· Ago e scalpello: artigiani e materie del mondo, Ctm, 1997

· Altroartigianato in Centroamerica, Sonda, 1997;

· Altroartigianato in Asia, Sonda, 1998

· Manuale pratico di ecologia quotidiana, Mondadori, 2000

· Addio alle carni, Lav, 2001

· Cucina vegetariana dal Sud del mondo, Sonda, 2002

· Si ferma una bomba in volo? L’utopia pacifista a Baghdad, Terre di mezzo, 2003

· Diventare come balsami.

Per ridurre la sofferenza del mondo: azioni etiche ed

ecologiche nella vita quotidiana, Sonda, 2004

· Vita sobria. Scritti tolstoiani e consigli pratici, Qualevita, 2004

· Il balcone dell’indipendenza. Un infinito minimo, Nuovi Equilibri, 2006

· (a cura di), Cambieresti? La sfida di mille famiglie alla società dei consumi, Altra Economia, 2006

· Week Ender 2. Alla scoperta dell’Italia in un fine settimana di turismo responsabile, Terre di Mezzo, 2007

· La rivoluzione dei dettagli, Feltrinelli, Milano 2007.

“Do you navigate Internet for the cheapest flight? Do you want to go to warm places in winter time, or to a conference on the World future ? Good, we tell you what is the price to pay for each flight and you shall see that this is the most rapid way to stay always warm and preclude the future for mankind”.

Warning of a specialist site www.chooseclimate.org .

The context.

To go beyond the boundary between land and sky, the human being who knows how to fly only in his dreams must massively make recourse to a third element: the fire, the energy. Air transportation of people and goods increases constantly. Every second skies are ploughed by at lest 10,000 aircrafts. Flying enthusiasms. Makes distances shorter. The climate is killed. Civil aviation (let’s not talk about bombardiers) “apparently” contributes for 3-4% to global emissions of carbon dioxide but the so called radiative forcing, the effect of warming up, a combination of CO2, ozone, steam and condensation, is about three times bigger of that of CO2 alone.

Due to this “triplication” at this very day, according to calculations of the California Institute of Technology, air transportation is responsible for 10% of total greenhouse effect. An aircraft with 400 seats, for a trip of 6,000 kilometres, needs over 60,000 litres of kerosene; it means that a transcontinental passenger uses in one time his own “annual right of polluting”, as to the greenhouse effect.

In 2002 the British Wwf calculated the environmental impact of two two-week holidays, one in Majorca and one in Cyprus from London: together they covered up to 50% of the share of usable resources belonging to each individual of the planet. At the same time, an individual trip contributes to the greenhouse effect as much as an Afghan woman or a Congolese child in quite a number of life years, comprising all of their (scarce) consumptions. But they are the environments and the lives of those who do not fly to get the worse effects of the climate heating.

In Europe emissions of aviation CO2 increased by 73% between 1990 and 2002 and will grow by 150% from 202 to 2012; it is the sector where they grow faster. The low-cost flights, flights for one cent, one euro, ten euro has increased the consumption of aircrafts. These low-cost formulae accounted for 5% of air traffic in year 2000 and in 2006 for 20%, one fifth. A not-very-democratic fact as it is concentrated in 5% of world population. Low-cost make fly much more but always the usual ones. Italians for the weekend in Amsterdam, Dutch people for the with night in Rome. The Afghan woman does not fly, not even at one dollar (if nothing else, she does not fill herself with particles of flame retardants).

Air traffic pollutes also close to land, near airports, with carbon dioxide and total particulate. And, in addition, end of the silent sky: aircraft roars, straight or in the background, by day and night, make a difficult life for those living close to departures, arrivals and corridors of taking off and landing. And these big works continuously increase the cement style airport building.

According to certain calculations, every year the collectivity pays over 2,000 million euro for “external costs” – non accounted for in the flight price – tied to the five emergencies: pollution, noise, greenhouse effect, congestion, accidents. They are the classical environment-costs unloaded on the collectivity: also on those who never fly.

The civil aviation sector enjoys impudent privileges: tax exemptions and even exemption on the application of the Tokyo Protocol on the greenhouse effect.

Things I can do.

Almost everybody likes flying. But it is an ecologically and therefore socially more unseemly activity in which to dedicate oneself. Individual and collective U-turns are urgently needed.

a) Reducing demand means reducing offer.

Banally, aircrafts fly because people fly and buy goods that…fly.

· Meanwhile, calculate. On the average (it all depends on many factors like the aircraft model, the rate of filling, the number of stop-overs) one can take into consideration an impact on the greenhouse effect per person equal to 30 kg. of CO2 every 100 km. for flights shorter than 2,000 km; 19 kg. of CO2 every 100 km. for longer flights (take off and landing are the times requiring more energy).

This totals almost 2 and one half tons for a return trip to the Caribbean Islands (15,000 km); 140 kg for a Rome-Milan flight. And over 3 tons for a return trip from the Milan Cathedral to Jakarta. One should ration flights on the basis of ecological, and not economical, cost.

- Less customers today less flights tomorrow. Objection: “Without you the aircraft would fly anyway and pro capite pollution of travellers would be higher yet because of your empty seat”. Answer: a lesser demand quickly calls for a flight reduction (and therefore of the damage); airlines cannot certainly travel empty.

- Charter and low cost: no thanks. Contrary to scheduled flights, charters leave only “at command”, therefore the demand/offer link is immediate. Choosing charter flights or low cost means rewarding those who operate to transform an aircraft in a sort of bus.

- Emptying the cargos. Goods travel through Continents because there is somebody which prefers them to what comes from nearby. Let’s consume and above all eat local and season’s products. Taking a ton by air for one kilometre originates the emission of 0.9 kg of CO2.

b) Sure alternatives.

On short and medium distances, it would only take to go back to what we did some ten years ago (non really the dark times of the candle and the buggy): travel by land.

- European rails at a good price. From Rome to Milan, Messina to Naples, Turin to Paris, Bari to Venice and so forth, listing medium and short distances, train is by far more eco-sustainable than the air. And one can find – by booking on time – advantageous tariffs to reach many European cities, too.

- It is not that fast. If one takes into account the trips to and from airport, check-in and the fractioning of the voyage, under 700 km flying is not faster than train. By night trains and relevant couchette, one does not waste mornings or afternoons and saves on hotels.

- Do not start your journey! Those who travel for work reasons …or for meetings of “activists-to-change-the-world” should ask themselves if it is really necessary. A lot can be done by staying put, provide one is not affected by “apodemomania” (the mania of movement).

- Crossing seas. Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian and Adriatic are almost lakes. One reaches Sardinia and Greece overnight (sighting the coast is always magic and a number of ferries offer saloons and bars). Spain too is well served at very good prices.

c) Intercontinental distances.

The probability of a surface journey over 3,000 or 10,000 km is obviously confined to a few privileged people who have a lot of time to spend. But also that of flying is reserved to few economical blessed terrestrials. Hence, it is too easy boarding a airplane lightly, as it were a train.

- The first question. Is this trip really necessary? Mark Lynas, the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, to write his book, used his equitable share of emission for the next twenty years; now he says no to any touristic journey by air. Mathis Wackernagel, inventor of the ecological imprint, minimises his own consumptions except when flying to advertise the imprint but…”honestly I have not yet understood is the final balance of this contradiction is positive, meaning that many people understand that it is necessary to adopt a more realistic consumption style, or if negative, because the ideas I talk about remain only speeches left in the air”.

- Telework. Teleconferences and “group calls” are miraculous.

- What kind of tourism. Many exotic journeys are a luxury and nothing else. The beautiful countries in the Mediterranean practically offer everything. As to meeting with other people and cultures, also people of those distant places would love to come and know our people and cultures. There is no justice in these one way only trips.

- Warming our Planet up, to go to warmer places? Those who leave in winter to stay warmer and in summer to stay cooler, have not understood much about the beauty of seasons, and about how their behaviour works to upset seasons themselves.

- “I can afford it, I shall eco-save somewhere else”. Have I not used my car all along this year? Have I switched off central heating? Have I saved on kilowatts/hour? Have I eaten foods having a low impact? Have I spared on any type of disposable goods? Have I flown since a long time? Then, perhaps, I have paid in advance at least a portion of the environmental cost of my journey. (However my ecological imprint will quickly spark well beyond the three planets).

Joint actions.

While waiting for solar propelled crafts, which however will not be able to carry billions of people a year, the “crazy flight” phenomenon must collegially checked.

a)Land to land campaigns.

With an alarmed report on aviation of some years ago, IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (U.N.O) recommended the application by Countries of a number of measures: the introduction of taxation to discourage the excessive use of airplanes and the “take-off” of policies to replace with train travelling short and medium distances.

- Just price for air transportation. Everybody loves flying at a cheaper price and, anyway, going far; the environmentalists, too; this is why, above all in Italy, it is difficult to star campaigns in fvour of a reasonable usage of airplanes. In other countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom activists are more active.

- Stop the march of airports. Fights against noise and other airport inconveniences often witness the inhabitants of nearby areas left alone. When shall we see a big national campaign against the widening of airports and the creation of new ones?

- The perpetual motion of the “motion of motions”. “I do not travel for tourism! I go far away, yes, but to Palestine in a caravan for peace, to Chiapas on a Delegation, to Porto Alegre for the Social Forum, to Nepal to say hello to the makers of equitable rice paper, to Indonesia to hear an antiwar assembly”. These displacements into a mass of motion are certainly an opportunity to meet people (but decisions are taken somewhere else and in a different way), but very much in an occidental elite way (and very few from South). Which is little alter-mondialist. Would it not be better to send only one representative, in turns, for all the group? And rather pay the trip for somebody from the Southern regions?

- Flying goods? Transportation by sea creates 30 grams of CO2 per kilometre per ton of shifted weight; for the same quantity, trains stand at 41 grams/km; by road at 200 grams; by air we spark to 1,000 grams. Purchasers and volunteers of fair trade – just to start from them – could make sure that the goods “without exploitation” reach the ship. And in general, the promotion of “close” consumptions instead of the globalised ones would help decrease the climatic impact on the sector.

b) Measures to be asked.

Grants and/or financial assistance in favour of air transportation must be reduced. The European Union, hesitating, is trying it.

- Taxation on kerosene. The tax exemption on kerosene is costing the European Union eight billions euro per annum. A tax on fuel could bring technological improvements, a less “Pindaric” management of air traffic and an increase in ticket prices with a consequent demand decrease. The European Directive 96 of 2003 allows the imposition of such a tax but only on domestic flights; international agreements make difficult the general application without which airline companies would go buy it exempt at the nearest fiscal paradise for kerosene.

- Environmental taxes. A tax on air emission could be levied on each ticket. To date, it is Norway the only country to have a levy based on emissions on domestic flights. The EU is proposing a supplement on ticket, based on distance and emission/km, with a take-off and landing overcharge.

- Kyoto Protocol also in the clouds. That aircrafts have been left out in the Kyoto Protocol is another anomaly which should push the environmentalists to start a fight. This sector should be included in the emission trade system in force in Europe since January 2005.

- A sign: solidarity taxes. Since July 2006 France imitates Great Britain and introduces a small tax on air tickets to finance project to fight against Aids, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa.

- Speed limits. An eco-science fiction site affirms that shortly the polluting aircrafts will be replaced by dirigibles with tens of times lower consumptions, but slower: 200 km per hour instead of 800 and more. At that stage, only the little brothers of Leonardo would fly, just for absolute passion; the other ones would choose the train or stay home. But, demanding some limitation on speed – just as we do on roads – is not science fiction.

- Dreaming is not a sin. Half of all flights in Europe are below 500 km, therefore not less speedy than a train which departs and arrives at any town centre. Which is ten times less polluting. German activists ask to banish short flights. At least those.