The bus, the officer and the climate change ambassador

On September 29, The Times published my letter protesting the visit to New York of three major government players in the fight for a better environment in Malta. I argued that their efforts should be focused at home, combating the pollution "created by Malta buses, trucks and construction machinery, the iconic chimney at St Luke's, the debris floating in the harbours, the lead shot and dead birds that rain from the sky (both in and out of the hunting season), the acrid smoke from the ground fire works, the fly-tipping, and the general litter and filth that is left to accumulate."

Joe Martinelli of Ontario, Canada (October 5), then quite correctly accused me of pointing a finger at government and ministers, but misconstrued my letter as having accused the Prime Minister of throwing "garbage on the streets". Mr Martinelli also suggested that I had "compared remedies suitable for the American continent" to those appropriate to Malta, although no such remedies featured in my letter. The Times, with gentle irony, printed a picture of St Luke's, and its polluting chimney, directly above his letter.

Edward A. Mallia then waded in (October 16), either without having read the previous correspondence or having totally misunderstood it. After accusing "Mickey Spillane" (whoever he may be) of being an "extreme detractor" of the Republic of Malta - which in some countries would rank as a crime against the state - he goes on to assume that Mr Martinelli had charged the said Mr Spillane with claiming that Malta "invented' climate change some 20 years ago, which Mr Martinelli had not. This I find amazing in a physicist of Prof. Mallia's stature, particularly as his field is Low Pollution Transportation and he might usefully have addressed the problem of bus pollution, which I had actually mentioned.

Mr Martinelli (October 19th), who two weeks earlier had written from Ontario, then wrote and suggested that my remedies suffer from "over-simplicity". I had indeed proposed a simple solution, namely that the Environment Minister, the Climate Change Ambassador and the Director for Environment Policy should stay in Malta and focus their efforts at home, rather than in New York .

They could start with the Malta buses, which, as Paul Debono (October 26) pointed out, "emit copious amounts of black smoke which is detrimental to the health of the public". Last weekend the Grand Pix de Malte displaced the buses from their moderately ventilated, if urine-scented, terminus around the Triton Fountain, to a makeshift terminus in St Anne's Street, Floriana. There the fumes they emitted were trapped by the arches and soon built up to a near-smog.

When a bus belching clouds of black smoke practically asphyxiated my wife, a neighbour and her baby, I noted the registration number and complained to a police officer. "Nothing to do with us," he said, "you need the ADT." I then complained to a Senior ADT Enforcement Officer. "There's a loophole in the law," he explained. "They are running on heating oil, instead of diesel." He inspected the exhaust of the offending vehicle and wrote out a ticket, which he then gave to the driver.

Most drivers, having been thus chastised by an official, would have driven off gently, so as to minimise the fumes emitted. Not this one! He just hit the accelerator and took off in a cloud of macho smoke, causing the ADT official to choke, and not just with anger. "He'll be off the road by this afternoon," he declared and spoke hoarsely to his superior by mobile phone. "Yes, he'll be off the road by this afternoon, have no doubt about it."

That was on Sunday. On Monday my attention was attracted by a cloud of black smoke in Pietà. Lo and behold, it was the very same bus! It may have been off the road by Sunday afternoon, but it was definitely back on the road the very next day and generating just as much smoke.

Yes, my solution is simple: The Environment Minister, the Climate Change Ambassador and the Director for Environment Policy should stay in Malta and ensure that the ADT officials, the police and the courts not only have adequate powers, but also have the will to use them and the certainty that their masters will back them up. When an ADT officer says a bus is to be taken off the road, it should stay off the road until the fault has been cured and the environment and our lungs protected. Only then will bus drivers respect the ADT, the police and the public, and not believe that they are free to blow smoke with impunity.