Green – Stories

European regulations are easy to bypass

Stefano Valentino — Wednesday June 6th, 2018Sunday July 29th, 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 Valentino — Monday September 18th, 2017Sunday July 29th, 2018

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 Places Where Dieselgate Kills the Most

Stefano Valentino — Wednesday June 7th, 2017Monday July 30th, 2018

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

Antarctica: “Fishing” Climate Secrets from Cold Deep Waters

Stefano Valentino — Thursday February 16th, 2017Monday July 30th, 2018

The Antarctic Sea is a key engine of the Earth’s climate. It triggers a continuous exchange between the polar cold and the excess heat of the most populated areas of the planet, thus keeping temperatures at levels that make life possible. Today global warming could compromise this global compensation process. We sailed to Antarctica with a team of scientists to find an answer to the question: Is this catastrophe really going to happen?

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

Stefano Valentino — Sunday May 24th, 2015Monday July 30th, 2018

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 Valentino — Friday April 12th, 2013Monday July 30th, 2018

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 Valentino — Thursday August 2nd, 2012Monday July 30th, 2018

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 Valentino — Monday April 23rd, 2012Monday July 30th, 2018

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 Valentino — Monday March 5th, 2012Monday July 23rd, 2018

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 Valentino — Sunday October 9th, 2011Monday July 30th, 2018

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 Valentino — Tuesday May 31st, 2011Monday July 30th, 2018

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

Kilwa: the Forest Cursed by Biofuels’

Stefano Valentino — Tuesday September 21st, 2010Monday July 30th, 2018

Bioshape, a green energy company based in Neer, Netherlands, is currently involved in bankruptcy proceedings. Among Bioshape’s projects, it is to hire thousands of local laborers and export seeds from Tanzania to the Netherlands, where they would be worked for the production of electricity, heat and biofuels. A big wound to the green polo of the world by the hand of a project that was intended to produce clean energy.

India: the Submerged People

Stefano Valentino — Tuesday May 22nd, 2007Monday July 30th, 2018

Sardar Sarovar Dam: is the name of the largest in the thirty dams built in India as a reservoir for rainwater. The government should have ensured that all those living at the dam were provided with safe house and land to cultivate. The truth is that many villages have been flooded with water and many suspect that the real beneficiaries will be the large industrial complexes and elite tourist structures