Comments on: Italian Town Runs On 100% Renewable Power

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:31:02 +0000

Yes – very true. Not even close to Varese. And much smaller. Mmm. The heading of the article is what’s wrong, or at least the first line of the main text…

By: Costanza

Costanza — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:48:19 +0000

ok, people, please stop calling it just “varese”
Its name is “varese ligure” and the “ligure” is there because there’s a bigger town called Varese. Unfortunately, that town isn’t 100% eco.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:37:36 +0000

Actually Andrew, some of us did understand that…

(North) America’s a great place with great people and great eco-projects. We need you in this too!

We Europeans understand sarcasm perfectly as we invented it

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:43:50 +0000

All of you Europeans must not understand sarcasm. Joe was emphasizing how many Americans consider the country modern, when in fact a small town in Italy exceeds all of America with regards to renewable energy. He was making fun of his own country.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:55:11 +0000

Ian -

For sure. The thing is, people have a habit of using threads to, sometimes, poke at each-other. Such a waste of time.
I would like to be optimistic about all of this but I’m not. We have been badly trained and are far too used to wasting instead of conserving, too used to pointing the finger and too much in the habit of thinking there is nothing to be done on an individual basis. Americans AND Europeans are consumers and live in a high-consumption society. That’s very difficult to change.

By: Ian

Ian — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 11:05:15 +0000

I would like to add that instead of attacking each other over what probably wasn’t intended in a negative way, but what appear to be just complimentary comments in actual fact, and whether or not one’s geography is up to scratch, we ought to focus on what IS important: The planet!
When one talks about eco villages, and the skill and know-how in setting up and running them, the US follows Scandinavia, and in many respects leads the UK (where I am). However, each country has its merits in the environmental camp, and we should all work together and exchange our knowledge – which we do, but need to do more. ‘Modern’ day society is backward in many ways, when it’s so out of touch with nature. It works against nature rather than with it. We have much to learn from the many indigenous peoples of this world. We ought to listen intently to how they live, and marry this with technology of our societies in an appropriate way. If planned properly, and from an environmental impact stance, instead of big business profits first, then we can all crack this together.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:38:57 +0000

Well, I’m off to live there in July. For good. My sister’s there already and I have the whole plan sorted

Don’t be hard on Joe. I don’t think he meant any harm. We (Europeans) are too quick to condemn North Americans for voting an idiot twice. Look What Italians voted three times. B O visited a turbine factory on the first day of his term in office. Burluscrappy went to a beauty parlour.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:54:02 +0000

Carl, that’s a pretty ignorant thing to say. You don’t realize how large America is and how we are represented by people who don’t really care about much more than themselves. You’d be surprised to learn that most of the population under 30 in the States are focused greatly on renewable resources and sustainable agriculture. Check yoself fo you wreck yoself bitch

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:07:08 +0000

I lived 30km from Varese in Busto Arsizio for six weeks in 2007. What a shame that I didn’t know about their green credentials! I would have loved to have seen as much as possible. A stunning example of why it’s important to know what’s going on in your local area

By: Zoë

Zoë — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:43:56 +0000

Perhaps instead of insulting Joe people need to read that he said he wishes he had politicians like those in Varese!

There are examples of towns in the US taking action, and there are examples in the UK too (where I am) but there’s no way that we can describe the UK as leading the way in fighting climate change either.

Not knowing the geography of europe is irrelevant to this discussion.

Less talking, more action, both in the UK and the US is needed!