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Last October 3rd the workers of Magneti Marelli's Crevalcore plant went on strike against the intention, declared by the managers, to close the plant.After the mobilization of both the unions and local and national politicians, the company decided to suspend the closure procedure. Although Magneti Marelli mainly deals with batteries, the Crevalcore plant still works on internal combustion engine components.For this reason, the managers claim, there has been a decline in turnover in recent years which has made the closure of the plant essential. The crisis of Crevalcore's Magneti Marelli, in fact, cannot be seen as an isolated case, but as a failure of our country's strategy in keeping up with electric mobility.This while the rest of the world has decided to take the challenge seriously, even if more for geopolitical rivalries and electoral opportunities. What we talk about in this article:China's leap and America's responseThe USA, Biden and the electric car as a symbol of re...

“After years of tenacious efforts, the sky in our country is bluer, the land is greener, the water is clearer, the colors of our country's many mountains and rivers are more vivid.”Whether we're talking about the environment or the economy, China's narratives around its environmental efforts are not short of poetry.On Wednesday, July 18, Washington's climate envoy, John Kerry, prepared to leave Beijing after three days of meetings without concrete results.In those hours, in another room of the capital, Chinese President Xi Jinping he pronounced his closing speech at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection.As many expected, 72 hours were not enough to mend a dialogue on the climate that both powers like to mention without however realizing their intentions. However, the reopening of dialogue between the two countries could in itself be good news, as underlined also from Kerry:“We had very frank conversations, we came here to break new ground.”It's clear w...

The agreement concluded overnight by the world states brings the "30x30" goal closer:protect 30% of the oceans by 2030

Hundreds of industrial facilities with toxic pollutants were in Hurricane Helene’s path as the powerful storm flooded communities across the Southeast in late September 2024. Near the coast and into Georgia, Helene swept over paper mills, fertilizer factories and oil and gas storage facilities. Paper mills are among the most polluting industries on the planet – some with thousands of pounds of lead on-site from prior production practices. Florida officials reported that a retired nuclear power plant just south of Cedar Key experienced a storm surge of as much as 12 feet that inundated buildings and an industrial wastewater pond. Spent nuclear fuel stored at the site, which also flooded during Hurricane Idalia in 2023, was believed to be secure, Bloomberg reported. Further inland, the storm dumped more than a foot of rain on industrial sites in the Carolinas and Tennessee, some near waterways that quickly flooded with runoff from the mountains....

Hurricane Helene’s flooding has subsided, but health risks are growing in hard-hit regions of the North Carolina mountains, where many people lost access to power and clean water. More than 180 deaths across the Southeast had been attributed to Hurricane Helene within days of the late September 2024 storm, according to The Associated Press, and hundreds of people remained unaccounted for. In many areas hit by flooding, homes were left isolated by damaged roads and bridges. Phone service was down. And electricity was likely to be out for weeks. As a disaster epidemiologist and a native North Carolinian, I have been hearing stories from the region that are devastating. Contaminated water is one of the leading health risks, but residents also face harm to mental health, stress that exacerbates chronic diseases and several other threats. Water risks: What you can’t see can hurt you Access to clean water is one of the most urgent health concerns after a flood. People ne...