Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/618165
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 20 DECEMBER 2015 44 This Week 44 A milestone deal that heralds a new epoch of policymaking and campaigning has been agreed last week in Paris. Yet the agreement falls far short of the grand rhetoric declared by world leaders at the opening of the Paris events two weeks ago. An ambition to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees is a positive step forwards, but the Paris agreement falls far short of an adequate plan to make this a reality. Friends of the Earth International believes that despite the hype, the Paris agreement will fail to deliver. Politicians say it is a fair and ambitious deal – yet it is the complete opposite. People are being deceived. Rich countries must make their fair share of emissions cuts and provide finance and support to developing countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change. Instead, they are failing to cut carbon emissions and the finance they have offered is insufficient. The Paris climate deal will require people-power to make politicians live up to their rhetoric, If we're going to avoid warming above 1.5 degrees a lot more needs to be done. People now know that this time, we can't count on the goodwill of our governments to save the world. The transformation to socially-controlled, renewable energy, is underway, led by the real leaders – the people. If people's solutions are embraced universally, and not further held back by decision-makers, nor undermined by corporate incentives, we could together make huge strides along the path to climate-safe societies. In our science lessons we often read that nature slows down in winter and wakes up in spring. That's because most of our textbooks were British, where winter can be pretty tough. Not so here, with our mild winters. Here the tough nut for plants is summer, during which many of them aestivate (the summer equivalent of hibernate). One such plant is the Mediterranean Heath (M: Erika), now beginning to flower. Take a stroll today, head for those rocky slopes so typical of our wilder countryside and you may come across a shrub covered in clusters of delicate pale pink (even white) flowers that look like tiny bells. That's our beauty! And when you find one you'll probably find more, indeed in some places it is the dominant shrub. But don't be fooled: the Mediterranean Heath is not particularly widespread or common. With decent protection (which doesn't include tarmacking or building over!) of our garrigue, this plant can spread again. Best wishes for Christmas. 485. MEDITERRANEAN HEATH GREEN IDEA OF THE WEEK 388: FIND OUT MORE – A detailed policy analysis of the Paris Agreement will be available at http://www.foei.org/what-we-do/paris Visit Friends of the Earth's website for more information about our work, as well as for information about how to join us. You can also support us by sending us a donation - www.foemalta.org/donate Text and photo Victor Falzon Paris climate deal – Historic but not fit for people and planet Unleashing the beasts inside Wolf Winter – Cecilia Ekback ROBERT PISANI I spent the first nine years of my life on a Metis settlement in the province of Manitoba, Canada. For the uninitiated, a settlement is a stretch of land owned by the Canadian government but run by a band (in our case it was the settlement's local council). If you want to be blunt we lived in the middle of nowhere surrounded by expanses of land, bordered by forests. A Northern Manitoban winter is a fearsome thing. The sky turns gray by 3pm and becomes black by 5pm, usually accompanied by fierce winds which sting, not to mention the killer patches of ice and the thig- deep snow. Those are the good days. A Northern Manitoban sum- mer is just as bad - swarms of mosquitos, midges and horseflies become thirsty for blood, they are difficult to avoid, and after the occasional summer thun- derstorm the vampiric qualities of these beasts increase a hun- dredfold. Then there's the added confusion of the sun setting at 10:30pm. The reason I'm mentioning this bout of nostalgia (in spite of the treacherous weather, they were great times) is because the setting of Cecelia Ekback's debut novel, Wolf Winter, is reminiscent of my childhood. It's also one of the best mysteries I've read in the past year. The year is 1717 and a Finn- ish family emigrates to a moun- tain village during the summer. Trouble is already starting as the father finds a disembow- eled neighbor in a field. Later on the family also find out that the towering Blackasen mountain is a place where evil deeds have taken place, which involved some children who have disappeared. Maija, the wife, decides to uncover these dark mysteries in the hope that there is a rational reason why her neighbor was killed and children have been ab- ducted. As this is the sum- mer, the family is suffering from plagues of mosquitoes. Since this is 1717, the Church still has a strong- hold on society and the newly arrived village priest has been trying to inte- grate himself in the village with varying degrees of success. He too wants to help Maija solve these mysteries but mainly so that order is restored, thus avoid- ing the Bishop transferring him to another village. Winter arrives and things just get worse. Not only is the vil- lage afflicted with malevo- lent snow- storms but Maija's hus- band Paavo has to leave the family in order to trade goods and the youngest daughter, Dor- otea, contracts foot rot as a re- sult of the cold weather while eldest daughter Frederika is act- ing possesed. As Maija starts to learn the dark secrets of the vil- lage coupled with the bleak, harsh landscape and Blackasen loom- ing overhead, she begins to remem- ber her past life and tries to over- come the problems she encountered. Essentially Wolf Winter is a multi- layered mystery. There are red herrings, surprises and clever plot twists, which do equal a page- turner. More importantly though is Ekback's writing. She captures the desolation and horror of liv- ing in the middle of nowhere with little form of help. There are moments of terror as Maija attempts to solve a mystery, bat- tle with the environment, upkeep a sick family and struggle with her personal demons. This is raw writing with some moments of beauty among the constant ugli- ness. If you've never experienced frostbite, heaps of snow and the dark creepiness of a January win- ter, then Ekback's writing will evoke it. Ekback does not take the easy way out and things are not as they seem. Due to the different plot threads, Ekback keeps the reader in suspense, adding new dimen- sions to the threads until the last sentence, when the reader real- izes how Ekback manages to pull off such a complicated plot and tie it up deftly. A Wolf Winter, as the villagers call it, is when winter is so savage that it brings the wolves out to hunt prey that is not part of their diet. It is a winter that releases the inner beast and unleashes our insecurities and mad instincts. Eckbak's novel reflects winter's paranoia and manages to be an immersive experience.