The government has finally listened and has embarked on a campaign aimed at raising awareness on better and more efficient use of energy.

The Malta Independent has been calling for such a campaign ever since the water and electricity surcharge started being imposed some years back, when the price of oil in the international market began climbing up.

This newspaper continued to insist that such a campaign was needed because people had to learn to reduce energy or use it more wisely. This became even more necessary when the price of oil reached record highs last summer, and this was followed up by a revision of the water and electricity rates in October.

Each time The Malta Independent commented editorially on the issue – and we have done so several times considering that the new tariffs have created a lot of controversy – we remarked that the government should have embarked on such a campaign at the same time that it announced the introduction of the surcharge in October 2005 or, once that chance was missed, when the new tariffs were being launched last October.

Yet, the government did not think this was necessary at the time, although privately government officials admitted that it should have been done. It is only now that it has finally come to realise that it is extremely important that people understand that there are many measures they could take to reduce their energy consumption – and while this has its own environmental value, it would mean less costs for them too. They would be receiving less expensive bills to pay, and this would cut down on the many complaints that we keep on hearing about the hefty increases.

Yesterday week, the government finally launched the campaign, proposing simple methods to improve energy efficiency.

And the government did the right thing in launching the campaign in the presence of schoolchildren, because it is through them that the change in mentality that is being advocated will have to start.

Resources and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino and Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said spoke at length on the need to change our way of thinking so that we consume less energy.

Dr Said – whose volume of work seems endless and yet each and every job is carried out with the same enthusiasm and dedication as if it was his only task – explained that one’s lifestyle does not necessarily have to be changed, or that one should deprive oneself of energy-consuming activities. But by for example switching off one’s TV set and not leave it on stand-by one would be contributing to saving energy – better still, one would not be wasting energy unnecessarily.

There are, of course, other ways through which the consumption of energy could be reduced. All this will be highlighted in the audio-visual and visual material that will be running in the media as well as the booklets that will be sent to each household.

What is important is that the people get the message. Households receive hundreds of leaflets each year, most of which is thrown away without being looked at because there is no interest (How about that for environmental damage?).

But, in this case, people should give attention to what is written on the energy saving leaflets, because they will learn much more what to do and what not to do in order to save energy. These leaflets should also be kept for future reference, and should not be discarded like most of the other stuff that is received.

It does not take much to save energy. If each and every one of us had to dispose of a tissue not in the appropriate way, we would have 400,000 tissues flying around in the wind. Imagine the same thing with TV sets and a 101 other ways of how energy can be saved.