Here follows a list of the great inventions and discoveries, in approximate chronological order, that in the course of history have made the world the utterly inimitable place it is:
8,000 BC – Unidentified cave-man invents “The Wheel”: a small, round contraption which greatly increases productivity, and also paves the way for the independent development, several millennia later, of a popular game called “Roulette”. Sadly, not much is known about this progenitor of all inventors... save that he was tragically run over in a hit-and-run accident around 7,988 BC.
3,500 BC – A new and utterly unique code of communication, called “Writing”, is invented by the Sumerians. A hugely important stage in the cultural evolution of homo sapiens, without which people like myself would be out of a job today.
1492 – Christopher Columbus accidentally stumbles upon “The Americas” while looking for a new trade route to “the Indies.” (Curiously enough, a certain George W. Bush would repeat the mistake more than 500 years later... when he “accidentally” invaded Iraq, as part of a war on a Saudi-based terrorist network called “Al Qaeda.”)
1879 – Thomas Edison invents “The Light Bulb”: a red-letter day for cartoonists worldwide, who were suddenly able to create an instant visual correlative for “brainwave” by simply drawing Edison’s invention into a small cloud above someone’s head. An enlightening moment for mankind...
1980 – Sir Clive Sinclair invents the ZX81. Ok, it only had 8K of RAM and was made from old egg cartons and the exo skeleton of a discarded toaster... but (unlike its predecessor, the 1K ZX80) it had a keyboard, could be programmed in BASIC, and as such introduced the notion of “personal computers” as things which could be found in the home... thus changing our lives forever.
And finally,
2004 – Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi announces that he has just discovered this exciting new concept called “The Environment”: basically, a glorified excuse to indiscriminately raise taxes on pretty much everything, thereby greatly increasing government revenue at a time when the country is flat broke.
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Naturally, it is this last discovery that has truly changed the face of life on Earth as we know it today. For let’s face it: both the wheel and America are overrated as far as discoveries are concerned... and what good are light bulbs and personal computers if you can’t afford the electricity required to run them in the first place?
But for Dr Gonzi to finally discover that there is such a thing called “The Environment” at such a crucial stage of our development. - i.e., years after most of it was duly wrecked by Gonzi’s own government, and at roughly the same time as it dawns on the entire population that our finances are not exactly what you would call “fis-sod” – well, that can only be described as the stuff upon which Great Irony is built.
Meanwhile, for those interested in the finer details of history, the actual moment of discovery itself can be downloaded in Audio Mp3 format from the Parliament website (I believe the exact URL is: http://www.loadoftripe.com)
It occurred roughly half-way through the Prime Minister’s response to the Leader of the Opposition’s reaction to the Minister of Finance’s... sorry, the Prime Minister’s own budget speech, and the (approximate) words were:
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“Collecting garbage? Huh! Easy-peasy-Gappunizi! It’s not collecting garbage that’s the problem. Oh, no. It’s what you do with all the garbage after you’ve collected it... that is the really difficult part!”
***
Well, wakey, wakey, Dr Gonzi. Would you like milk and sugar with your coffee? Or would you prefer to just lay your head back on the pillow, and carry on snoring blissfully through the next dozen or so environmental calamities to hit the island of which you are Prime Minister?
For you see, that little observation you made in Parliament on 3 December, 2004 is precisely what environmentalists, somnambulists and other visionary lunatics have been trying to tell you and your predecessors, ad nauseum and in varying tones of anger and despair, for the past 20 years at least.
Not, mind you, that you really needed an environmentalist to point it out. After all, any 10-year-old child of reasonable intelligence would be able to work it out on his own. If you carry on dumping unsorted garbage in the same place, year in, year out, the only thing you will succeed in creating is a giant, toxic aberration of smouldering trash... which, incidentally, will continue to leach hazardous material into the surrounding soil and sea for decades to come, even after the so-called “landfill” is no longer in use.
Now, if you’re also ingenious enough to achieve all this upon a tract of/and within full sight (and smell) of numerous residential areas, not to mention at least one major tourist haven, and a stretch of farmland on which various fruits and vegetables are grown... well, you’ll have really created an environmental Frankentein’s monster, now wouldn’t you?
***
But still... I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies, which after all do not come very often in Maltese politics. At least one Prime Minister seems to have finally woken up to the fact that Malta’s environment has been shockingly neglected and abused by succeeding administrations (including his own) over the past 40 years. And that in itself is no small thing. Neither, for that matter, is the same Prime Mininster’s proposed solution to all this, which is... why, easy-peasy-Gappunizi. Get the consumer (i.e., you, me and everybody else) to pay for it all. End of story.
But here, in this fictitious historical re-enactment (freely borrowed from the ground-breaking documentary “Great Cabinet Meetings of Our Time”) is how Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, flanked by his usual retinue of ministers, spin doctors and grovelling lap-dogs, hit upon the Final Solution to all our environmental problems in one fell swoop:
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Scene: A room in Castille Palace. Enter Lawrence Gonzi, with Ministers.
Lawrence: “Right; I’ve really put my foot in it now, haven’t I?”
Sounds of interrogative surprise from the Cabinet.
Lawrence: “Well, I’ve gone and made ‘The Environment’ – whatever that’s supposed to be – an integral part of my leadership campaign strategy. And you know what this means, don’t you? It means I’m going to have to put my money where my mouth is, and actually take some form of action. You know... to boldly do what no Maltese politician has boldly done before, and try to clean up at least part of the enormous mess we’ve all made...”
Murmurs of sympathy and the occasional stifled yawn.
Lawrence: “Which brings me to the purpose of today’s meeting. Any ideas, anyone...?”
Dead silence.
Lawrence: “What about you, George? after all, you are my Environment Minister...”
George: “Mmm... mmm... mmm... mmm...”
Lawrence: “How many times do I have to tell you not to talk with your mouth full? I can’t make out a word you’re saying!”
George: (Gulp!) “What if we, er, do something really original for a change... like, put aside a couple of million squids, and clean the place up a little? Possibly do something about the hunting situation, too. After all, most local surveys indicate that at least 65 per cent oppose the Spring shooting derogation, and would like to see more controls. While we’re at it, we could even live up to the promise we made in 2001, and shut down the St Luke’s Hospital incinerator... Or how about getting rid of those giant, diesel guzzling buses that we bought from China, and replace them with zero-emission electric vehicles instead? At a stretch, we could even start looking into some alternative energy sources, or even a few of the latest technologies when it comes to waste management...”
Pause.
Lawrence: “Yes, yes... but all that would involve work. I meant something we can actually do ourselves... you know, something that would give the impression that we’re taking action, but which would instead be simply a means of capitalising on a problem of our own making, so that we can continue squeezing every last penny out of the taxpayer to pay for that blasted hospital we foolishly decided to build in 1994...”
Sighs of commiseration as the PM alludes to the hateful name of Mater Dei... the Mother of all our Debt.
Lawrence: “And besides, we can’t do half the things you mentioned anyway. At least, not without instantly losing credibility. Take hunting, for instance. How on earth can I introduce more regulation, when I myself signed a contract with the hunters way back in 1998, promising them that law will never change... and if it did, it would only be to their direct benefit? Or when the Commissioner formerly known as Joe had promised them on live TV that ‘trapping will continue after 2007’...?
Loud grunts of assent
Lawrence: “No, what we need is a plan. Something which sounds environmental enough to keep people happy, but which will enable us to continue with our business as usual, and at the same keep all those armchair critics from unfairly demanding that we actually do our job for our change. And above all, something that would generate revenue...”
***
And then, as sure as night follows day, and carcades follow elections, Thomas Edison’s light bulb flickers briefly in a small cloud above our venerable PM’s head.
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Lawrence: “Eureka! I’ve got it...! We’ll introduce... a new tax!”
Loud, raucous cheering from the Cabinet. Finally their Prime Minister is talking a language they can all understand.
Lawrence: “... and we’ll call it ‘Eco-contribution’... because if you start something with the word ‘Eco’, then people will automatically assume it has something to do with the environment... and if you call something a ‘contribution’, then it doesn’t sound like a tax...”
“Brilliant!”, “Ingenious!”, “Why didn’t we think of that ourselves?” Etc.
Lawrence: “Of course, anyone who really understands environmental matters will see through the ploy immediately...”
“Boo!”, “Hiss!”, “Exterminate the brutes!”, Etc.
Lawrence: “And they may even try and point out the obvious (i.e., that by simply raising the price of, say, black plastic garbage bags by a staggering 400 per cent, we wouldn’t have given the consumer any choice but to pay more for the same environmentally unfriendly product... with the result that, while we would definitely rake in more money, the actual problem of plastic in landfills would remain unsolved...)”
“Who cares? Just do it,” Etc.
Lawrence: “But then, we can always use our tried and tested propaganda machine to spread filthy lies about all local environmentalist groups, and hey presto! Nobody will take them seriously when they claim we’re ripping off the entire country!”
Ecstatic applause, in which at least one junior cabinet member faints with emotion.
Lawrence: “At last we will be revealed to the Laburisti! At last we will be revenged!”
Exeunt, amid loud peals of Satanic laughter...
The End
Right. I’m off to buy myself a gewlaq while the shops are still open. But before signing off there is a small point I’d like to make about last week’s column.
It has been brought to my attention that my gripe about clairvoyants was a little out of order. Well, what can I say? The criticism is justified. Looking back I realise that, yes, my line of reasoning did go a little askew after the first few paragraphs. Most likely because I was angry... and there was much to be angry about last week. For one thing, the powerlessness of entire populations in the face of cataclysm; for another, the uncomfortable notion that the human race is not really as “on top of things” as it so often likes to think.
As tends to be the case, however, the great unreachable object of my anger (Mother Nature, Planet Earth, God... call it what you will) perforce had to make way for targets which are considerably smaller, and consequently well within my reach.
Anyhow: I can’t proffer apologies to genuine clairvoyants out there, because I honestly don’t believe that any exist. And besides, I still retain that natural calamities such as these tend to permanently shatter any claims to supernatural foreknowledge of any kind.
But then, to make them all guilty of the disaster – as though failure to predict the tsunami somehow caused the thing to happen – was unreasonable and unfair.