Written by Dario Ruggiero (July 2013)

 

 

Climate change is becoming the most important challenge for humanity in the near future. Understanding the driving factors of global warming is a starting (and key) point in this challenge. One of these factors is the measure of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. According to the record of CO2 and temperature preserved in ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, there is a clear correlation between CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and air temperature (the higher the concentration, the higher air temperature will be). 

Written by Dario Ruggiero (July 2013)

 

 

Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world: Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 (latest available data) was $5.9 bn (in terms of Purchasing Power Parity - PPP); it is almost nothing compared with United States’s ($15,940 bn) and world’s total GDP ($74,879 bn). Its GDP per capita was $600 in 2010, less than $2 a day per person.

Written by Dario Ruggiero (March 2013)

 

 

Currently, there are about 6.9 billion people in the world, of which 12.4% (868 million) are "undernourished". Considering that in 2050 we will exceed 9 billion people, in a pessimistic scenario the number of undernourished people could further increase, touching 1.4 billion. In addition, the phenomenon of hunger and undernourishment is concentrating more and more on certain specific areas of the world; a further increase of these imbalances could destabilize the state of peace in the world.

Written by Dario Ruggiero (May 2013)

 

 

The reduction and management of municipal and special waste are an increasingly important element in the public policies of every country. The rising production of goods over the last century has put a strain on public authorities: they had to organize themselves in order to better manage the increasing amount of waste, minimizing the negative consequences of such waste on citizens and on the environment.

Written by Dario Ruggiero (April 2013)

 

 

Vandana Shiva, in her book, "Return to Earth", lists all the disadvantages of an industrialized and globalized agricultural system compared with a local and biodiverse one. Such a system depends excessively on oil (for the production of fertilizers, the predominant use of machinery and transport) and it is, therefore, strongly exposed to the threat of "Peak-Oil"; one-crop plantations are the main feature of the current agricultural systems; they are more vulnerable to pests and climate change, and, finally, they are less productive than farmland based on polycultures. In essence, the globalized industrial agriculture depends strongly on fossil fuels, exacerbates the problem of climate change and is less able to adapt to changes. According to Vandana Shiva biodiverse farms and local food systems are the answer to the problem. In this perspective, "Permaculture", a method based on designing an agricultural environment for preserving or increasing naturally soil fertility and biodiversity of the system, is very close to the solution proposed by the author mentioned above.