It’s obvious that the Maltese public has been terribly short-changed by the Environment and Resources Authority, the watchdog created after the demise of what was the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. It’s a travesty of justice that ERA, an entity sustained by our taxes and our only public defender, has failed us miserably.

The way things happened during that infamous meeting, when the ERA chairman was absent (and not substituted) and his views not even read out, were meant to keep ERA’s mouth shut at such a crucial moment. It smells of a plot worthy of the greatest Hollywood blockbuster.

It’s clear developers are having a field day, backed to the hilt by the authorities, and any semblance of rational, forward-looking considerations are brushed aside.

It’s also abundantly obvious that both political parties (and, I might add, their acolytes) had, unfortunately, let us down in the past and even are doing so dangerously now as far as the environment goes. Developers are feeling they can get away with anything.

However, this is not the end of the story. There is people power. All Maltese have a voice. Malta belongs to all of us, not just to those who have the money to build monsters in the midst of our beloved Maltese landscape. We can’t let them get away with this one. Too much is at stake.

If these two hideous concrete Godzillas are given birth, others will follow. We all have to do our part, however small, to stop this madness, the results of which will remain with us even when politicians have changed.

Perhaps Alternattiva Demokratika could also lend a hand in this one as they have the best credentials where the environment is concerned.

We must not give up hope. We have to speak out; the people’s voices can’t be ignored. As they say, fortune favours the brave.