WHERE DO WE LIVE?
We all live in a spaceship called Earth.

WHY IT IS A SPACESHIP?
Because it travels in the space at 29,6 km/sec and it is characterised by a special cabin, called TROPOSPHERE, rich in oxygen, that provides us life.

HOW BIG IS THE EARTH SPACESHIP?
About 12.714 km. Many people believe the earth is an immense thing, but actually it is not.

HOW MUCH DOES THE PRESSURED CABIN WHERE WE LIVE MEASURE?
The area of atmosphere from which we get the oxygen we need extends 12km from the earth’s surface. This is a very small vital area. The light-blue sign in the picture indicates our pressured cabin. If we respected the real proportions, such line would be even thinner, almost invisible. This gives you an idea of how limited is the vital area we live in.

As we consider this fact very important we will try to represent our troposphere’s dimensions through other examples:

Let’s imagine a rubber ball drenched with a wet rag. The water veil that remains corresponds, proportionally, to the depth of atmosphere that enables us to survive.

If we vertically arrange the distance between the Olympic Stadium and the Sporting Palace (Roma), we will obtain the real height of our pressured cabin.

DOES IT SEEM  IMPOSSIBLE TO YOU THAT IT IS SO SMALL?
Unfortunately, it is like that. For this reason, we have to learn to respect our minimal living space.

Conversely, today our behaviour is that of many astronauts inside their cabin burning resources and breathing the consequent toxic emissions, without respect even for the covering that protects us from the outside. 

If we continue in this way, we would be remembered in the next one hundred years as the crazy ones that consumed all the petrol, destroyed all the forests, caused the extinction of biodiversity, polluted the air, the water, the heart and damaged the protective covering of the planet. The crazy had made consumption their life-style.

WHAT IS THE EARTH’S PROTECTIVE COVERING?
It is a protective stratus covering the troposphere with the function of defending human beings from ultraviolet solar rays. Such covering is called OZONE.

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE DON’T RESPECT THE INTEGRITY OF OUR OZONE COVERING?
Unfortunately, for years we have used and still are using gases that punch this protective covering, so that the sun’s ultraviolet rays can penetrate the spaceship, with serious damage for our health as well as for the integrity of all living species.

Once the size and importance of our pressured cabin is understood,  let’s consider now they way we accumulate CARBON DIOXIDE in it.

WHAT IS THE CARBON DIOXIDE?
The carbon dioxide is a gas that is formed in the combustion processes, from the union of the carbon, which is contained in the fuels, with two atoms of oxygen that are in the atmosphere.

C + O2 = CO2 carbon + oxygen = carbon dioxide of the troposphere

HOW MANY KG OF CARBON DIOXIDE ARE PRODUCED EVERY YEAR ON THE EARTH?
About 29.000 billion kg (data of 1994)*

WHO PRODUCES SUCH AMOUNT OF CO2?
12.650 billion kig come from the industrialised countries, where about 1 billion people live. 10.350 billion kg are produced by the rest of the world which counts a population of 5 billion. 6.000 billion kg derive from the tropical forests’ combustion.*
* World Resources Institute from the book "Futuro Sostenibile", Wuppertal Institut, EMI, Bologna, 1997.

IS ALL THE CARBON DIOXIDE LET OUT IN OUR SMALL VITAL SPACE THEN ELIMINATED?
Only half of the carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere is then absorbed by the oceans and forests. The other half is more and more accumulated inside our spaceship.

The data analysed are so impressive as extraneous to a single person’s life.  Each of us perceives the gravity of the environmental processes, but tends to avoid any responsibilities.   Now on, we aim to make the single individual aware of his/her own impact on the environment, weighing the amount of carbon dioxide of whom he/she is direct responsible.

HOW MUCH CO2 A PERSON LIVING IN A WESTERN COUNTRY DAILY PRODUCES WITH ALL HIS/HER ACTIVITIES AND COMSUMPTIONS?
In average, a person is daily responsible for34 kg of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere. That is an amount corresponding to half of his/her weight. 

HOW CAN AN INDIVIDUAL PRODUCE SUCH AMOUNT OF CO2?
Let’s make some examples.

• To make 1 Kg of bread corresponds to produce 0,4 kg of CO2
• To keep a bulp alight for 4 hours equals to produce 0,2 kg of CO2.
  
• To take a shower means to emette 1 kg of CO2 in the atmosphere, that is the same impact of using the dishwasher
  
• To keep a refrigerator working generates 40 gr of CO2 per hour.
  
• To drive for 10km with a car that works with petrol, assuming that its performance is 13 km with 1 litre, corresponds to emit 2 kg of CO2.
  
• Each kg of petrol burned is transformed into 2,6 kg of CO2, as the carbon inside the petrol combines with 2 molecule of oxygen which are in the atmosphere and have its same weight.
  
• To warm a 60-squared-metre flat in winter, contributes to an emission of 20 kg of CO2 per day. 

HOW MUCH CO2 DO WE PRODUCE BREATHING?
The amount emitted with our breathing is not significant (0,8 kg per day).

WHICH EFFECTS DOES THE CO2 EACH PERSON PRODUCES CAUSE TO THE ENVIRONMENT?
One of the major damages is the GREENHOUSE EFFECT, of whom C02 is responsible for the 50%.

WHAT IS THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT?
In order to understand the characteristics of the greenhouse effect, it is important to analyse the normal condition of the Earth.  During the day, the earth surface  accumulates the heat coming from the sun. During the night, the heat is spread in the space.

The excessive concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere determines, instead, a sort of cape that impedes the expulsion of the heat accumulated durino the day.

The consequent effect is equivalent to the one obtained inside a greenhouse.

WHAT IS THE INDUSTRY RESPONSABLE FOR?
The industry is seriously responsible for the greenhouse effect, as it makes use of a lot of energy with consequent huge emissions of CO2.

HOW DOES THE INDUSTRY BEHAVE?
Every industry, small and big, needs some suppliers. From them, it receive a service that it regularly pays for. Only to the ‘supplier nature’ the industry does not give anything. In change of the oxygen necessary for the combustion and production of energy,  the nature receives only toxic emissions. In this way, the industry increases a huge debt towards the environment, an obligation that the future generations will inherit.

CAN THE INDUSTRY PAY ITS DEBT?
Sure it can, but some commitment is needed. The producers can delete the effect produced by the CO2 they emit for their activities by financing specific depurators for the conversion of CO2 into oxygen.

BUT DOES A DEPURATOR OF CO2 REALLY EXIST?
Every system of this kind would need energy to work therefore oxygen. An energetic dispense that would stand for a new CO2 emission, deleting any positive effect. On the other side, nature helps us by providing a very efficient factory of oxygen: the tree.
In fact, the tree completely works with solar energy, using the CO2 as a raw material, emitting oxygen as a production waste and providing wood as a final product, representing the most eco-friendly depurator ever existed. 

BUT IS IT TRUE THAT DURING THE NGHT HOURS THE TREE PRODUCES CO2 AND CONSUMES OXYGEN?
The tree works for 2 phases: during the day hours the photosynthesis process takes place, a process in which the tree absorbs CO2 and emits oxygen. During the night hours there is the opposite effect. The balance of the two phases is extremely favourable to the photsynthesis, so that the final effect is the absorption of CO2 and emission of oxygen.

HOW CAN THE INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN ACT?
The individual citizen can follow 3 different ways:

1. To reduce consumptions;
2. to adopt a buying behaviour oriented to eco-friendly products and processes; 
3. to promote reforestation locally and internationally.

HOW MANY TREES DOES A WESTERN CITIZEN NEED TO PLANT IN ORDER TO TRANSFORM THE CO2 DAILY PRODUCED?
(The data refer to a wood in phase of growth). The result was obtained by a general average. Actually, if reforestation takes place in the equatorial areas where the growth is faster than the average and does not depend by the season, the data are much more optimistic.

IN ORDER TO KEEP THIS BALACE, DOES EACH PERSON NEED TO REPLANT 0.78 HECTARES OF WOOD PER YEAR?
No, because a replanted wood continues its depuration process for all the growing process (about 100 years). Once its life-cycle ends, the wood produced, rich in carbon encompassed by the CO2, will have to be used for long-term commitments (furniture, houses, etc.). In fact, its potential combustion would cause the re-inlet of carbon in the environment as CO2, determining the failure of the whole process.

ARE THERE ANY COMPANIES THAT HAVE PAID THEIR DEPT WITH NATURE BY FINANCING OXYGEN FACTORIES?
Among the firms, there is a new simple emerging concept: if we do not save the environment and the chances of life, for whom we will produce in the future? Such vision might seem quite selfish but, fortunately, it pushes companies to make a change and to actively take part to the environmental safeguard. A new attitude that satisfies the need of preserving a market opportunity and stands for a precise moral: that family bond that makes us wishing a better future for our children.

HERE IS A COMPANY THAT HAS STARTED TO PAY ITS DEPT WITH NATURE

The furniture manufacture mainly involves the consumption of wood and oxygen taken from the environment. Since a few years, Valcucine has began to pay its dept, restoring the raw materials. With two reforestation projects, this firm balances the resources taken from nature by replanting as many trees as the amount needed to compensate the CO2 emissions and the wood consumption.
Such projects has revealed how it is possible to accomplish the difficult compromise between environmental ethic and a profit-oriented strategy.
The replanting projects have been carried out thanks to BIOFOREST, the association for the renovation of the natural landscapes, and with the financial contribution of Valcucine as well as other firms and individuals sensitive to the environmental issues. Currently, Bioforest is managing three projects: operation Otonga in the Amazon forest, and the Vinchiaruzzo and Occhione projects in Italy.