The Times reports a PQ about emissions by vehicles. 12,529 reports were made to a dedicated number and of these only 21 failed the emissions test. Someone, somewhere, is doing something wrong. Only this week cities in Europe suffered huge hikes in pollution levels due to the anomalous weather (cold at night, warm during the day) conditions. Paris was forced to reintroduce alternate number plate circulation in order to reduce the overall amount of emissions that had reached record levels. Photos such as the one below of the Tour Eiffel enveloped in a huge cloud of pollution went viral all over the net.
A couple of days ago a report on one of the Maltese online papers mentioned that a new project in Mosta would not require too many impact studies but that a study was being drawn up as to the impact of such a project on the air. This led me to wonder why Malta gets to treat its towns and villages as though they each lay miles apart with a huge desert in between when the truth is that our tiny, densely populated, island is just one huge agglomeration. It’s not just that, last I heard there were more vehicles than persons on the island which puts the number of vehicles conservatively above the 350,000 mark. So why should only a proposed new shopping village in Mosta provoke the question of impact on the air? Where are we assuming that all the other cars will be when they are not being used for shopping in Mosta?
Luxembourg too had registered a hike in pollution levels though not at such an alarming rate as Paris. One of the reasons given for Luxembourg’s being spared the excesses is the fact that the vehicle population in Luxembourg is much more up to standard where emission levels are concerned. This is not surprising, given the high standard of living here you rarely see a car struggling to chug along while emitting all sorts of fumes. Let this not be an apologia for gas-guzzlers – no matter how up to scratch their technology is. The quicker we shift to cleaner sources of energy the better.
But that was not my point here. My point was mainly about that PQ and the fact that the figure of 21 vehicles failing the emissions test strikes me as very very wrong. As our government embarks on a project to transform the Salini coast road into a multi-lane race track you get the distinct feeling that insofar as transportation methods and environmental issues are concerned most of the planning is done by a troop of chimpanzees who have had most of their brains amputated for good measure.
Happy Saint Joseph’s Day!
