Italy presented yesterday its long-awaited plan to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2008-2012 to the European Commission (Yawn. I know. The not so boring part comes in the next paragraph). Together with other countries of the EU Italy is putting itself in line with the new rules to fight pollution and "global warming". This is applauded everywhere, just like the other law that recently passed at the EU to norm the use of toxic chemicals in industry.
As Europeans we are proud of our battle against pollutions of all sorts.

There's a but, of course, and it's pretty gigantic.
Nothing is more hypocrite of these laws, even if they are themselves very rightful. The reason I say this is that while they cause more costs for the European industries, they don't really imply a sacrifice, because the same industries are outsourcing the polluting productions and refinery of raw materials to countries like China. So Europe can preach to the world the faults of industrialism from its wealthy garden, while its big brands, whether they are French, German, Dutch, British, Italian or Spanish can afford even more polluting lines of production in far away countries without regulations. So in the end the only ones who pay for these laws are those smaller local industries who cannot or do not want to outsource. Not a great result.

My opinion is that sacrifices should be done for reals, not for show. We should really produce less and consume less, changing our lifestyle beyond the naive 'doing good to ourselves and our garden'. Until then, to see rich and "progressive" German or Italian yuppies enjoying the newly found pleasures of compatible products and cleaner air and rivers, while blindly buying other products "made in China" without considering if they are compatible or not (and I mean not only superfluous products, but also necessary products like a fridge, or toys for the kids), will only be one more reason to be depressed, and disillusioned about the whole European thing, let alone "progress" in itself.

The usual Beppe Grillo, very famous Italian comedian & blogger, in this quite O.K. although scary post wishes for the all the planet's fossil fuel reserves to finish, so that pollution, deforestation, desertification and all that crap may come to an end.
For as much frustrated as I can be with this crazy non-stop consumerism, and for as much I can loath cars as well 'cause in the long run they make everything miserable, I must say it'd be no use to favor such an outcome. We might as well wish the end of humanity and of any animal on the earth.
In fact, following what I just learned from this beautiful book, which I just finished to read (mind you, it is not a book about environmental issues, but about how life came to be on our planet: it's six-hundred pages long), if all the fossil fuel of the world was consumed it would be the end of any living species that needs oxygen.

Incidentally, having said that oxygen is produced by green plants and algae, it is an oversimplification to leave it at that. It is true that plants give off oxygen. But when a plant dies, its decay, in chemical reactions equivalent to burning all its carbonaceous materials, would use up an amount of oxygen equal to all the oxygen released by that plant during its lifetime. There would therefore be no net gain in atmospheric oxygen, but for one thing. Not all dead plants decay. Some of them are laid down as coal (or equivalents), where they are removed from circulation. If all the fossil fuels of the world were burned by humanity, much of the oxygen in the atmosphere would be replaced by carbon dioxide, restoring the ancient status quo. This is not likely to happen in the near future. But we should not forget that the only reason we have oxygen to breathe is that most of the carbon of the world is tied up underground.

(From Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale, p. 565)

So, waiting for our fossil reserves to finish it's like waiting the end of humanity to see what happens next. Only you can't breathe it to the next scene.

This is supposed to mean we should do something regardless how much fossil fuel reserves we have left, but personally I think there is more or less nothing we can do for the sake of humanity or the planet: I think that we will screw it all (for just a while of course, a glimpse of time before Life continues luxuriantly without us) no matter what we try to do to avoid it. Because O.K., species destroy their enviroments and then go extinct, that's what they do if they have no predators. Nature is that dumb. Those who just try to get richer and richer regarldess the sake of the environment are stupid and egoist, but they have a lot of arguments on their side: the most important of all being that God gave us this planet.
I often thought that the idea of creatures from Mars coming to destroy us came to people's minds when most of us realized we were going to be too many, and nothing was really going to change that. I think deep down we were craving for predators, and we still do because we know it would be right to have them, so we just tried to summon them from outer spaces, since on the earth they are nowhere to be found.

Anyway, just for the sake of Beppe Grillo's argument, on my side I'd favor forbidding cars: I'd make them taboo. Only kings cardinals politicians showbiz kids and mafia bosses could go around with cars. We all could kneel or laugh at their passage, depending on how we feel, and as they would rapidly disappear pushing the crowd aside, we could regard them for what they really are, those who are not unimportant enough to walk.

Via bellavite.de, utterly sad news coming from Monza (near Milan). A bunch of hackberry trees are cut down to make room for underground parking places.
I know, it happened zillion times, that's what we human do, especially when we live in a country which has no environmentalist politics whatsoever. Mafia and middle-class rule in Italy, oh they do.
The story comes with a photo, which could be mentioned among the most depressing photo of the year. Judge by yourself (photo by Giuseppe Motta).

Couldn't the bastards find some different and more respectful solution? They're so greedy and lazy and hypocrite...
I would like to have a little chat with those residents and sales-managers who asked for this