Hi, my name is Sofia Holkko and my plan is to write about environment and energy issues, but from a legal point of view. I’m usually a law-student and I hope to work with legal environmental issues someday. My specialty is EC law and there is much to be said about EC environmental law, and it certainly concerns all of us even if we don’t know it. In fact, almost all of Sweden’s environmental laws have some sort of EC background, and I’m sure that that might be true even for Italian environmental law. Certainly environmental problems are of such kind that they can’t be solved only in one country, while there are other countries continuing to pollute with the same velocity. The only solution is cooperation, and in some cases, even forced cooperation. We could argue that all countries are sovereign and that no one should be able to interfere with another country’s issues, but on the other hand some countries, and specifically the richer and more developed ones continue to pollute and destroy the environment all over the world, creating climate-change, poverty and environmental refugees on the opposite side of the earth. Sweden is a country known in the EU, for being quite strict on environmental policy issues. We have often implemented environmental law more strict than the EC environmental directives demand. How does Italy cope with international environmental issues? What do the Italians think about, for instance America and they’re lack of cooperation with the rest of the world on environmental issues? Sofia H.
In response to Sofia Hi, I'm a student of environmental sciences and during my studies I understood that environmental problems are very difficult to solve because economy, law, poverty, disease, environment are all connected and many people isn't informed about these problems. I often ask to high school students what is the greenhouse effect and the majority of them doesn't answer me right. I understand also that poor people that don't have the money to buy food and the smallest necessities don't care about the environment because it is seen as global and future problem, not as a real and current ones. In particular in Italy we don't have much respect of the environment; generally we waste water,energy, resource, we recicle only a little and we leave that factories pollute without demand the respect of the environment, of our health,of our future! Our laws often aren't more strict than the EC directive and we have to pay sanctions; above all in this period with the economic crisis, our government is asking to EC not to respect the environment threshold to allow Italy to overcome the crisis. I agree with you about the fact that the world probably needs a forced cooperation and that, if all understand that we must protect our planet and act consequently, we can solve the problem. Personally I feel ashamed about the Italian situation, I condamn this behaviour and I hope to contribute to inform people about the problem and to work to try to solve it.
About the energy issues what kind of energy do you use in Sweden?Do you use renewable energy?
In response to Sofia: Hi, I’m Linda from Pisa. Our country lacks concrete policy to safeguard the environment, we need to revise Italian environmental legislation because our laws are often inadequate or even badly formulate, so more and more often people find a way to get around them. In Italy we have to work hard to increase awareness of environmental issues. Just to give an example of constructive behaviour … European speleologists worked together for cave protection in Europe, because there is no existing legislation about this issue. They wrote a declaration on “Protection of caves as cultural, natural and environmental heritage” published internally to the European Parlament. This is not a law yet, we need almost 400 signatures from deputies to transform it in a report and then in a law and we have less than 60 by now. Maybe we’ll not achieve this aim this time, but I think that working together for a common purpose, thinking as a “community" all over the Europe, is a good example of cooperation.
In response to Sophia Hi sophia! It's Francesca and Claudia here. We think that this topic is interesting, because the energy issue is very important for our future. Unfortunately, Italy has a lot of work to do to respect the EU legilsation in order to use the renewable energies as much as possible. Although Italy joined many international treaties on environment protection, its problem related to the collection of items for recycling and to pollution shows the lack of attention for the environment and energy issues. The Naples happenings are an example of the difficulty that the Italian government is facing. We think that it's necessary that everyone contributes to the proper use of energy: everyone should develop a higher sense of respect for the environment, because it is the first step to develop effective and incisive environmental policies. Francesca and Claudia
Hello my name is Jörgen and I intend to discuss Ethanol. Please take a look at the short presentation below and let me know what you think.
Ethanol: the environmental friendly fuel that threatens the environment.
Introduction: “Ethanol is a serious threat to the environment”, “thumbs-down for ethanol”, “This is why ethanol is the salvation” these headlines are just a few examples out of many that faces the public. The last two headlines were published in the same paper within a week. Could it get more confusing? Will ethanol ever be a fuel that is suitable to use or are there perhaps already examples of this?
This essay will identify and value the different pros and cons about Ethanol as an environmental friendly fuel. It will focus on the main aspects. It will aim to give a clearer and less confusing view of the subject than the one presented in media. 63949 is the number of the scientific articles about Ethanol. The essay won’t be able to discuss all aspects of Ethanol, but it aims present a pragmatic relation to the different aspects of the new biofuel. This is not another scientific review of the subject. The main question will be: What are the pros and cons and what do they mean for the everyday user of ethanol today?
Disposition:
The essay will discuss:
- Food or fuel. What if food prices will be affected? - A monthly salary of 360 kronor. What about the working conditions? - 0,12 l Ethanol or 0,1 liter petroleum per kilometer. What if it isn’t effective? - The rainforest will be desolated? What about the environmental aspects.
These are the key questions for the discussion. There are, however, other aspects to ethanol as well, but they will not construct the core debate of the essay.
Since Italy is a member of the EU it's necessarily forced to conform to european environmental laws. But their reception in Italy is very difficult and many examples show it. Crotone, a town of southern Italy was built completely with material made of asbestos that is carcinogenic. This indiscriminate use of asbestos has caused the death of many people. Probably you have got wind of urban waste problem of Naples in Italy owing to an erroneous treatment of waste that causes pollution and contamination of Italian soil. Nowadays recent laws for environmental protection hold down the waste problem by identifying in solid urban waste a resource (improvement recycling methods by separate collection of rubbish and compost production). Instead industries and urban traffic emissions still represent an environmental emergency in Italy where a lot of goods are transported by road. Use of photovoltaic systems on civil buildings is a new way to exploit solar energy and to have good services without emission of substances prejudicial to our health! About 1 mq of solar panels can produce energy for different quarters of a town, for example !!This and other methods represent a good alternative and a solution to many environment problems.
Since Italy is a member of the EU it's necessarily forced to conform to european environmental laws. But their reception in Italy is very difficult and many examples show it. Crotone, a town of southern Italy was built completely with material made of asbestos that is carcinogenic. This indiscriminate use of asbestos has caused the death of many people. Probably you has got wind of urban waste problem of Naples in Italy owing to an erroneous treatment of waste that causes pollution and contamination of Italian soil. Nowadays recent laws for environmental protection hold down the waste problem identifying in solid urban waste a resource (improvement recycling methods by separate collection of rubbish and compost production). Instead industries and urban traffic emissions still represent an environmental emergency in Italy where a lot of goods are transported by road.Use of photovoltaic systems on civil buildings is a new way to exploit solar energy and to have good services without emission of substances prejudicial to our health! About 1 mq of solar panels can produce energy for different quarters of a town, for example !!This and other methods represent a good alternative and a solution of many environment problems.
I see Sofia has not replied yet and therefore I'll reply at your question about the energy issue in Sweden (I'm half-swedish). In Sweden the renewable energies are strongly used, expecially wind and water, but the main part of the energy requirements comes from five nuclear plants.
In response to Sofia The environment issue is strongly related with the economy and the politic choises of a government. Politic choises that sometimes appear to be completely foreign to the environmental issue. Recently the italian government asks to the EC to do not respect the environmental law due to the economic crisis. He says that our industries are not able to compete with China, for example, if they have to respect the environmental law. In my opinion we CAN'T compete with China on the same level. We have to invest in the quality of a product, and often quality means high technology, and high technology means research investments. And this way we will be able to sell our product not because they are cheaper, but because they are better.. And only this way we can respect the environmental law and earn money with our business.
For what concerns the alternatives energies and the research in the energy field nothing of really conclusive will be discovered or used prior to have sold the last drop of petrol.
One of the italian problem about the environment issue is that the normal italian has not a very deep environment culture. And this is reflected in the simple gestures of everyday and also in the general approach to the problem. Let me speak about an example: cigarettes. What we do when the cigarette is finish? Normally, if we are walking on the streets, we throw it in a slipshod manner. This is a stupid and extreme example, I'm absolutely conscious that we can't change the world by not throwing cigarettes, but can help to understand how is the medium italian.
In response to Lorenza&Silvia
quote:
"About 1 mq of solar panels can produce energy for different quarters of a town, for example !!"
Interesting choice of topic! I consider myself to be fairly interested in environmental issues, but I have to admit that I know next to nothing about ethanol. The only thing I do know is that the media is full of mixed messages and it's difficult for the average reader to make any sense of it and decide what foot to stand on in the debate. Hopefully your essay can be a tiny light in the dark! ;)
I think we can all agree that we need to become more aware of how we're treating and using the environment and what consequences this is going to have for our - and the entire planet's - future. I think that one of the reasons that many people aren't as involved in the issue as they perhaps could be is that it's all so overwhelming and confusing, and there are mixed messages everywhere, not just about ethanol, but about everything. Lots of people probably find it hard to take it all seriously, because some say the planet is in a state of emergency, and other people say it's not so bad and that it won't affect us too much as long as we stick to the environmental laws and regulations that we have now.
Anyway, I think you're on the right track with your essay. Good luck!
I read all your posts and I found that all together they cotribute to highlight different aspects that the environmental questions involves: the problem of pollution, natural resources, energy consumption and so on. I simply would like to make some considerations about the relationship between environmental probles and public information about it. As Sara rightly says, there's too much confusion in these questions. I find that tv news and newspapers aren't enough clear about the problem, they often exaggerate about some questions while they are superficial on others. Let's consider earth temperature increase: numbers are often given without scientific basis, taking in consideration the importance of having big titles in newspapers' pages. Or let's consider damages made by bad weather in Italy in the last weeks, we saw streets full of water, rivers going outside their borders, roofs that break and fall to the floor, with many human victims: well, this is not simply the effect of a so catastrophic weather conditions but mainly it's people's fault because of a bad land management, too many bilduings, old constructions not able to have people that live in, and this, apart some cases, is not highlighted. So there's the need of a more scientific journalism, able to explain the true situation in a simple way. People must change their consuption' behaviour and become more sensible to these problems that involve all us, at the same time knowledge and sensibility must be favoured by a good information that starts from school and arrives to people's everyday news.
obviously the sentence is wrong:1mq of solar panels is an insufficient quantity, sorry! But we want to explain that the advantage of this system is the possibility of producing big quantities of energy with little surfaces using a natural source. For example the installation of 8 mq of solar panels on the roof of your home can reduce your cost of electric energy for 25 years (www.ecoage.it). Unfortunately the present limit is that solar panels are still too expensive. If we can cover the 0,1% of world surface with solar panels in theory we can substitute all our power station with a clean and renewable source of energy (www.bispensiero.it).
In response to Sofia… Hi ,I’m Isabella I’ve found your post very interesting because it involves ecological sustainable development that is the most desiderable outcome, however unlikely that goal might seem today! Most people engaged in sustainability debates have shrugged the question off.As the human population grows the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceed what is available. Sixteen thousand species are threatened with extinction .Habitat loss is a major factor as many forests are cleared for agriculture .By the end of 2007 it is estimated that more people will live in cities than rural areas for the first time in history. This rapid growth can put pressure on environmental resources and infrastructure. Everyone that is more than 25 can easily recognise changes in cities’ profiles in the next years due to an out of control growth of new construction .This is definitely a field that need a better legislation able to curb abuses. We can’t still simply continue to grab space to forest for our needs but start talking about the burning question :it is possible and hoped a direct control on living standards by government ?I don’t think so ,the only way to contrast the increasing exploit of earth’s resources is to inform and directly make people involved in consequences of their actions, stimulating the link between people and territory. I live in a seaside town and really makes me angry to see the shore full of plastic objects and other trash ,in a landscape that remind suburbs of the poorest countries. Our Minister for the environment has promoted a law against the degrade that punish with jail everyone that leaves big objects in unauthorised rubbish dump but the problem persist mainly because there are huge areas where law is only see as a hindrance for personal interest. So the problem is not only legal but mainly moral and it concerns(personal) behaviours. We have some hard work as we try to revise our driving motivations! About Italy request to EC not to respect Kyoto’s Protocol I would notice that Kyoto only concerns CO2 emission letting countries that use nuclear power free to produce nuclear waste!!!
Now there is a new type of renewable energy, controllable nuclear fusion. Now in the USA a much bigger NIF(National Ignition Facility) based on a process known as inertially confined fusion is carried on. The extreme temperatures and high pressure as a necessary situation for inducing fusion will be achieved by using ultra powerful lasers. The fusion energy is concerned as the cleanest and most sustanable energy in the future due to its reaction principle. it is said that "This process will create temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures billions of times greater than Earth's atmospheric pressure, forcing two heavier forms of hydrogen, known as deuterium and tritium, to fuse together to form helium and release many times more energy than the laser energy required to spark the reaction."
"Deuterium is commonly found in seawater, whilst tritium can be prepared from lithium, a relatively common element found in soil."
In China, we also talk this energy as "a small sun", because there is the same fusion reaction in the sun.
Maybe someday in the future, we could posess the manmade "little sun" in the earth and there is no any energy crisis.
15 comments:
The environment and energy issues
Hi, my name is Sofia Holkko and my plan is to write about environment and energy issues, but from a legal point of view. I’m usually a law-student and I hope to work with legal environmental issues someday. My specialty is EC law and there is much to be said about EC environmental law, and it certainly concerns all of us even if we don’t know it. In fact, almost all of Sweden’s environmental laws have some sort of EC background, and I’m sure that that might be true even for Italian environmental law.
Certainly environmental problems are of such kind that they can’t be solved only in one country, while there are other countries continuing to pollute with the same velocity. The only solution is cooperation, and in some cases, even forced cooperation. We could argue that all countries are sovereign and that no one should be able to interfere with another country’s issues, but on the other hand some countries, and specifically the richer and more developed ones continue to pollute and destroy the environment all over the world, creating climate-change, poverty and environmental refugees on the opposite side of the earth.
Sweden is a country known in the EU, for being quite strict on environmental policy issues. We have often implemented environmental law more strict than the EC environmental directives demand. How does Italy cope with international environmental issues? What do the Italians think about, for instance America and they’re lack of cooperation with the rest of the world on environmental issues?
Sofia H.
In response to Sofia
Hi, I'm a student of environmental sciences and during my studies I understood that environmental problems are very difficult to solve because economy, law, poverty, disease, environment are all connected and many people isn't informed about these problems. I often ask to high school students what is the greenhouse effect and the majority of them doesn't answer me right. I understand also that poor people that don't have the money to buy food and the smallest necessities don't care about the environment because it is seen as global and future problem, not as a real and current ones.
In particular in Italy we don't have much respect of the environment; generally we waste water,energy, resource, we recicle only a little and we leave that factories pollute without demand the respect of the environment, of our health,of our future!
Our laws often aren't more strict than the EC directive and we have to pay sanctions; above all in this period with the economic crisis, our government is asking to EC not to respect the environment threshold to allow Italy to overcome the crisis.
I agree with you about the fact that the world probably needs a forced cooperation and that, if all understand that we must protect our planet and act consequently, we can solve the problem.
Personally I feel ashamed about the Italian situation, I condamn this behaviour and I hope to contribute to inform people about the problem and to work to try to solve it.
About the energy issues what kind of energy do you use in Sweden?Do you use renewable energy?
In response to Sofia:
Hi, I’m Linda from Pisa.
Our country lacks concrete policy to safeguard the environment, we need to revise Italian environmental legislation because our laws are often inadequate or even badly formulate, so more and more often people find a way to get around them.
In Italy we have to work hard to increase awareness of environmental issues.
Just to give an example of constructive behaviour … European speleologists worked together for cave protection in Europe, because there is no existing legislation about this issue. They wrote a declaration on “Protection of caves as cultural, natural and environmental heritage” published internally to the European Parlament. This is not a law yet, we need almost 400 signatures from deputies to transform it in a report and then in a law and we have less than 60 by now. Maybe we’ll not achieve this aim this time, but I think that working together for a common purpose, thinking as a “community" all over the Europe, is a good example of cooperation.
In response to Sophia
Hi sophia! It's Francesca and Claudia here. We think that this topic is interesting, because the energy issue is very important for our future. Unfortunately, Italy has a lot of work to do to respect the EU legilsation in order to use the renewable energies as much as possible. Although Italy joined many international treaties on environment protection, its problem related to the collection of items for recycling and to pollution shows the lack of attention for the environment and energy issues. The Naples happenings are an example of the difficulty that the Italian government is facing. We think that it's necessary that everyone contributes to the proper use of energy: everyone should develop a higher sense of respect for the environment, because it is the first step to develop effective and incisive environmental policies.
Francesca and Claudia
Ethanol, The friendly fuel?
Hello my name is Jörgen and I intend to discuss Ethanol. Please take a look at the short presentation below and let me know what you think.
Ethanol: the environmental friendly fuel that threatens the environment.
Introduction:
“Ethanol is a serious threat to the environment”, “thumbs-down for ethanol”, “This is why ethanol is the salvation” these headlines are just a few examples out of many that faces the public. The last two headlines were published in the same paper within a week. Could it get more confusing? Will ethanol ever be a fuel that is suitable to use or are there perhaps already examples of this?
This essay will identify and value the different pros and cons about Ethanol as an environmental friendly fuel. It will focus on the main aspects. It will aim to give a clearer and less confusing view of the subject than the one presented in media. 63949 is the number of the scientific articles about Ethanol. The essay won’t be able to discuss all aspects of Ethanol, but it aims present a pragmatic relation to the different aspects of the new biofuel. This is not another scientific review of the subject. The main question will be: What are the pros and cons and what do they mean for the everyday user of ethanol today?
Disposition:
The essay will discuss:
- Food or fuel. What if food prices will be affected?
- A monthly salary of 360 kronor. What about the working conditions?
- 0,12 l Ethanol or 0,1 liter petroleum per kilometer. What if it isn’t effective?
- The rainforest will be desolated? What about the environmental aspects.
These are the key questions for the discussion. There are, however, other aspects to ethanol as well, but they will not construct the core debate of the essay.
In response to Sofia
Hi Sofia!
Since Italy is a member of the EU it's necessarily forced to conform to european environmental laws.
But their reception in Italy is very difficult and many examples show it.
Crotone, a town of southern Italy was built completely with material made of asbestos that is carcinogenic.
This indiscriminate use of asbestos has caused the death of many people.
Probably you have got wind of urban waste problem of Naples in Italy owing to an erroneous treatment of waste that causes pollution and contamination of Italian soil. Nowadays recent laws for environmental protection hold down the waste problem by identifying in solid urban waste a resource (improvement recycling methods by separate collection of rubbish and compost production).
Instead industries and urban traffic emissions still represent an environmental emergency in Italy where a lot of goods are transported by road.
Use of photovoltaic systems on civil buildings is a new way to exploit solar energy and to have good services without emission of substances prejudicial to our health! About 1 mq of solar panels can produce energy for different quarters of a town, for example !!This and other methods represent a good alternative and a solution to many environment problems.
What do you do to "help" the environment??
Lorenza and Silvia
In response to Sofia
Hi Sofia!
Since Italy is a member of the EU it's necessarily forced to conform to european environmental laws.
But their reception in Italy is very difficult and many examples show it.
Crotone, a town of southern Italy was built completely with material made of asbestos that is carcinogenic.
This indiscriminate use of asbestos has caused the death of many people.
Probably you has got wind of urban waste problem of Naples in Italy owing to an erroneous treatment of waste that causes pollution and contamination of Italian soil. Nowadays recent laws for environmental protection hold down the waste problem identifying in solid urban waste a resource (improvement recycling methods by separate collection of rubbish and compost production).
Instead industries and urban traffic emissions still represent an environmental emergency in Italy where a lot of goods are transported by road.Use of photovoltaic systems on civil buildings is a new way to exploit solar energy and to have good services without emission of substances prejudicial to our health! About 1 mq of solar panels can produce energy for different quarters of a town, for example !!This and other methods represent a good alternative and a solution of many environment problems.
What do you do to "help" the environment??
Lorenza e Silvia
In response to Maria.
I see Sofia has not replied yet and therefore I'll reply at your question about the energy issue in Sweden (I'm half-swedish). In Sweden the renewable energies are strongly used, expecially wind and water, but the main part of the energy requirements comes from five nuclear plants.
In response to Sofia
The environment issue is strongly related with the economy and the politic choises of a government. Politic choises that sometimes appear to be completely foreign to the environmental issue.
Recently the italian government asks to the EC to do not respect the environmental law due to the economic crisis.
He says that our industries are not able to compete with China, for example, if they have to respect the environmental law.
In my opinion we CAN'T compete with China on the same level.
We have to invest in the quality of a product, and often quality means high technology, and high technology means research investments.
And this way we will be able to sell our product not because they are cheaper, but because they are better.. And only this way we can respect the environmental law and earn money with our business.
For what concerns the alternatives energies and the research in the energy field nothing of really conclusive will be discovered or used prior to have sold the last drop of petrol.
In response to Sofia
One of the italian problem about the environment issue is that the normal italian has not a very deep environment culture.
And this is reflected in the simple gestures of everyday and also in the general approach to the problem.
Let me speak about an example: cigarettes. What we do when the cigarette is finish? Normally, if we are walking on the streets, we throw it in a slipshod manner. This is a stupid and extreme example, I'm absolutely conscious that we can't change the world by not throwing cigarettes, but can help to understand how is the medium italian.
In response to Lorenza&Silvia
quote:
"About 1 mq of solar panels can produce energy for different quarters of a town, for example !!"
Are you sure?
In response to Jörgen:
Interesting choice of topic! I consider myself to be fairly interested in environmental issues, but I have to admit that I know next to nothing about ethanol. The only thing I do know is that the media is full of mixed messages and it's difficult for the average reader to make any sense of it and decide what foot to stand on in the debate. Hopefully your essay can be a tiny light in the dark! ;)
I think we can all agree that we need to become more aware of how we're treating and using the environment and what consequences this is going to have for our - and the entire planet's - future. I think that one of the reasons that many people aren't as involved in the issue as they perhaps could be is that it's all so overwhelming and confusing, and there are mixed messages everywhere, not just about ethanol, but about everything. Lots of people probably find it hard to take it all seriously, because some say the planet is in a state of emergency, and other people say it's not so bad and that it won't affect us too much as long as we stick to the environmental laws and regulations that we have now.
Anyway, I think you're on the right track with your essay. Good luck!
Hi everybody!
I read all your posts and I found that all together they cotribute to highlight different aspects that the environmental questions involves: the problem of pollution, natural resources, energy consumption and so on.
I simply would like to make some considerations about the relationship between environmental probles and public information about it.
As Sara rightly says, there's too much confusion in these questions. I find that tv news and newspapers aren't enough clear about the problem, they often exaggerate about some questions while they are superficial on others. Let's consider earth temperature increase: numbers are often given without scientific basis, taking in consideration the importance of having big titles in newspapers' pages. Or let's consider damages made by bad weather in Italy in the last weeks, we saw streets full of water, rivers going outside their borders, roofs that break and fall to the floor, with many human victims: well, this is not simply the effect of a so catastrophic weather conditions but mainly it's people's fault because of a bad land management, too many bilduings, old constructions not able to have people that live in, and this, apart some cases, is not highlighted.
So there's the need of a more scientific journalism, able to explain the true situation in a simple way.
People must change their consuption' behaviour and become more sensible to these problems that involve all us, at the same time knowledge and sensibility must be favoured by a good information that starts from school and arrives to people's everyday news.
In response to Carlo
Hi Carlo,
obviously the sentence is wrong:1mq of solar panels is an insufficient quantity, sorry!
But we want to explain that the advantage of this system is the possibility of producing big quantities of energy with little surfaces using a natural source.
For example the installation of 8 mq of solar panels on the roof of your home can reduce your cost of electric energy for 25 years (www.ecoage.it).
Unfortunately the present limit is that solar panels are still too expensive.
If we can cover the 0,1% of world surface with solar panels in theory we can substitute all our power station with a clean and renewable source of energy (www.bispensiero.it).
Lorenza and Silvia
In response to Sofia…
Hi ,I’m Isabella
I’ve found your post very interesting because it involves ecological sustainable development that is the most desiderable outcome, however unlikely that goal might seem today!
Most people engaged in sustainability debates have shrugged the question off.As the human population grows the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceed what is available.
Sixteen thousand species are threatened with extinction .Habitat loss is a major factor as many forests are cleared for agriculture .By the end of 2007 it is estimated that more people will live in cities than rural areas for the first time in history. This rapid growth can put pressure on environmental resources and infrastructure.
Everyone that is more than 25 can easily recognise changes in cities’ profiles in the next years due to an out of control growth of new construction .This is definitely a field that need a better legislation able to curb abuses.
We can’t still simply continue to grab space to forest for our needs but start talking about the burning question :it is possible and hoped a direct control on living standards by government ?I don’t think so ,the only way to contrast the increasing exploit of earth’s resources is to inform and directly make people involved in consequences of their actions, stimulating the link between people and territory.
I live in a seaside town and really makes me angry to see the shore full of plastic objects and other trash ,in a landscape that remind suburbs of the poorest countries.
Our Minister for the environment has promoted a law against the degrade that punish with jail everyone that leaves big objects in unauthorised rubbish dump but the problem persist mainly because there are huge areas where law is only see as a hindrance for personal interest.
So the problem is not only legal but mainly moral and it concerns(personal) behaviours.
We have some hard work as we try to revise our driving motivations!
About Italy request to EC not to respect Kyoto’s Protocol I would notice that Kyoto only concerns CO2 emission letting countries that use nuclear power free to produce nuclear waste!!!
Now there is a new type of renewable energy, controllable nuclear fusion. Now in the USA a much bigger NIF(National Ignition Facility) based on a process known as inertially confined fusion is carried on. The extreme temperatures and high pressure as a necessary situation for inducing fusion will be achieved by using ultra powerful lasers. The fusion energy is concerned as the cleanest and most sustanable energy in the future due to its reaction principle. it is said that "This process will create temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures billions of times greater than Earth's atmospheric pressure, forcing two heavier forms of hydrogen, known as deuterium and tritium, to fuse together to form helium and release many times more energy than the laser energy required to spark the reaction."
"Deuterium is commonly found in seawater, whilst tritium can be prepared from lithium, a relatively common element found in soil."
In China, we also talk this energy as "a small sun", because there is the same fusion reaction in the sun.
Maybe someday in the future, we could posess the manmade "little sun" in the earth and there is no any energy crisis.
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