LumOrienta with the environment

by Alessandro Ferrua

“Environment, infinite resources or renewable energy?”, this was the title of the discussion held during the morning of Friday, November 12 at the Great Hall of the Rectorate of the University Lum Jean Monnet, on the second open day planned for this cycle of LumOrienta. «For a couple of years orientation meetings for high school students have been held here, whose contents are related to the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Law of the private University Lum of Casamassima, a town in the province of Bari», in the South of Italy, says Marilena Rodi, the head of communications for the University.

During the orientation sessions topics will be addressed that inform, sensitize and educate the public. There are many different themes. In past editions, for example, «we talked about the mafia, the story of Falcone-Borsellino, delinquency, and during the week that preceded the meeting of Friday, we tackled the case of immigration and its landings and centers on Lampedusa island, from the point of view of international law», says Marilena Rodi, and all the subjects studied are related to the Faculty of Economics and Law.

For this reason we decided to talk about the environment, waste, energy and communication. In the meeting in Friday morning Roberto Cavallo, the consultant of the European Union and the Ministry of the Environment and President of Aica (the International Association for Environmental Communication) took the floor, with Claudia Apostolo, a journalist for Rai 3 for ‘Ambiente Italia’ and Angelo Russo, and a Professor of Business Management at the University of Lum Jean Monnet and the University Bocconi of Milan, who acted as a moderator.

Roberto Cavallo has stressed the importance of communication in the environmental field, particularly as the issue of sustainability can be «an opportunity for a new style of communication, focusing on the style currently in vogue in the Anglo Saxon world is that of “how-to” that is to work through direct testimony that teaches people how to do a certain thing, which is very useful for the target audience of environmental communication who want real answers to frequent questions about how to change things themselves».

Claudia Apostolo has dealt for many years with waste, transport, landscape protection, environmental damage, biodiversity and sustainable building for ‘Ambiente Italia’. During the discussion views were expressed on the issue of renewable energies, considering the «opportunities they offer, in key environmental and entrepreneurial sectors, especially in Puglia, the first region to support a green economy” and the critical dates of the “landscape impact of wind farms».

Of particular note, «The purpose of the ‘AzzeroCO2’ which together with Legambiente has launched the ‘Province Eternit Free’ (a project aimed at reducing the use of harmful building materials), to clean up asbestos roofs and replace them with photovoltaic systems, which started a month ago by the Province of Lecce, but with the intention to expand the initiative throughout the country».

This was the last training day of LumOrienta for the current year. In March of next year meetings will resume with new issues to be addressed along with several invited experts from the University of Casamassima.