Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/679878
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2016 40 This Week After a frightfuly dry winter many plants have traded the growing-tall phase with the more important phase where they flower and seed, thus at least completing their precious cycle to ensure a new generation next year. Most are already dry and wilted, leaving the countryside looking like late June already, with hungry insects yawning for the lush crop that never came. Very little colour is still in evidence, but here and there along some country lanes and field edges one comes across the wavy-leaved mullein (M: xatbet l-andar). Never particularly common, these plants brave the parched mid-May ground and in return they get to flaunt their wares with very few competitors about. Rising on a slender stem with several spindly branches, this elegant plant produces a profusion of flowers, pale yellow with brownish-red middle, and leaves with the wavy edge that give the species its name. Here's hoping they don't fall victim to our enthusiastic roadside desertification brigade with their infernal herbicides and grass cutters. GREEN IDEA OF THE WEEK 409: DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT - - HTTPS://WWW.TTIP-LEAKS.ORG/ 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 506. WAVY-LEAVED MULLEIN WHY is the environment always treated as an afterthought? We safeguard it and implement re- form on a piecemeal basis to satisfy EU targets, but we do so without conviction, without passion. Fresh water scarcity, air pollution, and climate change – these aren't matters to be left on the backburner. Years of in- action, or even worse, senseless action, have resulted in a need for courageous, forward-looking policies. Study after study has pointed out that Malta's ground wa- ter levels, from where we get around half our water, are de- clining both in quality and in quantity. Illegal boreholes allow their owners to steal a public re- source with impunity. It is no big secret that several major factories and hotels sim- ply suck up this water for free, privately siphoning off public wealth. Despite repeated calls for action, governments seem unwilling to act. When they act, they act in ancillary and coun- terproductive ways – a national flood relief project that dumps all the accumulated rainwater in a water-stressed country back into the sea. It beggars belief. When it comes to traffic, apart from the economic hindrance and personal annoyance, there is also a significant amount of pollution being created. While Marsa's air quality was recently reported to be improving with the closure of the power station, easing the gridlock of traffic in central areas would also have an effect. Carpooling initiatives, investment in public transport, infrastructure works to divert traffic – all to be applauded, but are they enough? Globally, the situation is not much better. Species are becom- ing extinct at an alarming rate. The 10 warmest years in the last 134 years, since records started, are all to be found in the last 18 years. If the world somehow gets its act together and doesn't allow the temperature to increase by more than 2°C (ultimately a very unlikely scenario), you can still say goodbye to chunks of Sliema, Msida and Marsa. All this while our taxes keep subsidising oil exploration in our seas, despite there being am- ple evidence that oil must stay in the ground – there is already enough in storage to push us beyond the 2°C limit. Every bar- rel extracted flies in the face of the Paris Agreement. Malta has a long way to go to achieve our 10% renewable energy by 2020 target, but is this target even am- bitious enough? Ambition in fact seems to be lacking in all these areas. We will do the bare necessities to avoid EU sanctions, but our col- lective heart just doesn't seem to be in it. Have there been good measures in water management and clean energy? Yes, of course, and they must be applauded. But how about abandoning 'just barely good enough' policies? Go back to the drawing board, look at the very latest technology, and make the leap, both politi- cally and financially, towards the future. Governments seem unable to take the bull by the horns and enforce unpopular policies with a long-term vision. The curse of the five-year election cycle has led to a lack of vision. Where there is a vision, papers are drawn up and left in a drawer. More often than not, however, we as a country prefer to sweep things under the carpet, and when things blow up in our face we say, "issa nitgħallmu għal darb'oħra" (we'll do better next time). How this attitude impacts an irreplaceable environment should be amply clear. The authorities and all those with the knowledge, experience and concern to act need to stop shuffling their feet. To borrow a popular slogan – just do it. Analysis of newly leaked documents on the EU-US trade negotiations (TTIP) has confirmed that the EU's democracy, as well as safeguards for protecting people and the environment, are under a substantial and unprecedented corporate attack, according to Friends of the Earth Europe. In particular concerns are being raised about the EU's food safety system, stating that there are too many warning signals to support claims by the European Commission that EU safety standards will remain if TTIP is agreed. These leaked documents confirm that the TTIP is a Trojan horse treaty that will wreak havoc on our democracy and the safeguards that protect people and the environment. Millions of European citizens have been absolutely right to be concerned about what was being traded away behind closed doors. It is now imperative that national governments take action to pull the plug on this toxic deal and demand that the negotiations are stopped." As part of the inevitable trade-offs if negotiations proceed, the leaked documents indicate that the US is threatening to block exports of EU cars if increased access to US agriculture products are not improved. Last year, other leaked notes revealed that the EU was also willing to sacrifice EU farming to gain access to US local government services. Friends of the Earth groups around Europe have been campaigning for three years to stop the TTIP negotiations. Ambition seems to be lacking. We will do the bare necessities to avoid EU sanctions but our collective heart is not in it Robert Louis Fenech TTIP leaks confirm unprecedented corporate attack Unable to take the bull by the horns