Photo with Leon, star. But pollution is 'Made in Albania', it is even your fault

Alfred Lela

The Prime Minister is right when he says that he does not insult his political opponents in English. Albanian is enough for swearing, and in this language so many swear words and lies are exchanged, that you do not need the conveyor belt of any foreign language.

The head of government should be reminded that the statements he makes to foreign audiences, such as those at the Glasgow climate summit, also come in Albanian, but even if they did not, they would be understood in English, at least by a part of the domestic audience.

What Mr. Rama in that meeting of the highest levels, applies to that foreign audience, globalist, capitalist, and decision-making, but echoes here as well. When you hear the Prime Minister of your country ask for help in grants to reduce pollution, which is caused by developed countries, and pay them developing ones, you can not help but smile.

With a simple sequence of facts, you realize that we are not victims of chain pollution, but of a different kind, which is self-inflicted. Our country does not have large global chain factories, production, or processing of minerals and chemicals. In Albania, no major car manufacturing company has yet stayed. It can be said with certainty that big brands, as in no other country in Europe or the region, are absent, uninterested, or discouraged by access to our market.

So we are not part of global industries. We are consumers, not manufacturers. This means we can not complain that we are directly affected by global output. Of course, under the butterfly effect the case of alarming pollution in Greece, Italy, or even further away, would affect us, but that is another argument.

Just because we are not affected by an aspect of pollution does not mean that Albania is a clean country. Tirana, at least, is a metropolis where you do not need to measure pollution because it is physically present, it can be seen, so to speak, with the naked eye. Look at the streets, the cars, the balcony tents, the shoes, and so on, to see what goes into the lungs of the Albanians of the capital. This pollution comes mainly from the construction industry, from sewing and street sewing, constructions without criteria and without season, and so on.

Carbon dioxide emissions are a secondary pollutant and come mainly from cars in circulation. Which pollute for two factors: they are old products (not a few of them are on the road even though they do not meet the criteria of technical control) and the poor quality of oil (more precisely the abuse of hydrocarbons by trading companies).

It must be said that all these elements are directly in the hands of Rama's government, and not those of foreign countries, nor the large global capital which he sought help from Glasgow. Both the control of oil, the testing of vehicles and the construction criteria are exclusively the responsibility of the government. Under its auspices are also Kurumi of Elbasan or cement factories in Fushë-Krujë which, according to reports from experts in the sector and residents of the area, have filters installed in the chimneys, but activate them only in cases of control. The reason: saving energy and consequently costs.

Efficient regulation and control of these parameters are not in the hands of the Global Environmental Pollution Agency, nor Paris, London, or Washington, but the government agencies that Mr. Rama leads.

When you see the Albanian Prime Minister on the horse of the environmentalist, the time comes to mind when he had some dreams and promises, most of which are still empty containers that have been ringing since his past as head of the opposition. Once, whenever he was given the opportunity, Rama addressed Berisha with the words: “What you did to Kruja, the Turks did not do either.” Every time you raise your head from the hills below the city, you will notice the same grotesque and wild bites of greenery from cement factories The same gray cloud hovering over those hills, as if it were the silhouette of the fifth siege of Kruja.

If you want to talk about pollution, remember another fresh episode from Kruja: the poisoning of the city's drinking water that took hundreds of Krutans to the hospital.

For that picture with Leo di Caprion we are all jealous (imagine if it was Scarlett Johannson), but that insults our intelligence in foreign languages, not so much.

Because, we know Albania by heart and we know where, how, how much pollution comes from it.