure coincidence, naturally – also keep your country more or less exactly as 'industrialised', or otherwise, as it happens to be right now. "In other words: I'm afraid you'll all just have to lump it, for the time being; and simply carry on living in abject pov-