EcoWorldly

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With high oil prices, dwindling fuel supplies and a growing pressure to reduce global warming, governments are looking for brilliant ideas. Why don’t consider the sea? Waves are a powerful source of energy and in the last years a growing attention is producing a wide range of prototypes. Machines of various shapes and sizes are being tested in last years to see how they could capture waves and tides to create “marine” energy.

A new experiment comes from Michele Grassi, researcher at the department of math at the University of Pisa, in the centre of Italy, who built a prototype of a wave-trapping machine.

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Look for your swimsuit!

Sunday 6th of July Italy will participate for the third time to the “Big Jump“, a campaign by European Rivers Network (ERN) to inspire a reconciliation of people with their rivers.

The Italian NGO “Legambiente” has organized many events to celebrate this national meeting on the Po River, the country’s longest river (405 miles long). The Po’s waters flow through the Val Padana, the plain that stretches across northern Italy from the French border on the west to the Adriatic Sea on the east. Many Italians live in this fertile expanse, some of the most heavily cultivated land in Europe: here is located the city of Turin, headquarters of Fiat, the automotive conglomerate, and some of the country’s most beautiful and historic towns.

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I know, in order to improve the quality of our lives the first step to do is to respect our cities, our neighbourhood and people around us. While we run up and down to full every empty space of our days, the Italian cultural heritage takes a rest to tell us about ancient families and artists, old palaces and frescos. Rome, Florence, Venice and other historical cities that today have to face many social challenges: urban blight, social degradation and abandoning of public spaces. Italy spends hundreds of thousands of Euros every year cleaning up historical monuments that have been defaced by writing or graffiti art.

To face urban blight and raise a common sense of respect Florence launches today a new idea: ten black angels passing through the city centre in order to guarantee decorum and educate people. Starting tomorrow, the group will go around the city talking with citizens and tourists, seeing that they respect the cultural heritage and don’t leave their garbage everywhere. The ten angels are citizens from Senegal living in Florence for a long time; they have been chosen and trained for this project by the consulate of Senegal and the council administration of Florence.

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The FAO’ Food Security Summit, recently held in Rome, gathered together the international community to discuss about the state of poverty around the world. In 1996 the Millennium Goal aimed to cut by half the number of hungry people by 2015, then estimated at 800 million; today the goal is not only far from the original prediction but other 50 million are suffering. We need more food, we have to increase the production and Europe is starting to look at GMO cultivations to face this global crisis.

A worrying alarm arrives now from the Italian Farmers Association (CIA): mass amounts of food is sitting and rotting in their fields because sale prices don’t cover all of the costs of production. The result is a 1.5 million of tons wasted every year and 4 billion of Euro frittered away. All this with rising costs for Italian consumers and farmers.

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With escalating oil and gas costs and growing French electricity imports, Italy is changing is stance on nuclear power. The re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised on his campaign to recommit the country to nuclear power and an heated debate is now popping up from north to south.

The general impression is there is still strong local opposition for three main reasons: high construction costs, projected build times of one to two decades and no identifiable Italian community willing to see a nuclear reactor built in their neighborhood. Italy has also failed to resolve the issue of what to do with nuclear waste. A proposed dump in Basilicata region was shelved in 2003 after thousands of demonstrators staged road blocks, marches and hunger strikes.

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Italy’s failure to apply EU directives is not only related to the garbage emergency in Naples. A recent article by Fulcro Pratesi, President of the environmental group Wwf Italy, makes a plea to save one of the most enchanting Italian cities from degradation. Summer is coming and big cruise liners are devastating the Venice lagoon creating a health hazard for residents.

Tourism has been part of the life of Venice for centuries; however, in the last years, the city has faced grave problems due to the tremendous volume of tourists each year. Residents say that whereas the centre of Venice was once full of shops selling ‘real things’ but now most shops sell souvenirs such as Merano glass and carnival masks.

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From a recent survey Italy turns out to be the first consumer of cell phones in Europe, with an average of 1.22 per head. Italians change them like dresses and the result is a huge amount of old cells in their houses. This passion for cell phone communication is all too audible on crosswalks, motorbikes, restaurants, theatres… Italians just have an unquenchable desire to talk and you can see people shouting into cell phones and not looking where they are going..

What about the waste management of these “prosthesis” of our hands??

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Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Coming from a medieval city in the heart of Tuscany, I’ve never felt the necessity to drive my car every day preferring to use my legs walking or cycling. Despite that I’m not a fan of bicycling but there is a region, in the north of Italy, where inhabitants are addicted: Emilia Romagna. This place can truly claim to be a paradise for cyclists, and many Italians declare that it offers the best ‘mixed’ routes in the whole Europe. It was really surprising for me to discover how important is bicycling in its main cities, Ferrara and Reggio Emilia.

But what visibly marks a city out as a cycling city?

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Part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Bicycling as a sport, whether it is for participants or spectators, has always held a special place in the hearts of Italians. Professional bike races, including Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France are followed passionately by the Italian people. This mass interest in cycling as sport helps to make Italians among the world’s most knowledgeable consumers of bicycles. Everything you have ever heard about bicycling in Italy is true. The weather, roads and cities are all perfectly suited for bike touring. Each of bicycling and walking itineraries throughout Italy is carefully crafted to blend the best that our country has to offer by taking the active traveler off the beaten track.

A growing number of Italian citizens look today at alternative mobility as the solution to a stressful way of life.

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“Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit,” UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon Ban said in a statement to mark the celebration of World Environment Day today. “Kick the Habit” (the ‘carbon’ habit) is the international slogan for the event that promotes a movement towards a low carbon economy. World Environment Day, conceived in 1972, is the United Nations’ principal day to mark global green issues and aims to give a human face to environmental problems and solutions.

Not only humans but also art works seem to participate at this global fight against pollution and carbon consumption. It was early this morning in Rome when joggers and dog walkers alerted the police because around 150 statues across the city were wearing anti-pollution masks over their mouths!

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