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GUEST POST: Once Upon A Time In A Very Hot Maltese Summer…

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In summer, Malta is beautiful and hot.

It is alive, gorgeous – and very, very hot. It is everything you want, but it’s absolutely, unquestionably, and uncompromisingly, baking hot.

During this season the ice flakes in the Mojito cocktails melt down quickly, electricity power cuts happen regularly, and tempers fire up instantaneously.

Beneath the relentlessness Maltese sun there are two states of mind, both of which are determined by the subject’s immediate surroundings. On one hand, there is the “normal” state of mind were people interact, act reasonably, and enjoy each other’s company. 

This sort of mode is mainly restricted to air-conditioned rooms, swimming pools and the beach.  A popular summer-related quote that comes to mind is: “The best memories are made in flip-flops…”.

On the other hand, there is the “beast-mode” were people get mad with each other (and themselves) in a way that defies human reason, logic, and frankly-speaking, common sense. 

With the exceptions mentioned above, this mode is the predominant one, and occurs pretty much everywhere.

Alas, it also the season were new swear words are mostly created. These words and phrases, some of which bizarrely “imaginative” in nature, will add up to the vast, nasty, and elaborate Maltese foul-language repertoire… 

Try reasoning with an angry driver at midday in August and you will be invariably subjected to all sorts of derogatory and fuming remarks. 

In the streets of Malta people can say very nasty things and get into fights with each other for the most frivolous of reasons.

Hopefully when the summer is over, the temperatures return to a normal range and the fiery tempers subside, the offender may even remark to the offended, something like “I’m sorry for the words I said when it was Summer…”

Undeniably this summer is different.

The tolerance-level of the people is being tested to limits rarely seen before. Indeed, it is proving to be a relentless ordeal to tolerate the daily soaring temperatures and correlated stress levels.  The heat index is ranging from ‘OMG’ to the blunt “I’m going to die…”

If you notice someone gazing down at his mobile phone before his face starts protruding a series of eerie distortions indicative of emotions such as anguish, repulsion, and disgust (the sort of which we collectively produce during the voting stage of the Eurovision…) there is a good chance that the online weather forecast for the week is being gauged.

It is undeniable that when one stares bleakly at his iPhone monitor, and the iPhone monitor stares back at him with the flashy notes reading “Feels like 41 degrees” – something must be wrong… Very wrong…

This very bad, very worrisome, and very hot anomaly can be flatly described in two words; it is called Climate Change. 

The experts seem to conclude that humankind is singlehandedly responsible for this environment crisis, and that this catastrophe (no other words to describe it…) is a code red for humanity. 

And they agree that very soon, the effects will be irreversible.

Still there are people around, some of which reside in the upper echelons of the political spectrum, who feel it is business as usual and just don’t care… Astonishingly, they are failing to truly grasp the catastrophic consequences that climate change will impose on future generations. 

In the past days, the colourful Maltese slang word “Ġaħan” was used, reused, and abused numerous times, and I guess I can quote it again here.

If anyone still denies the rapid, extreme, and immense repercussions that climate change is unleashing upon the world, I believe he is absolutely a Ġaħan.

A change in stance is overdue, the world must finally reckon with the elephant in the room and address it – not in a peripheral fashion and with trivial initiatives, but with a total overhaul of the system.

Lovin Malta is open to external contributions that are well written and thought-provoking. If you would like your commentary to be featured as a guest post, please write to [email protected], add Guest Post in the subject line and attach a profile photo for us to use near your byline. Contributions are subject to editing and do not necessarily represent Lovin Malta’s views.

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