As the curtain is drawn on the annus horribilis that was 2020, many are hazarding feeble aspirations for the year in the offing. Herewith my ‘wish list’ for 2021.
COVID-19 pandemic – no sooner had the most recent column debunking a number of anti-vaccination myths been published a fortnight ago that social media was awash with pseudoscience drivel, reminiscent of the climate change denial movement.
While you are reading this current column, the first cohort of health front liners has probably received the jab on our shores and images of key international political figureheads (like US President-Elect Joe Biden and US Vice-President Mike Pence) taking the jab have gone viral (excuse the pun). Despite this, many sceptics out there are digging in their heels and consulting all sorts of pseudoscientific balderdash doing the rounds on social media, not managing to discern in the process real scientific facts from hoaxes and perceptions.
Four of the most gobsmacking hoaxes (so-termed since they are not supported by the science) doing the rounds out there include the following: the COVID-19 vaccine will alter your DNA, that the vaccine is just a way of implanting a microchip into your body, that the vaccine contains the tissue of an aborted foetus and that riding out the virus infection is preferable to taking the vaccine due to higher recovery rates associated with the former approach.
Technology mogul Bill Gates and his philanthropic foundation have been demonised within a conspiracy theory which has literally girdled the globe and which sees him as the main architect behind the microchipping of the world’s population.
The debate over the need to wear face masks in public should serve as a fitting analogy in the debate about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. Notorious anti-mask campaigners, including German far-right politician Thomas Seitz, US Republican congressman Loie Gohmert and Missouri state governor Mike Parson, all ended facing the COVID-19 brunt after contracting the virus as a result of their antics.
Even more stunning is the case of ex-presidential candidate Herman Cain, who resolutely refused to wear a mask during the pandemic and who ended up paying the ultimate price, when he died at the end of July after contracting the virus. These and so many other high-profile cases should dispel the misconceived perceptions so rampant in the community, spread by groups on Facebook such as ‘Unmasking America’ and similar groups in Malta, which boasted a membership running into the thousands and which have luckily been unplugged by the social media platform.
Wish for 2021: a greater investment in the teaching of science (not just within schools but also within public campaigns) to counter the rise of populist, pseudoscientific theories which risk undermining all the advances in medical research achieved so far. Rational science-based policymaking is the only viable way forward rather than irrational scaremongering campaigns.
Rational science-based policy making is the only viable way forward and not irrational scaremongering campaigns- Alan Deidun
Environmental activism – President George Vella has breathed a new lease of life into the office he occupies by making occasional forays in public life which suggest that he is seeking a broader meaning for the same office. I was once again heartened by his Republic Day speech this year, which invariably touched upon environmental matters (on similar lines to the 2019 speech) in his characteristically uncompromising style (“I am afraid that we are too close to losing the balance between economic development and environmental despoilment”).
His activism has prompted others to follow in his steps, including President Emeritus Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, who has stuck her neck out in decrying plans by Infrastructure Malta for a flyover at the Qormi/Mrieħel junction. Her feelings were similarly echoed by former prime minister Alfred Sant, no stranger to speaking his mind, even when it means going against the flow (the party in government, in this case).
Such a relative departure from protocol (presidents are normally not expected to rock the boat that much, while members of a political party are expected to invariably toe the party line) should serve to instil a greater dose of environmental activism within the younger generations who, on too many an occasion, appear comatose and disenchanted from anything related to such a subject matter.
This country needs a credible pro-environmental movement, which does not have any partisan aspirations and which influences the mainstream agenda of this country, especially when facing juggernauts like Infrastructure Malta and the pro-construction lobby. Moviment Graffiti has also been instrumental in sowing the seeds, over the years, of such activism, which needs to make a quantum leap and gain credibility over the years to come.
Wish for 2021: a greater participation of this country’s younger generations within the national environmental debate and a greater respect for frequently overlooked sectors of society (farmers, local residents) by those entities (private or public) proposing large-footprint projects.
For instance, the initiation, by Infrastructure Malta, of a meaningful public consultation at the very inception of a new project proposal, rather than the dispatch of a simple notification to affected farmers, would go a long way to introducing a modicum of transparency in the whole process.