October Weather

October's here, finally and it's still as hot as it is here in Muscat. With a slight change of weather coming down just a tad bit on humidity.

This has been going on for the past 3 years; people have been blaming the carbon gases that have had the greenhouse effect on our only Earth. And it's not like anyone in Oman is doing anything about it.

Sure, there's been plenty of talk about our environment and ways to preserve it, prevent it from detoriating but that's all that's happened. I even remember a couple of years ago there were several projects that were pledged by outside business through Muscat Muncipality and the government of Oman to open up a recycling centre in Oman to encourage Omanis to re-use products that could be like plastic bags, cardboard boxes and glass bottles. That fell through the floor, though. Why? Because the business people behind the proposed idea looked into the development plan and saw that there was no profit to be gained from such a project.

Another example that was a waste of time was when the Ministry of Environment - back then - practically chased down all the petrol-chemical companies in Oman to push them to start production of unleaded fuel and an agreement was arranged to have it start at some point in time in the last few years but to no avail. Unless the whole thing was wrapped up under the tags that most Omanis know the petrol here like Super and Normal.

And I am sorry to say, even though with the recent establishment of an NGO such as the Environmental Society Oman, I see no change in the environmental sector of the Sultanate. Like for instance, there is no push from the organization to resolve the issue to decrease the amount/number of vehicles on the roads with the increasing bottlenecking traffic that creates frustration and headache. There is a lack of plantation strategies in comparison to increasing road works over Oman with the recent re-arrangement of the cities blocks residentially and commercially. What is the point of having just to educate people in a certain field if that education isn't implemented is my question to members and the founders of the ESO.

Furthermore, where is the government from their eco-tourism strategy they boast so much about? Even with the recent development in today's news of building an aqua-cultural centre in Bandar Rowdha, it all seems so pointless if the environment remains effected in so many ways that the most simple ways to avoid such an incoming meteoric environmental disaster are just ill-used and ill-implemented by all lines of the Omani society; locals and expats alike.

I'm not saying nothing is being done by anyone here in Oman. What I am stressing though is the fact that not enough efforts are being implemented to alter the stressful environmental situation in the Sultanate of Oman.