The pressing interest of American, Chinese, European and Italian multinationals in the sun and wind of Sardinia does not aim to make productive investments capable of creating collective wealth and spreading well-being on a local scale, but to exploit the natural resources for speculative purposes for the benefit of the their budgets , regardless of the deformation, decay and destruction of the island's last strategic resource: the landscape.
These individuals do not come here to invest to create jobs and spread well-being, as happens with the good entrepreneurial initiatives they activate with their capital, but not here. They come here to squeeze public contributions for the use of natural resources such as sun and wind, even though it means destroying the last remaining vital resource.
Borrowers are, in our case, attracted by the incentive system that allows them to create value of over 120 billion euros despite the devastation of what is beautiful and unique they find here. This is the result that looms, dramatic for the Island and prosperous for these subjects, if wind farms on land and at sea were even partially authorized and installed and photovoltaic panels spread over tens of thousands of hectares of our territory.
The connection requests received by Terna would be sufficient to satisfy the energy needs of over 50 million inhabitants, when the resident inhabitants amount to not even 1.6 million, and are progressively and rapidly decreasing, so much so that it is estimated that in 2065 they will be slightly less of 1.2 million.
The disproportion between local energy needs, even prospective ones, and the claim to want to use Sardinia as a platform to satisfy energy needs and economic appetites that have nothing to do with the Sardinian population, which, on the contrary, would see it irremediably compromised and mortified, is evident. the right to continue its arduous journey towards sustainable economic development and modernity.
If we allow the approval and subsequent implementation of the plans in progress, it will no longer be possible to enjoy the gentle profile of hills and mountains, fertile plains and marine horizons as we know them, at times even exciting. We will no longer be able to gratify our spirit with the sight of the beauty of Creation, a privilege reserved for those who were born here or have chosen to come here on holiday or reside here.
We should all ask ourselves what more needs to be done to awaken awareness and the will to react to this abuse in those who, immersed in beauty, will otherwise realize its rarity when they have lost it. What more can be done so that local and national decision-makers stop the impending damage, taking on the responsibility of adopting all the corresponding measures. What more can be done to safeguard the collectively owned asset constituted by the landscape, of inestimable economic value because it is scarce, limited in quantity and non-reproducible, once destroyed. And what should we finally do to avoid, as has often happened, benefiting others and harming ourselves by allowing us to do in our own home what those new colonizers would never allow in their own home.
Our future
Deep down, they consider us to be naive. I mean, stupid. And they despise us, too, because even on the vital issues that concern the future of the young and old of this place we make a spectacle of ourselves by dividing, fragmenting and even atomising ourselves, quite happy to favor borrowers who come from outside to the detriment of home-grown entrepreneurs, who would never dream of causing similar damage to their Earth. An indecent show, because we are not stupid. No more than they themselves are. Naive yes, not smart like them.
For these elementary reasons, an important information and public awareness campaign was launched with a special edition of L'Unione Sarda on 13 March 2022, edited by the editorial staff of our media, with the aim of stopping the massacre. landscape and make our countrymen protagonists in the defense of the wonderful home garden: Sardinia.
The voice of the Island
Since then, awareness has grown among the Sardinian people, in the towns and cities, in the mayors and institutions at different levels, also thanks to spontaneous citizens' committees that arose as awareness grew, as well as to the intense activity of the members of the Committee for Insularity in the Constitution, all in defense of the landscape of Sardinia.
And let's get to the point.
The effort of President Todde and her council is commendable for having developed a measure which, in the intentions, should have the saving power to stop the ongoing wind and photovoltaic assault.
Commendable because for the first time an attempt is being made to give an answer to a vital question for the Island, which is appreciable for the courage shown, aware as we are that there are quite a few subjects interested in pushing for this massacre - not exactly for philosophical purposes - be fulfilled.
But let's tell ourselves the truth, in a frank and transparent way, without pretenses, hypocrisies, salaams and cunning typical of the old and cloying politics of cheap and a plate of lentils, often at work here. Let's say it, as is appropriate between serious people, and with respect for their respective roles, when the interests and vital rights of the Sardinian population are at stake, as in this case. Telling us the truth is a need of the soul and a moral duty: we were born, raised and became adults here; many of us have absorbed positive fundamental values that have always accompanied us and contribute to the formation of the good things we are or have done in life; we are children of this wonderful place from which we have inherited the wonders that nature, or the good God, has reserved for us, not to allow its destruction but to preserve them and hand them over to future generations, so that they can enjoy them at least as much as we have been granted .
The proposed measure, if not modified in depth in the Regional Council, will produce exactly what the multinationals want: the construction of a very large part of the wind and photovoltaic parks requested from Terna.
Avoid disaster
The idea of stopping, from today, the installation of the systems for 18 months without stopping the authorization process of the projects presented will allow, once the deadline has expired, devastation due to the myriad of titles released in the meantime. Devastation impossible to stop: no one will risk damaging acquired rights by exposing themselves to claims for compensation for damages to themselves and the treasury. And it will be disaster.
To have a minimal idea of what will happen for wind power, just go to Tergu and take the road towards Nulvi and Ploaghe: a forest of hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines has attacked the hills and valleys of those beautiful places, devastating the natural landscape as experienced for millennia by those who preceded us. Or just go to Uta, under Mount Arcosu, where photovoltaic panels have been installed on hundreds of hectares, thus removing millions of square meters of fertile land from agricultural activity.
No to pressure
What is therefore of interest today is whether the will to stop the havoc that is looming is genuine or not, whether one is able to resist the pressures involved or not, whether one has the concrete, practical, operational will to stop authorizations and installations or no.
If, as I hope, and as it seems from the spirit of the measure just launched, the response is positive, we take the liberty of suggesting some directions that the Region should quickly explore to improve and make the approved measure effective when it is converted into a Regional Council.
1 – Judge Sergio Mattarella of the Constitutional Court, now President of the Republic, wrote in a sentence in 2014 to “Prevent the massive installation of (wind) plants from nullifying the high values involved, all relating to protection, especially landscape, of the territory". The President was right: exactly what he had far-sightedly feared would happen is happening. That ruling is a pillar to take into account, whatever we do.
2 – The Constitutional Court has repeatedly reiterated that the implementation rules of the special Statute of the autonomous region of Sardinia regarding "Building and urban planning" concern, in addition to strictly urban planning functions, also those relating to cultural and environmental heritage. This opens up another important window, worthy of being explored in depth: let's think of the network of nuraghi which, if taking into account the necessary distances from the archaeological assets for the installation sites, very little would remain as a suitable area.
3 – Although enthusiasts of sophisticated interpretations of rules and sentences are always active to deny Sardinia's right to exercise its statutory and constitutional prerogatives, it remains however that the Region has exclusive legislative power in matters of construction and urban planning and, within the limits of the principles established by state laws regarding the production and distribution of electricity. Agricultural areas, woods, forests and connection points with the mainland for off-shore wind power can be safeguarded by an urban planning law that prescribes a ban on authorizing and installing and/or connecting wind or photovoltaic parks, exactly as the urban planning law requires. today the ban on tripling the volumes in historic centers or building residential complexes in agricultural areas. Completely legitimate prohibitions that no one can contest, deriving from the constitutional rule of 1948.
4 – Meritorious work has been carried out by the Sardinia TAR with exemplary rulings on specific landscape and environmental issues, including the one which established that 98.8% of the island's territory is affected by environmental, landscape and historical and artistic heritage constraints and archaeological, to be considered unsuitable for wind and photovoltaic installations. The comforting impression is that there is a Judge in Cagliari, to whom clear and binding rules must be made available for the defense of the landscape and the environment.
5 – Promote the creation and diffusion of energy communities to produce energy from renewable sources for self-consumption, covering the roofs of public buildings, factories, laboratories, private homes and farms with photovoltaic panels. And allow the construction of the backbone for the distribution of methane, and in the future of hydrogen, unfortunately prevented a few years ago, to finally achieve the equalization of energy tariffs with those of the continent, resulting in savings of 30/40% on bills of Sardinian families and companies.
There's no more time
Other solutions, equally valid, would require the state a long time to initiate, develop and conclude complex approval procedures, paths to be initiated and defined with the necessary consent of the populations involved. But there's no time. If the will expressed is real, as we hope and think, the Region has the moral and political obligation to intervene decisively and effectively, with urgency and immediacy, aiming precisely at On Shore and Off Shore photovoltaic and wind power, to stem the effects harmful to the decree on Sardinia prepared by Cingolani and signed by Draghi.
Otherwise we will all be responsible, each for the role played, for the landscape and economic devastation and impoverishment of Sardinia.
