Categoria: internazionale

By Greta Romualdi, 14 years old – Siena (italy)

We need to stop global warming now, said once a man. Actually, at least four billion people said it. We are humans who have the ability of thinking and reflecting on mistakes we do. However as the years have passed we have become more and more intelligent and more ignorant at the same time. We are oxymoron, everything we do is an oxymoron, our life is an oxymoron. If a person says something, everybody says it. We are greedy, we always want to reach the top, but there is no top anymore. We always want to be like someone who inspires us, therefore if that person does or says something, we do it. This is the base of fake news. But what is actually fake news, and why does it exist? No one has the answer. Everyone chooses an answer to the definition of fake news, everybody adapts to what for them fits best. This is what fake news means: the creation of fake information.

Nowadays, fake news regarding agriculture and food has become progressively more popular. Some people say that palm oil is not actually harmful, others say it is devastating our world… so to who should we actually agree? The mistake we do now is that we believe. We believe in everything people tell us. We were taught to believe. And now, we teach to believe. Big companies such as Vape give us an excuse for using fertilisers “we need DDT, because the population is growing so fast and plants so slowly, it is not harmful.” WRONG! We are humans who have a wonderful gift: the possibility of thinking and having ideas and opinions. We should stop believing in everything and everyone. We can be capable of understanding that these companies are fooling us to gain money. We have to be careful and help each other.

DDT: “a synthetic organic compound used as an insecticide.” This is the most common definition, of a normal encyclopaedia on internet. The word: “synthetic” implies the danger and the damage this fertiliser causes to our wonderful home. The problem we face now is our population, and how fast it is growing. Many people think DDT is not bad because it actually helps us to not die of starvation. If it saves our lives, it ruins other ones. Bees are the most affected insect by DDT. If the whole species of bees were to extinct we would die, every single one of us would suffer a slow and painful death. In order for plants to reproduce they need pollen which is brought by bees. When we spray fertilisers we are restricting this process from happening, therefore leading us to death. I personally think it is really important to use the plural in these occasions. This is because “we” are a group of people and we work together; therefore, if one of us does something wrong we are wrong. We are all the cause of the destruction of the Earth. No matter if you are the best person in the world, you definitely have done something which has contributed to the elimination of the Earth.

Fake News has now played a massive role in our daily routines. Even if we don’t realise, we are reading and sharing fake information constantly. 82% of Italians are not able to recognize a fake news, shows the Infosfera Survey of 2018 (by the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples, Italy). This is a major problem because there are some people who believe in what they read and they can be emotionally and physically involved in something “fake”. Furthermore, the problem is still to come. Agriculture has been massively impacted by fake news because many people benefit of the ignorance of others. The environment and agriculture has to deal with the effects of fake news. The problem is that some people believe in what they read or watch and therefore might use it in the agriculture. The damage being caused is not only to us, humans but also to the ecosystems. It is not just a matter of killing bees; we also suffer of the causes of what people include in what we eat.

Once again what can we do in front of things that seem bigger than us? We should consider true and useful information in order to better utilize the limited resources we have on our planet and produce more food. There is a very antique remedy which can save us from the cruelty of fertilisers such as DDT. This can also save us from the dangers of fake news regarding agriculture. Not many people are aware of a unique method originally born in Bangkok, Thailand, inspired by the natural process of fermentation. A lady named Sornwan Sirisuntharin, better known as Pa Cheng started to use what is called Fervida. She comes from a very poor family that did not even have the money to give her an education. Unfortunately, when she was older she got really sick and she was about to die. Her family tried really hardly to cure her, she saw every type of doctor, but there was no cure for her illness. The family of Pa Cheng used to create fruit ferments for agricultural use. So an idea sparked in her mind, “if these ferments are so good for agriculture they might cure me”. As the days passed, the lady started assuming little doses of these ferments. She started to get better and better, until she completely eradicated her illness. Fervida is a concentration of good bacteria and microorganisms. She started using them more and more for agriculture and what she noticed was a great growth in the plants. Fervida can be prepared with any type of fruit or vegetable added with sugar which helps the fermentation. It has been proved that Fervida produces extremely powerful antioxidant compounds useful for our health and agriculture and can be a revolutionary type of fertilizer which is eco-friendly in every sense. This is why it is really important for people to start learning more about this incredible method of agriculture. This can help the destruction of fake news on DDT, since it is a new way of growing things.

A sixteen-year-old girl named Greta Thunberg once said “Our house is on fire…” And it really is. This is why we, the new generation and all the generations to come have to do something. In every article I write I say “you can make a change” I would like to be able to say that this time it is true. But it is not. The only thing I can say is that “We can make a change”. We are a social animal that tends to stay in packs like wolves do. However, things have changed and people got more and more greedy and selfish. This is the right time for us to go back to our origins and make things change. We need to stop fake news. We can stop fake news.

by Greta Romualdi, 12 years old (Siena, Italy)

“I have a dream” said once a man called Martin Luther King . But I really do have a dream and my dream is that there will be no more global warming or pollution or no extinction of polar bears. I have to admit that I am lucky. The sustainability report of my house is great. But think for a moment, how many balance sheets are really balanced? My family and I manage to have low consumption of energy because of the LED lights that are on only if needed, and the heating we use is definitely environmental friendly. Thanks to great fixtures on the windows our house is energy efficient and we do not suffer the cold. Living in the countryside gives me the permission to have a vegetable garden which cuts down the cost of buying vegetables. The food waste that we create gets given to the animals we have. So food waste does not exist at my house because everything gets reduced, reused and recycled. As you may know recycling is essential as Leonardo di Caprio says: “certain people are going to be vilified for not taking action….” It is really true, if we do not recycle, we the new generation have to make a change, we have to help the polar bears and the monkeys in the Amazon rainforest to survive. Even if we are in Italy we can make a change. I recycle everything and try to separate objects in order that they get thrown in the correct bin. We seed wheat in order to make our own bread so that we cut down the cost of buying bread.
Knowledge is important to act differently. I found a way of calculating how many kg of carbon dioxide emissions we create. I do 500km a week only to go to school and I found out that the emissions my car has are 113g of CO2 per kilometre. So just to go to school the emissions of carbon dioxide of my car are 56,5kg per week. That is mind-blowing and I feel so horrible. I am sorry that we put profit above people and use nature as a credit card. I did not think that only one person could pollute this much. A bus produces 300g of CO2 every kilometre. If a bus does 1,000km in one week to take to school 10 kids, the total will be 300,000g, so 300kg of CO2 per week. If my school organizes a school bus that would already reduce lots of emissions of carbon dioxide.
Now, my house sustainability reports is really excellent, but let’s compare it to one of a huge factory like Nike. That is totally different, my family and I can help the environment but what about a Nike factory which is 40 times bigger than my house? So what can we do? We should contact these factories and show them statistics to let them know what really is the situation. For centuries atmospheric carbon dioxide had never been above a certain line, a certain level. Now it is above that line and that level. This should make us understand that we as individuals can make a change but it’s the big, humongous factories that have to realise their sustainability report and how environmental unfriendly they are. A meat industrial factory, do you know how polluting it is? Cows are lovely animals but they devastate our planet. When cows fart they release an enormous amount of methane. Methane is one of the causes of global warming. When I say the words climate change nobody really thinks of cows. People think of carbon dioxide, cars and pollution. We should be careful with cows because they can be as lovely as dangerous. Industrial factories that produce cow meat give the cows a special food that is called pellet that makes them gain weight quickly so that farmers can sell more meat. This type of food makes them fart more and that means more methane released. To make only one hamburger we need 660 gallons of water which are equivalent to two months of our showering. So not only it creates global warming but also a lot of water is wasted. The UCS (Union of concerned Scientists) explains that the industrial meat factories in America represent the 6% of the emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States; this is the emission of 24million cars.
If the cows stopped eating pellet but started eating more natural plants such as grass, their emission of methane would be much lower. So all we should do is let the poor cows eat their natural food instead of chemical things.
Two very famous Italian factories that produce animal made products such as yogurt are Alce Nero and Mila. Basically these industries tried to improve their sustainability report. What these factories did is they made cows eat only the grass of the mountains of Alto Adige, so the emissions of methane created by cows was reduced. They managed to produce a yogurt that was more ecological than before. With this idea all yogurt companies should take action and try to do the same thing too. Eating only grass instead of pellet containing cereals, soy and antibiotics the cows produce less milk because they have less energy but at least this helps the planet. This is also good for the health of people eating yogurt because they will not assume part of the antibiotics that are in the cow’s body. If we really wanted to make a huge change, we should all convert to being vegetarian or vegan because only that would clean the air and help the Earth.
We should sustain the company in which Leonardo di Caprio invested, it is called the Beyondmeat, the hamburgers are totally vegetarian but they contain a mix of proteins such as beans, beets and coconut oil. All these ingredients are very similar to the proteins that the meat gives us so the body has no problem.
All these factories try to improve their sustainability report. Try to improve yours too. Everything links like the umbilical cord that linked us and our mother. We are the new generation; we have to make a change as individuals and communities. Remember if we do not act the next generation will not see the beauty of the Earth because everything will be destroyed. You can make a change.

di Eric Barbizzi, 14 anni, di Ascoli Piceno