If the goals set to safeguard against climate change are to be met, action needs to be implemented on at least three fronts: key economic (and also social) sectors need to be dismantled; new sectors will need to be launched to replace them (in addition to the infrastructure they will need to build, such as new charging depots for electric cars); and people in general will have to agree to absorb new burdens and costs.

As difficult as the action will be on the first two fronts, it will be on the third front that the challenges will be the toughest. This can only be summed up from the point of making the least reference to such a problematic area.

Indeed, it is understandable that initially at least, the discontent that will give rise to it is likely to be greater than the discontent and fear generated by the effects of a rapidly warming climate. In democracies, this can lead to election losses. In authoritarian systems, it could soon boost opposition subject to strict controls.

Still how can it be feasible for billions of people to make drastic adjustments to their way of life without losing any of the prosperity they are accustomed to?

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MALTESE IN AUSTRALIA

A good number of good studies have been published on some areas of the history and aspects of Maltese life in Australia. What we don’t have yet and what we need however, is a comprehensive history of the community, covering its birth and expansion, then its further growth until it began to dissolve into the wider Australian reality.

Such a story would be of the greatest interest to many families in Malta and Australia, but not only. It can contribute to a better understanding of the Maltese heritage. However, for our part here, one cannot consider that there was a sustained commitment to Australian studies. Was this because the protagonists in the history of Maltese Australians came largely from the working classes?

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TAIWAN

The latest developments regarding Taiwan have been daunting. Some are predicting a coming war, with the usual sources putting all the blame on China.

The latter has recently expressed a lot of concern about Taiwan. On the one hand, she considered that the current Taiwanese government has stressed too much that the island is separated from China and will remain so. At the same time, a group of countries, some in Europe, appear to be giving higher diplomatic recognition to Taiwan – an approach that the Chinese see as an attack on one of their most cherished values, committed as they are to the concept. that Taiwan is still and will remain, as it always has been, an integral part of the Chinese homeland.

On the other hand, the Chinese themselves made inflammatory statements about Taiwan, gave fuel to the beliefs they were preparing to take over, and launched military exercises that continued to raise tensions.

Worst of all is that things have inevitably merged into a growing rivalry between the United States and China. It is still in anyone’s interest to allow any face-to-face confrontation on Taiwan to escalate in ways that increase the risks of war.