A QUESTION TO THE GREEN MEPS. ARE YOU NOT CURIOUS TO MEET THE 5 STARS WARRIORS OF THE ENVIRONMENT? The "green" credentials of the 5Stars MEPs

image downloaded from www.dariotamburrano.it

MODERN TIMES

(SEVESO)

Toxic smoke raising
to the high terraces,
while on main streets 
mortal traffic honks and screams. 

and in the city streets 
boiling gasoline tanks
as soul killers give off their 
sour smell of dioxine

Poison  factory workers
make deazy birds
flee to cleaner countries

This poem, parody of Giosuè Carducci's all time favourite school classic "Saint Martin", was written  in 1976 by a 7 years old kid under the strong impression of the ICMESA dioxine spill disaster  in the Meda/Seveso area.
That kid was called Dario Tamburrano and he is now an MEP.
He was elected on the 25th of May  for the Italian 5 Star Movement.
Since he wrote this poem, he became one of the most distinguished Italian ecologist, conjugating his medical practice with a very militant environmental activity
That includes the participation to the ASPO (Association for the Study on Peak Oil), actions in support for food and agriculture transition towards an oil free model, permaculture activities. Dario's activities extend to free and collaborative  translation of books by Lester Brown's, Rob Hopkins, Jorgen Renders, Loretta Napoleoni books,  and of several works of the "Post Carbon Institute", and of the European Green Group including "Europe and the peak oil" by Benoit Thévard.

Dario is no exception in 17 strong "5 Star" platoon to the European Parliament. 

Each and every one of them is a "warrior for the environment and justice" and a convinced ecologist. 
Never in the past so many "ecology activists" have been elected to the European Parliament by a single country.
And it would be a shame  if they did not find place in their natural house, the Green Group. 

Greek coin with the dolphin, symbol of "Taras"

Lets' take "Spartan warrior"  Rosa D'Amato, from Taranto (founded by the Spartans with the name of "Taras" 

Taranto: the hellish image of the ILVA steel plant

one of the Capitals of "Greater Greece" - Magna Grecia). Rosa has been engaged for years in the fight against the ILVA steel plant. She extended from protesting to proposing a Third Industrial Revolution new economic model for Taranto. 
A model in which wealth can be produced without sacrifying the environment and the citizens'health  to large industrial groups profits.
She is bringing to Strasbourg the will to survive, re-heal and thrive of the Taranto Citizenship, by confiscating to the owners the resources necessary to reclame the land and bring it back to its original biodiversity and beauty, starting a new grassrooth economy made of naturalistic tourism, archeological parks, eno gastronomical experiences and 3D printing distributed industrial networking.

T

Corrao: young head of the EP 5 Stars delegation

Ignazio Corrao, another "ecological warrior",  elected in Sicily with 71.000 votes, where he's been advocating energy, food and economy sovereignty, through a  zero waste, zero emission zero km (short food supply chain) scenario. 30 years old, Ignazio was appointed head of the 5 Star delegation.

Also Marco Zanni, is a fighter for short, medium and long-term plans for local renewable energy,  reducing fossil dependance well beyond the 20 20 20 targets. 

Both Ignazio and Marco see "energy as the single most important challenge facing Europe while the oil price bell curve makes it anti economical already now"

They insist that rather than keeping a fossile centralized energy model Europe should instead be "accelerating the transition towards a solar future dramatically increasing energy efficiency practices and the introduction of solar distributed energy technologies and re defining the society around an ecological vision where goods and services are produced locally with minimum impact on the environment, maximizing tele working and the use of smart technologies such as additive manufacturing, enabling the community to grow out of the laws of profit and into the sharing and empathic network economy".

Also Marco Affronte with his experience in the CERT (Cetacean Emergency Response Team) dealing with the protection and  the conservation of marine environment, developping programs of whale and dolphins watching in the northern Adriatic sea seems a Natural candidate to enter the European parliament Green Group.

Marco wrote several books aiming ad the development of a widspread  sensitivity towards our "brothers in the sea".

Another natural "green" candidate  would definitely be for  David Borrelli, after he has been committed for years in the fight to drive the City of Treviso (Veneto) towards a sustainable "Zero Waste" policy and to introduce sustainable pratices in all public offices, schools and SMEs with bio-climatica best practices, PV systems and sustainable energy efficient buildings.

Isabella Adinolfi, archeologist and cultural heritage expert who was born in Salerno but lives in Brussels, where she participates in projects for sustainable agriculture and grassroot economy non speculative financing sounds like another perfect contributor to the European Green Group.

Likewise Piernicola Pedicini, theoretical physicist and doctor specialized in nuclear medicine research  working in the oncological department of Rionero in Vulture Hospital.

He has been an active participant to environmental defense activities in a region (Basilicata) where oil drilling, nuclear deposit and illegal toxic waste dump in sites such as Rotondella, Genzano, Scanzano Jonico and Tito Scalo have required extra attention from the "environment warriors" in  actions of civil resistance and public disclosure of the dangers for public health and environment preservation.

Likewise Sardinian biologist Giulia Moi specialized in non chemical oncological pharmacological research at the King's College of London and fellow at the Stiefel/Glaxo Smith-Kline pharmaceutical company, where she claims discovering a molecule from a  South African forest plant useful to cure several forms of cancer in a natural way.

She is also very active in the local Sardinian anti-GMO campaign for the. protection of the local bio diversity

Laura Ferrara, experienced social worker from Calabria, is deeply committed to the cause of the  most destitute people, prisoners, illegal immigrants.
Her idea  that "effective equal opportunity means that for a woman, the desire of maternity should not imply giving up her job, or viceversa the professional ambition should not mean the need to procrastinate her desire of maternity?" does not seem to fit with with the standard thinking of Mr Farage and the likes of him.

Daniela Aiuto, expert in sustainable bio-architecture is an architect committed to the valorization of local assetts and landscape.
Tiziana Beghin a business consultant is engaged in programs in favour of local SMEs, to help them make it in globalized economy where financial crisis kill local entrapreuership and innovation in favour of cheap goods coming from Eastern countries.
Laura Agea, is a sociologist/psycologist with a Master in business administration, committed to the preservation of the local bio diversity as the main assett for sustainable tourism and cultural progress.
Giulia Gibertoni, is contemporary art expert and sociologist committed to the maximum access for all citizen to the means for cultural elevation and to the widspread dissemination of Corporate Social Responsibility and ethical communication.

Eleonora Evi is a design expert who wrote the essay (in English) "Design for growth and prosperity" as a new strategic way to design products in a durable way fighting the planned obsolescence that dramatically increases the quantity of products and goods that end up in landfills. She supports the idea that responsible design helps creating  citizenry awareness and sustainable communities. 

Fabio Massimo Castaldo, is a roman lawyer who launched the idea of a "2.0 Europe", a culture and solidarity driven community in which no citizen is  left behind, through the application of a guaranteed social salary for all (reddito di cittadinanza), and Marco Valli, who is deeply committed to an idea of Europe that beats the  "immoral concentration of wealth in just a few hands in detriment of  the interst of all"  by transitioning  towards an ecological reconversion of the economy, introducing new paradigms not driven by "greed and profit" but by the "export of rights" and the replacement of the "fiscal compact" with a new and more acceptable "social compact". 

Does that not sound like that "Green New Deal"  that the whole of the Green Group in the European parliament is deeply committed to?

All these Italian "Ecology and Justice Warriors" are the same kind of people standing for the same social and ecologic value as the Green MEPs.
I am absolutely sure that  they would perform wonders in the next five years, if they were given the chance to join efforts.

Now,  I know that  the European negociations of the 5 Stars Movement have started on the wrong foot because Beppe Grillo has been misled by ill informed advisors who set the wrong meeting priorities.

And it certainly it was a gross communication error that the letter to Voula Tsetsi contained a detailed, almost pedantic illustration of the the 7 points for Europe (which make no reference  to the environment)  while there was no mention to the meaning of the 5 Stars, all ecological strongholds (like renewable energy, zero emission transports, zero waste, public water and free WI FI).

Beppe Grillo on ARTE Ingenerous and partial representation

One cannot give it for granted when addressing people living in Brussels and who probably know of the 5 Star Movement only from the ungenerous description made by the ARTE TV a couple of months back.

The 5 Star meet-ups were all created around local environment issues by  Beppe Grillo's blog readers wanting to engage in social action against a local incinerator,  polluting industrial plant, coal or oil fired power stations, useless, costly harming large project such as the TAP pipeline, the TAV high speed train, unnecessary re-gasifiers, and so on.

Great thinkers on Beppe Grillo's blog

For years Beppe Grillo's blog has been the loudest free voice in Italy standing for ecologic values, against soil and land consumption, for consumers protection and in defence of the interest of small savers and investors, as well as against corruption, financial speculation and economic decay. 

Beppe Grillo's blog has also been the main channel into the country for the innovative ideas of people such as Jeremy Rifkin, Amartya Sen, Jo Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Vandana Shiva, Paul Connett and the like of them while the rest of the nation was going down the drain in an orgy of silly TV reality shows on Berlusconi's  and Rai channels. I must also add that until very recently, Beppe Grillo's blog is the only media that gave voice to my sream against the Brussels "coup"agains renewable energies crafted by Commissioner Almunìa, that no other media in Italy dared publishing for its inconvenience to energy monopolies. (it was the 28th of April and the post can be viewed at this page http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2014/04/passaparola_brussels_coup_agai_1.html )

All this cannot be removed  just because Beppe Grillo made a mistake in choosing his European strategies advisors.

In any case Beppe Grillo does not need any defense from me because he is very good at defending himself.

The European Parliament Green Group/European Free Alliance

Instead I would like  to address all of the MEPs from the Green Group in the European Parliament (some of whom I know personally, and all of  whom I hold in the highest consideration) with this question:

Aren't you curious to meet your Italian colleagues from the 5 Star Movement?

Aren't you willing to estabish a personal report to the kind of persons I have tried to briefly and modestly  describe above?

Wouldn't you like to invite them to exchange  views and experiences over a drink or two? 

I am sure you would

So why don't you  launch a public call to meet them for an "open bar" in Brussels at the mutual earliest convenience? 

Will  this look like a public disavowal of  the understandeably cautious position of your Secretary General Vula Tsetsi, a position that I perfectly understand and totally respect considering the situation?

I don't think so.

For what I know of your group in the European Parliament, you have enough respect for the indivudual prerogatives and self determination to accept that consenting adults can meet who they want, when they want,  where they want.

Will they accept?

Frankly I don't know. 

But aren't you curious to find out?



Post Scriptum
More details about the 17 5 Star MEPs  can be found at this page: http://www.beppegrillo.it/2014/05/i_17_eletti_del_m5s_al_parlamento_europeo.html

Post Post Scriptum
While I was writing tis post, Ignazio Corrao, hed of the delegation, was hitch-hiking to Brussels. These are a few of the pictures he was posting on the road on his facebook page.
Hopefully he will be making it by the 1st of July for the opening of the Parliament...