Who knows if Lewis Hamilton, the undisputed king of world formula one, was told where the wheels of his environmentally-friendly electric-powered SUV just landed in Sardinia will turn. His team, led by rally legend Sébastien Loeb, is already on the battlefield. War in the true sense of the word, not for the contest for the world title of "Extreme E", the international competition that should promote respect for the environment, but for the proscenium, as exclusive as it is forbidden, in which, between today and tomorrow, the crews of the great electric SUV circus face each other. They, pilots and navigators, know nothing and will let them know nothing. They have deluded them that that arid ground, marked by deep wounds and violent scars, is the terrestrial effect of climate change. The images of the drones, in a sky that has always been forbidden, let you glimpse those repeated and paired furrows on the ground, as unusual as the most inexplicable, which indelibly mark Capo Teulada, the extreme edge of Sardinia towards Africa.
Land of conquest
Those white beaches, that apparently untouched celestial sea, are the land of conquest of the armies of half the world, which there, among nuraghi demolished by missiles and bulldozers, junipers and strawberry trees devastated by the scurry of polluting crawlers, have set fire to that oasis that was enchanted. Who knows if Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the most popular names in the pompous press releases of the event, have whispered that there, in those lands fenced off with barbed wire, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Cagliari has hoarded up radioactive war remnants. In the propaganda proclamations of the event, imbued with Franciscan bliss, the protection of Posidonia and Montiferru, hit by the devastating fires of this summer, is declaimed.
Radioactive presence
Certainly, in the great circus of formula one of the electric rally, which landed in Sardinia complete with a green ship, no one knows that Cisam, the radiological center of the Ministry of Defense, has put pen to paper a dramatic truth: in that polygon it was "Detected the presence of radioactive contamination in some areas used as strike arrival areas for the fire exercises carried out with the MILAn missile". To the pilots who run at high speed, with the roar cut off by the electric motor, among those unlikely circuits marked by the war tracks, no one has reported the minutes of the Public Prosecutor's Office. Yet, perhaps, in the security documents of the Polygon, it is also foreseen that anyone who enters that hell must be aware of the dangers he runs and the precautions he should follow.
Safety manual
In that hypothetical manual that they do not even let the military read, let alone the environmentalist drivers of electric SUVs, it should be written, for example, that "between December 2013 and October 2014 they were found in some areas of the polygon , Braccaxius, Seddas de Crobeddu, Porto Cogolidos, and subjected to seizure, metal fragments attributable to the aforementioned weapon system on which gamma radiation measurements above the natural background were detected. Radioactive waste, according to the Prosecutor's Office, not dry undifferentiated. Meanwhile, from Capo Teulada, the first social images of that event prohibited to everyone, Sardinians first, leave over the air.
Military marketing
The operation is designed at the table: functional marketing to convey the idea that in a military polygon, moreover under investigation for environmental disaster, in reality, everything is nice and clean, so much so that it can relaunch "controlled" images live in the world of an uncontaminated oasis that does not exist. The reality, on the other hand, is quite another. Nobody will be able to enter that enclosure precluded by barbed wire. We are at the paradox: a rally event prohibited to the public, despite being in the open air, in large spaces and in a period in which even the stadiums have reopened their gates. In Teulada, however, no. All closed and armored. The television crews, for example, those without exclusive rights, will not be able to enter for any reason on the field of competition, or rather of war.
Forbidden to Sardinians
All prohibited, as befits places where you can't poke your nose. Envoys will be forced to talk about silent engines, which do not pollute and smile at the environment. In these days, in the pre-reportage on the event, there are those who have dared to tell that Capo Teulada is the Amazon of Extreme E, the world championship for electric SUVs. It may be that the Sardinian stage was born after canceling the Brazilian one due to Covid, but certainly the choice of a military polygon to represent an environmental philosophy is like arguing that tanks are used to plow the fields and missiles to fertilize them.
Parade sponsor
In this electric-military parade, the exceptional sponsor could not be missing, Enel in person, who took the field to promote the invasion of the land of the nuraghi with devastating wind turbines, turning off power plants and connecting the island with a subspecies of submarine electric cable-leash up to Sicily and Campania. Yet, to enchant with pseudo environmentalist deeds, even the state electricity body which became a joint stock company, has chosen to share the "emotions" with none other than the Ministry of Defense, the absolute protagonist of this military-ecological marketing operation. After all, after allowing Prada to transform forbidden beaches into fashion catwalks, the generals could not fail to be fascinated by the electric formula one.
Indictment
All useful for groped to cancel, at least in the collective imagination, the request of the Judge for the preliminary investigations, Maria Alessandra Tedde, to indict all the defense leaders responsible for the environmental disaster. Someone, what happened to Teulada, will also have to explain it to the new climatologist Alejandro Agag, founder and administrator of Extreme E, known in the world gossip for being the son-in-law of the former Spanish Prime Minister Josè Maria Aznar. Agag, explaining the championship project, flew high, coming close to the ionosphere, with statements that are more suited to Bernacca than to an organizer of an electric rally in one of the most devastated areas of Sardinia. His words are a whole program: "The island has suffered from the climate crisis."
860 thousand shots
No one has certainly explained to him that the polygon chosen for this para-environmental event was literally bombed, between 2008 and 2016, by 860,000 fire shots, including 11,875 missiles, equal to 556 tons of dangerous war material. The motor racing competition, born with the ambition to raise public awareness on environmental issues, could, on the other hand, be a profitable opportunity to raise awareness of the immense environmental devastation enacted in Sardinia. A polygon where you bomb from land, sea and even from the air. Wonderful stacks shattered by bombs and missiles, islets canceled as if there were no tomorrow, extraordinary beaches forbidden to Sardinians and not only, used to make us play tanks and amphibious vehicles. Today and tomorrow, however, it is the turn of electric SUVs.
Tourism prohibited
Anyone who imagines a tourist and image return should not be deceived. Promoting a war polygon, banned 365 days a year, devastated as if we were in Iraq, despite being dotted with enchanted beaches and exclusive dunes, is like selling an illusion. Someone explain to Hamilton and Rosberg that that polygon protected by a net and barbed wire is the exact opposite of environmental protection. That electric rally, complete with state pomp, is, unfortunately, just the umpteenth attempt to hide the crimes of a forbidden and raped land, from bombs and missiles of all kinds.
