Republic of malta peak oil forum

smiffy · Post by **smiffy** » 16 Dec 2005, 13:27

THis forum is for Maltese people who are intretsed in the Subject of peak oil and peak gas.

Feel free to post anything you like regarding this important subject in either English or maltese.

smiffy

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 17 Dec 2005, 12:20

Is it just me or is there a link missing?

thorgal · Post by **thorgal** » 17 Dec 2005, 13:22

I think he means Maltese can post directly here, under this thread.

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 18 Dec 2005, 16:21

ah, silly me

smiffy · Post by **smiffy** » 20 Dec 2005, 10:22

Yes thats right, maltese can post directly here.

here in Malta we have a unique situation, we are 400,000 people on an island 22 miles long 18 miles wide. We are the only EU 25 country that relies entirley on fossil fuels (oil) for electiricity production.

We have very little arable land due to habitat destruction in the form of villas and apartments.

we have annual rainfall of around 40 to 50 days a year. We rely entirley on reverse osmosis for our water needs and reverse osmosis is terribly energy intensive.

We have a huge trade imbalance with the rest of the world due to our imports of almost everything, we do grow a sizable amount of Potatoes for export to holland and we grow a sizable amount of tomatos.

Tourism makes up 27% of our economy and quite possibly around another 20 % directly or indirectly earn a living from tourism.

We have a small It sector and a small financial services sector. A small ship repair maritime industry and thats about it.

We have another problem with illegal immigration, last year we saw over a thousand new illegal migrants who managed to illegally invade Malta, as a percentage of our population that is huge equal to about 2 million per year if we were the UK.

We also have huge debts as a nation, our national debt stands at around 5 billion dollars and we have a huge annual borowing requirment.

can we feed 400,000 people in a post carbon world?
will there be enough fresh water for drinking and farming in a post carbon world?

Is government strong enough to face the challenges? I doupt it.

We also have an education defecit, we have about 80,000 functionally eliterate people, will we all start killing each other for a loaf of bread?

Probably

ciao

thorgal · Post by **thorgal** » 20 Dec 2005, 18:08

if conditions deteriorate too much in Malta, many will try to navigate to the continental coats and try their fortune in the continent

the few remaining might then get more chance to survive