Broadcast Thursday 11th 1.10pm on Radio Gibraltar

First off, and as I speak, there are a couple of campaigners collecting signatures in Main Street during this lunchtime – if you are near the Piazza and would like to sign the petition against sewage at sea, please come along and add your name to this important petition. Some have asked what is the purpose of this petition?, to whom is it addressed?, how will this be used etc.? Well, campaigners feel that the voice of the citizen has to be heard alongside action that has to be taken by authorities. Copies of this petition will be sent to whoever is taken such action against this atrocious situation at an official level.

For those who don’t yet know it’s regarding the new and very recent contamination of raw sewage coming from a new La Linea storm drain outlet- resulting in the closure of Western Beach – one of our few popular beaches we can ill afford to lose!!

So please, give a few minutes of your time and come along to the Piazza as from 1.00pm today or if this is not possible, make sure you visit the online petition at: ipetitions.com under Environment section.

An update to our Clean Up campaign is that during the midterm break a group of enthusiastic youngsters from the Dolphin Youth Club and Duke of Edinburgh, carried out a morning clean up in a beautiful green area near an important tourist site in the Upper Rock. Lots of metal and plastics were removed as well as large piping which required team work and the youngsters proved their mettle by carrying this out with minimal fuss and did a grand job. The ESG was very happy to help provide equipment and advice as well as onsite support and also helped organise the removal of rubbish once the clean up was completed. Thanks to Master Services for their help in this regard and to the Dolphin Youth Club for organising this exercise which was also a fundraising project by the club for GBC Open Day- lots of positives to be taken from this day for local charities and for the environment!!

Coming to other matters just yesterday saw a Climate Change Conference held in a far off place called Kiribati in the Pacific – more appropriately located this time to help explain the urgency for the need for action by all major world players to take decisions to help reduce global climate change and the very real threat of rising sea levels. A broad agreement called the Ambo Declaration was signed by both vulnerable nations and major players, even China this time, but sadly the UK and USA chose to remain observers- it’s not yet clear why this happened but clearly its not great news!
When are we humans going to get our act together? While all this globe conferencing is going on the focus clearly remains on a business as usual approach to protect countries earnings and jobs ABOVE ALL ELSE- even though the global climate situation requires us to be collectively changing our ways to secure a comfortable and safe lifestyle for future generations everywhere – we seem incapable of taking such decisions today-

Indeed tonight’s Viewpoint will be looking at Alternative Energy Options for Gibraltar. Very timely you would think except that we are no closer to embracing such technologies today, than we were 10 years ago! and this, in spite of studies being undertaken and outline commitments written in and out of Govt draft policy to begin harnessing the wealth of renewable and free energy we have at our disposal.. Indeed all our energy is currently produced entirely from fossil fuels in aging and inappropriate installations which are illegal and highly impactful all round-
The Viewpoint debate will look at these issues and at what technology can do for Gibraltar- it would be great for the public to contribute to the programme which you can do by emailing viewpoint@gbc.gi or calling the number on the screen during the programme-

You may also be interested to know of an upcoming Energy Symposium organised by the “Gibraltar Group of Professional Engineers” taking place next week on the 18th November at the John Mack Hall from 6 to 8.30pm- the symposium will be looking at energy options for Gibraltar post the oil era in 40 years time!! This 40 year timing will no doubt be hotly debated tonight by the panel that will include: Xavier Pons, James Machin, Gavin Gafan and myself- Be sure to tune in at 9.30pm to GBC Television for the live programme also repeated on Saturday evening!

All for now!!