Green – stories

Fiat 500 holds the diesel pollution record

STefano ValentinoWednesday June 6th, 2018

A new independent report reveals how harmful emissions from diesel engines have yet to fall, despite increasingly strict European regulations, and promises from manufacturers to follow the rules. Some manufacturers optimise the more modern vehicles in order to pass the type approval test within a given temperature range (20-30°C) on a predefined test protocol, programming the NOx control systems in such a way that they are deactivated when used in actual driving conditions

Excess Diesel Car Pollution Kills 5,000 Europeans per Year

STefano ValentinoMonday September 18th, 2017

Every year, around 5,000 people die prematurely in Europe due to NOx gas emissions from diesel cars that exceed the EU limits. This calculation comes from a new study by an international team of researchers. Excessive pollution is the result of the loopholes in the EU system for vehicles environmental surveillance. The Volkswagen scandal has shown that real road emissions are higher than those declared by manufacturers, far exceeding the legal values.

The Top 100 European Cities Where Dieselgate Kills the Most

STefano ValentinoWednesday June 7th, 2017

Excess diesel emissions produce a tiny portion of harmful dusts. Yet, they cause dozens of premature deaths in Europe’s highly populated road traffic hotspots. The fact that they have such a high health impact despite their relatively small contribution to overall pollution reveals how seriously air contamination threatens our lives

Air Pollution: The EU Gives Carte Blanche to the Steel Industry

STefano ValentinoSunday May 24th, 2015

Steel producers and the industry in general must comply with new EU emission limits as of 2016. But the steel giants, the second largest industrial polluters in Europe, watered down their obligations through lobbying. Introducing the most suitable technologies to clean up their dirty fumes is just an option, not a requirement. European citizens pay an estimated 60 billion Euro for medical emergencies and premature deaths associated to industrial emissions.

Africa’s Trees Against Climate Change: An Internet Fraud

STefano ValentinoFriday April 12th, 2013

And if you were told that you could fight climate change with a purchase on eBay? Clean Air Action Corporation, an American company set up an online store selling carbon credits. The money supposedly goes to indigenous peasants in Tanzania to persuade them to plant new trees that absorb C02. But locals no longer believe in the project. Exploited, they have stopped growing the trees, making more money through cutting them to resell the wood

EU Greenhouse Gas Scammers

STefano ValentinoThursday August 2nd, 2012

Among the longest greenhouse gases we find fluorinated. Paints, air conditioners, refrigerants: these are the consumer goods whose production emits the notorious gas, so damaging to the health of the climate. Italy is in the EU viewfinder for failing to comply with the Community rules on fluorinated emissions

The Dirty Business of Carbon Credits

STefano ValentinoMonday April 23rd, 2012

A carbon credit system, the one designed by the European community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but which would actually even raise them. The scheme was so controversial that the European Union banned it in 2013. However, the prohibition has not been taken into account by some large multinationals, as long as it does not actually come into force

Africa: Italians Join the Rush to Biofuels

STefano ValentinoMonday March 5th, 2012

Against climate warming and oil prices, the Kyoto Protocol bets on biofuels. And if the announced green revolution assumed the size of a new colonization? The Italian company Tozzi Renewable Energy (TRE Spa) is positioned on the African chess board, pending a new climate change agreement that could multiply cash flows to the green gold sector

Green Energy in Africa: Opportunity or Threat?

STefano ValentinoSunday October 9th, 2011

What is the real weight of the biofuel revolution? Kenya and Ethiopia have sold 700,000 hectares of land to foreign investors: fuel fuels represent a development opportunity or a new form of colonialism? Running crops for fuel production led to a sharp rise in cereal prices during the food crisis in 2008, triggering a bias between NGOs and those waving on clean energy

Africa: British Firms Lead Land Grab for Biofuels

STefano ValentinoTuesday May 31st, 2011

Liquid fuel from plants is considered by some as a possible ecological substitute for fossil fuel. And this is clear to the countries of the western world, and in particular to England. These are crops that are subject to controversy, as they risk replacing foodstuffs by exorbitantly increasing the price of food and hunger. Not to mention the problem of expropriation of land