Thank you from the Philippines

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Mission Fund for its donation in support of the mission of the Missionary Society of St Paul (MSSP) in the Philippines.

This year, many people have been hit hard by COVID-19 and we will be helping people who have lost their jobs. Just close to the formation house here in Manila, there are a number of people living in poverty. People like these often seek our help when they have health needs or to start a small business. We are also sponsoring children’s education for  a better future.

My main work is in the formation of brothers who wish to embrace the missionary life within MSSP. That means that many of the young people who join MSSP are coming from these developing countries – such as the Philippines and Vietnam. The Mission Fund donation also goes towards some of the expenses involved in their formation.

I make an appeal to the generous hearts of many to continue donating to the Mission Fund so that they can continue helping many Maltese missionaries working in developing countries.

Please deposit or make transfer of your donations to any of the following accounts: BOV: IBAN No. MT70VALL220130000000 16300798022; APS:  IBAN No. MT67APSB77079005231820000 820762; BNF:  IBAN No. MT94BNIF1450200000000087963101; LOMBARD: IBAN No. MT65LBMA05000000000001440822115.

For further details you can also visit the Mission Fund website www.missionfund.org.mt.

May God bless you all.

Fr Hector Attard MSSP – Manila, the Philippines

Has it become a music station?

I add my name to a list of protesters who call Radju Malta Stazzjon tad-diski  (music station).

We want to make it known to the PBS head of programmes (or whoever is responsible) that we are not in favour of the morning programme Aħna Maltin (as if we have any doubt!) that replaced Familja Waħda, ably presented for many years by Lilian Maistré and, for the last few months, by Gordon Caruana.  

This morning programme was very popular with listeners and for many years was listed as one of the best. The presenter’s guests were all specialised in their own subjects, which dealt with current affairs, health problems, social security, dentistry, veterinary services, transport, environment and the like. This programme was cut by half to make way for a 90-minute music programme.

Listeners are asking why the change. Isn’t the head of programmes aware that, following Familja Waħda or Aħna Maltin, besides the newly introduced Ferrovija Mużikali, there is another two-hour music programme during which the presenter keeps reminding listeners ad nauseam of other music programmes which follow for the rest of the day?

Hopefully, this is not a move to distract listeners from the problems that are surrounding us. At times, one feels that Radju Malta and One Radio are the same. Propaganda galore!

Music is good to listen to and very relaxing but listeners want educational programmes too. They have a right to be heard as PBS employees are paid from taxpayers’ money.            

Emily Barbaro-Sant – Mosta

Energy investments

I found Andreas Weitzer’s article ‘Energy investments: gone with the wind’ (November 1) rather depressing, departing as it did from his usual high standards of information.

It is not clear why he thinks that just LNG and not all NG has an important role to play as we progress towards carbon neutrality. After all, we – the government, that is – are about to commit ourselves to building an NG pipeline from Gela. But his assertion that “divestment will not stop anything, only the law and the market will”, is unbalanced, to say the least. For divestment, if not yet a “legal” mechanism except in limited instances like the stopping of “fracking”, is certainly a “market” mechanism.

In any case, while there may be no very evident effort to “wean the world off fossils fuels right now”, he seems to be unaware that his belief that cycles come and go is now in a state of irreversible decline. Serious predictions of climate change leave little doubt that time is not on our side. We are not approaching the bottom of a “cycle” but “tipping points” in the climate change process.

Even worse, there is now solid evidence that release of methane (NG) from the Arctic Sea bottom has started in earnest, pushed by rising water temperatures and the loss of ice cover. We have no means of control over this release of a potent greenhouse gas and no means of collecting it for our own use.

Weitzer’s take on solar panel materials is cavalier, to say the least. The “gruesome” mining methods, where they may exist, are the result of “market” forces and not an intrinsic necessity. At the other end, there are no “rubbish tips” of solar panel materials waiting for their “toxic content” to be washed into the ground water. That is more likely to happen in activities that may be involved in Weitzer’s “legacy investments”: Canadian Tar Sands, for instance.

The comments about our capacity for solar PV are inaccurate. We do have obvious space restrictions but rooftops are not our only spaces with PV potential. In fact, we have a small number of farms already in operation which are not “vying for space with green zones, etc…” These include the Freeport, the Fiddien Reservoir, the rehabilitated quarry on the Mosta-Żebbiegħ road, the Ħal Far PV farm, built over the former dump of (radioactive) fly ash from the Marsa power station; two re-habilitated quarries not yet completed.  

On wind turbines, Weitzer allows himself to be shunted on to the buffers because of a real threat to a “family summer house on Kithira”. The points about wind turbines on Maltese “territory”, land or water, have been made before. Proposals for farms on land – at Marfa, Baħrija and Ħal Far, the latter two included in a PN government 2009 proposal – have vanished without trace. Offshore, the proposed farm at Sikka l-Bajda, judged by then minster George Pullicino to be “absolutely necessary for achieving our 2020 targets for RE”, was abandoned, rightly reckoned to be too “environmentally” disruptive.

A proposal for an offshore farm with turbines sited on a line from Il-Qolla l-Bajda at Marsalforn to San Blas in water depths of 20m, which had none of the “environmental” problems of Sikka il-Bajda, was never taken up. Now we are apparently looking at “floating” farms and, in the longer term, even at placing wind turbines on “reclaimed” land. The “environmental” implications of this are as yet not being given much consideration.

Mention of the “similarity” of Greek and Maltese business models assumes that we will never learn.

But Weitzer does not mention the fact that we have a “resident” wind-power company, the Enemalta – Shanghai Electric combine. True enough, this seems more interested in shady deals designed to yield monetary gain rather than in setting up wind farms but it is “reliably” reported to be making a good profit and may yet be persuaded to go in for wind farms for local benefit.

Regrettably, its record to date is not such as to entice any sensible person with money to spare to invest in it. 

Edward Mallia – Attard

Government contracts

The way contracts are dished out to ‘mates’ by the government is questionable.

Charles Polidano gets a contract to construct a new road to Marsalforn (there’s nothing wrong with the present one), then days later there’s a picture of crumbling concrete pillars at the Ċirkewwa ferry terminal.

For God’s sake, don’t give him the tunnel contract.

Kevin Hodkin – Xagħra

The past matters

Prime Minister Robert Abela should know that it is wrong to tell journalists that what happened in the past is nothing to do with him. He chooses the easy way out. He should know that when taking over as prime minister, he took the post lock, stock and barrel.

Karl Flores – San Ġwann

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