This morning I watched the news on TV while having my breakfast. For once, they made me start the day with a positive mood: President Obama and family were celebrating the Earth Day by planting some trees.

That might appear trivial. But the huge investments he’s planning on renewable energies are quite tangible instead.

By the way, settled to write a post about this topic, I searched the web for an Earth Day logo. And I found dozens of different ones! Of course this might mean nothing. Or maybe it’s a signal of how fragmented the world’s commitment against global warming still is.

Unfortunately my feeling is not based on this isolated episode only. Yes, every day I read about new amazing projects, like (in the last couple of days only) an entirely solar-powered city in Florida or the first low-cost small electric car. But I also see that most of the bad behaviors which took us to the current situation are unchanged.

The Italian government is planning to build several new garbage incinerators, through a procedure which adds insult to injury: they’re partly financed with those funds (CIP6) supposed to support the investments in clean energy!

The citizens’ health is completely ignored. Look at the following picture. Based on recent data from the World Health Organization, it clearly shows the decrease in life expectancy within Western Europe caused by air pollution.

People who live in Northern Italy like me, or in other industrial areas of Europe, are shortening their own life by 36 months on average. But who lives in the large red coloured areas can’t consider himself lucky either.

Less fascinating than the map of solar irradiation I showed in a recent post, isn’t it?

The real question is: what are we waiting for? Which other signal should Mother Earth send us before we stop killing her and ourselves?

Happy Earth Day…