March 07, 2009

Give a big kiss to Florence

Last night I was interviewed live on air by the SkyTG24 news service. This is something that hasn’t happened to me in the past fifteen years! Here is an extract of the video text.

Journalist: “So, as we promised, I would like to welcome Beppe Grillo who is joining us live on air on Nightline SkyTg24. Good evening Beppe, thank you for joining us”.
Beppe: “Thank you, Thank you indeed. Finally, after fifteen years, here I am live on the television. You are only the second the second lot of people filming me live, after the Police’s General Investigation and Special Operations Unit, that is. So everything is okay. On top of it all, your TV channel is absolutely extraordinary, you almost feel like family. ‘Gino, have you seen this? Hi Cinzia! How are you? Are you there? Say hi to Davide …’ I don’t know why it is, but I don’t know what to say. There are billions of things that I would like to talk about. I have not given a live interview on television since 1993. But I want to be brief because we are busy putting together something that has been five years in the making and that will maybe come to fruition in Florence on Sunday.
We have spoken about the Civic Lists. Has anyone perhaps heard about the Civic Lists, the Meetups, the Blog… It is something that began five years ago. I was working as a comedian at the time and then I learned about Meetups and Blogs in the United States. I proceeded to set up a blog and, thanks to the participation of thousands of people, of informed citizens, we became the seventh biggest Blog in the world of one billion users worldwide, that is according to Forbes.
The Web is busy changing the world as we know it, with the social networks, with Facebook, with MySpace and with the Blogs. The Internet is changing people’s lives. ”
Journalist: “Because of your attitude regarding the Internet and technology, certain people have labelled you as the Italian Obama. This is certainly not because of your skin colour.”
Beppe: “Obama is copying me. He is copying all of us. I’m not joking. Obama has risen to stardom thanks to the Web. He posts potential new laws on the Web and allows ten days for people to discuss these laws before signing them. He is a man of the people and he is financed by the people. His very first speech was posted on Youtube and his support base is the people. It is a down-up, or upside down democracy. Here in Italy we have a total impasse and we are in the middle of a crisis that will provide a severe beating to these psychodwarfs, dancers, gnomes, elves and friends of friends. We are raving mad. There is a general economic and political madness all around us. The parties have disappeared. When I said that the parties were busy dying, they accused me of practicing anti-politics. Do you remember? Yet now they have all disappeared. They disappeared because they never really existed in the first place. There was no real left wing, there was no real right wing and there was no real opposition. All that there was, was a general taking the piss out of millions of citizens. Elections were held without the voters being able to choose their preferred candidate. We are sitting with 18 sentenced criminals still in our Parliament. The outlaws are making the laws. We have about one hundred more that are already found guilty and awaiting appeals, awaiting trial, statute barred offenders and plea-bargainers. You name them and we have them. Our Parliament has become little more than a rubbish dump.
Journalist: “You have clearly jumped in with both feet and immediately started talking about important political issues.”
Beppe: “No, this is not politics. I’m talking about toxic and hazardous waste. This is not politics. Politics involves overturning the status quo. It means sending the parties home. Informed citizens, with helmets. Informed citizens that draft civic lists. Civic lists, getting into City Hall. That is where the quality of life of the citizens is decided. In the various Municipalities.”
Journalist: “Okay. Let’s start here then. On Sunday, in Florence, you will be presenting you “Civic Lists for a New Renaissance” as you have called them. Many young candidates and, above all, people with certain very precise characteristics required in order to become a part of this project.”
Beppe: “Yes, that is the idea behind these Civic Lists. They grew partly out of the Meetups, which are groups of people that work with me and share my vision, in fact our vision. These are real 5-Star Civic Lists. We are discussing the real issues, real politics. We talk about the recycling of refuse, we talk about door-to-door differentiated refuse collection rather than about incinerators, we talk about WiFi and about free, unlimited connectivity. We talk about. That is the madness of these people, who are spending millions that they don’t have in the first place, on infrastructure that is totally absurd and they will never be built. Because mobility has nothing to with getting some trucks across bridges, corridor five or linking Turkey with the Ukraine. They are going insane. The mobility of the future is all about moving as little as possible. All about circulating ideas. The Internet is mobility. […] There is a 27-year old from Treviso that has developed a huge following thanks to two ideas. He currently earns 250 Euro per month and he lives in the district of Treviso, a pretty large municipality. This young man has done two things: firstly he organised differentiated refuse collection at 90 schools, at no cost to either the municipality or to the schools themselves. Secondly, he devised an open source software programme. Via Skype and with only one call, any resident of Treviso can now make contact with the person that can solve his/her problem, without having to climb in the car and drive anywhere, thus increasing the traffic jams. Via Skype, only one chat on Skype. At no cost to the municipality. We have forty-thousand such ideas. Free access to the Internet …”
Journalist: “Why is it so difficult to get these ideas off the ground when these ideas could be coming from small local councils?”
Beppe: “We start from the other end. We start from the communities. We have launched a “breathe down their necks” campaign. Currently it is like a resident who goes to his own home, where he finds his employees holding a meeting to discuss his life and gamble with his property and his quality of life, yet they don’t even allow him in to the meeting. The residents would like to attend these meetings, film the proceedings and post them on the Web. When these people are filmed and exposed on the information highway that is the Web, then everyone will know what games they have been playing, and that is precisely why they don’t want to be filmed. The answer is simple. Let’s get rid of these seventy year old geriatrics. Away with them. Bring in some new blood. Residents that can start in the town councils and then move from there on to the regional councils and perhaps eventually from there into Parliament. We talk about public water. I would like to know what the right wingers and left wingers think about privatising water and allowing it to be owned by some or other “Pty Ltd”. I want to know what they think about WiFi. Our current law is absolutely unbelievable. One you will only find here in Italy, in Burma and in China. The infamous Pisanu Law. I personally watched that half-pint, Pisanu, go on television and make believe that is a democrat. As a matter of fact, with his anti-terrorism law, he succeeded in blocking free WiFi. Go to Paris or to London and you will find people working on their computers in the libraries and in the parks, like in many other cities around the world. We, instead have some very serious shortcomings […]
To summarise what I have said then, there are a number of young people that have been addressing these issues, namely water, incinerators, energy, WiFi, mobility and transportation, in other words the real issues, for the past five years. We have discussed these ideas, debated these ideas with Nobel Prize winners, because that is what they are being called on the Web and, well, these young people will appear on the civic lists. They are nobodies, they are only youngsters. They don’t have a cent, none of us have any money, we are not being financed by anybody and we receive no subsidies. The media is obviously against us. This is my very first television interview. That is why I am so happy and why I’m trying to be brief so that I can explain what has been happening in my life for the past five years. […] I repeat. There will be civic lists. I believe in them because I have put my life and my profession into them. I have put everything on the line for this project. Just as thousands of youngsters and young adults have done, simply because they want to know that they have some good prospects for the future. The civic list are only the first step and it won’t stop there. The process has been slow because we are having to fight against the media, especially the newspapers. But we are like a virus that attacks from below and they will never get rid of us. You can try, but you won’t get rid of us, ever. Thank you for the interview.[…]
Journalist: “Let me add just one final postscript. The time and place of the appointment in Florence?”
Beppe: “The appointment is at the Saschall Theatre in Florence. I will be there from 10 in the morning until late night and there will also be a number of other people making speeches. There will even be some big names. Riccardo Petrella will be talking about water being a public asset, because he is the world’s greatest philosopher on the topic of water. He is a marvellous person and a professor. There will be a number of professors, doctors and journalists talking on the day. Travaglio will be there, as will a number of economists. There will be a number of fantastic people there, the same ones that attended the Vday event, names that you have not even mentioned. We will be leaving the city with the “Florence Bill” in hand, the famous Florence Bill. I have great faith in this city. The Florence Bill will reflect the twelve things that we want to achieve in all our towns, with every civic list under our control. The names on the list must be youngsters with no criminal record and must not have held public office for longer than one term, must be residents of the town that they will be representing politically.”
Journalist: “We will be reporting back on the event, as proven by this, your first interview since 1993. Thank you Beppe Grillo.”
Beppe: “I thank you. Many thanks to you and, as always, to the General Investigation and Special Operations Unit!”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:13 PM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (4)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend

March 06, 2009

5 Star towns: CONNECTIVITY

A person without ears and without a mouth. A monster straight out of a Stephen King novel. This is the Italian citizen without connectivity. Access to information via the Internet must be free, recognized like your ID card. Services via Internet have to be accessible from Castel Volturno to Pizzo Calabro, from the outskirts of Rome to the villages of the Apennines. The Pisanu law that limits the development of Wi-Fi hotspots has to be abolished. The Internet must become like the air. From a park bench or from a bar. From a tunnel on the motorway to a train. Everywhere. The backbone of Internet access has to be separated out from those who provide the services. It has to be returned into public hands, not to Mediaset and it must provide a public service. The towns must consider Internet coverage at the same level as the provision of water. Essential. Vital. For work. For communicating. For community formation. To be informed. The Internet is transparency. Town Council meetings should be filmed by the town council, prepared by the town council and transmitted in live streaming on YouTube. Towns without Internet connection or with limited access speeds are out of the game. The true Digital Divide for work and for information is between the connected towns and the unconnected ones. Connectivity is work. It promotes local services and production. Connectivity is tourism. Connectivity is democracy. Five Star Towns are connected towns.
They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

The national meeting of the Lists of the 5 star towns will be in Florence at the Saschall Theatre on Sunday 8 March 2009.
The Five Stars correspond to five specific areas: Water, Energy, Development, Environment and Transport. Today I’m publishing the article on CONNECTIVITY (DEVELOPMENT). Use the comments facility to send in your thoughts.

Sign up to the national meeting of the 5 star towns on 8 March.

CONNECTIVITY
1. Digital citizenship for every resident.
2. Encourage the introduction of Wimax stations for Mobile and widespread access to the Internet and at the same time, demand the widespread availability of ADSL.
3. Widespread availability of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the territory of a town for maximum coverage, and especially in the areas where most people go.
4. Whenever possible, availability of local authority services via Internet.
5. Public town council meetings in live streaming via Internet.
6. Give incentives for the creation of teleworking areas.
7. By bringing together the different areas of production and of services, provide online promotion of what is on offer in the town.
8. Public access to the Internet in public places, like libraries.
9. Promote courses about computing and the Internet.
10. Equip local schools with Internet access points (PCs, printers etc.) for the scholars and the teachers.

PS. Participate in the 5 Star town forum about Connectivity.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:22 AM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (1)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend

February 25, 2009

5 star towns: WATER

Alex Zanotelli. There’s no water to lose.
On 5 August 2008, water was privatized. A natural right has become merchandise, thanks to the PDL and the silent assent of the PDminusL. It was brought into being by article 23 bis of Giulio Tremorti’s legal legal decree number 112. The water in the hands of private companies costs more (in Aprilia it has managed to cost 300% more) and the level of service is the same as before or worse. If you don’t pay the “pizzo” to the company they disconnect the water meter. Water must remain in public hands. The 5 star towns will have to stop the privatisation of water. A town without water does not exist. Watercourses, streams, brooks and rivers have to be under the control of the town authorities. If it doesn’t manage the prime good, the one that is the most essential for the community, the town council is of no use. The town is not a company.
Step by step they are taking air away from us (poisoned by CO2), the sun (covered up by smog), food (poisoned by toxic waste), water (privatized). What kind of perverse logic is this? Who are these mad folk that take away from us the beauty of living? And why do we continue to let them do this?
They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

The national meeting of the Lists of the 5 star towns will be in Florence at the Saschall Theatre on Sunday 8 March 2009
The Five Stars correspond to five specific areas: Water, Energy, Development, Environment and Transport. Today I am publishing an article about WATER. Use the comments facility to send in your thoughts.

Sign up to the national meeting of the 5 star towns on 8 March.
Programme for 8 March: 9.15 am Registration; 10:00 am Beppe Grillo; Marco Travaglio; Environment/Pallante; Economy/Beppe Scienza; Energy/Boschini; Rubbish and recycling/Incerti; Connectivity/ Anti Digital Divide; Rights of the citizens/Sonia Alfano; Water/Petrella; Presentation of the 5 star towns website; Speeches by the Civic Lists and the Meetups; Conclusion: Beppe Grillo.

WATER
1. Water must remain in public hands
2. Define a daily amount per head that is minimum and free and charge a growing rate on any surplus in relation to the growth in consumption.
3. In buildings that are new or newly restructured: have the obligation to have a double set of pipes, drinking water for use in drinking and preparation of food and non-drinking water for other uses, obligation to use rain water for flushing the toilet.
4. Obligation to recover rain water in collecting tanks
5. Incentives, wherever it is possible, to have a constructed wetland.
6. Restructuring of the water network to reduce leakage , with a tendering process that allows for the transformation of savings on energy costs to pay back the capital investment of the project (as in the model of ESCO)
7. Six-monthly surveys on pollution of water courses throughout the territory of the town with the possibility of denunciation to the relevant authorities.
8. Obligation to make use of water purifiers (in the absence of sewage networks) in residential buildings and in companies with the possibility of a financial contribution from the town authorities.
9. Promotion of the use of the town’s drinking water
10. Promotion of detergents with a low level of pollution
With the collaboration of Maurizio Pallante

PS: Take part in the Forum to discuss issues about water.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 05:08 PM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (8)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend

February 18, 2009

5 Star towns: ENVIRONMENT

Maurizio Pallante: happy degrowth

The environment belongs to everyone. Every aspect of our life can be taken back to the environment: health, transport, construction, agriculture, refuse. The quality of our life is the environment. They want to convince us that life is a good that has value according to the number of years that we live, like merchandise that is valued according to its weight. Quality is not a value in itself. We are the only living being that does not live with zero refuse. We want to consume everything, to eat the earth itself as Terzani said. We know that that is not possible. We know that the environment is not our property, it’s not a product, a derivative, a bond. The environment is us and it is the only true inheritance that we leave to our sons. It’s not a topic for professional politicians, for bankers, for companies with shares. The environment is not money in your hand. The towns cannot make the territory into a prostitute. That s a crime, a wicked thing, perhaps the worst kind.
The national meeting of the Lists of the 5 star towns will be in Florence at the Saschall Theatre on Sunday 8 March 2009
The Five Stars correspond to five specific areas: Water, Energy, Development, Environment and Transport. Today, I’m publishing an article about the ENVIRONMENT. Use the comment facility to send in your thoughts.

ENVIRONMENT: Use of the territory, construction and town planning
”Within the ambit of “degrowth”, energy policy needs to be addressed with a priority focus on the reduction of consumption, that for more than 50% is made up of echoes. Increasing efficiency is the pre-requisite for the development of renewable sources, because the reduction in the demand for energy:
- grows their contribution in percentage terms to the satisfaction of overall need
- it frees up large quantities of money that can be re-invested in buying them
Unless the paradigm of growth is put up for discussion, energy policy is imposed on the illusory search for unlimited and clean renewable sources of energy that are capable of substituting the growing lack of fossil fuels, and at the same time eliminating the environmental impact that they generate. The cultural context used for reference of this way of thinking is the oxymoron of sustainable development. In this context, the reduction in consumption has an auxiliary role and it is limited on the whole to moral beckoning about the need to save energy in a way that can come about with behaviours based on sobriety.

1. Block on the areas of building expansion in the regulatory plans of urban areas. Incentives for the qualitative and energetic restructurisation of the existing building stock. Concession of a building license only for demolition and reconstruction of civic buildings and for the alteration of use of unused industrial areas, as long as a part of the land is used for public green space.
2. Formulation of environmental energy plans to be added to binding building regulations when there is the concession of building licenses so as to achieve the standards for consumption that are laid down by the autonomous province of Bolzano (Class C: 70 kWh per square metre a year)
3. Expansion of urban green space with a view to a reduction of the overall disequilibrium between inorganic and organic, with the fixing of annual percentage increases.


...

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:52 PM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (1)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend

February 11, 2009

5 Star towns: TRANSPORT

Beppe Grillo and Westphalia
If cities were freed from private transport, we would get everywhere faster and this is true even for those who use cars. If public transport vehicles were electric or hydrogen-powered we would breathe better. If train transport for commuters had a tenth of the financing for the (useless) high speed line, then millions of Italians would get to work or to school on time without then having to take a shower. If the city had as a priority the cycle tracks instead of the car parks we could take our children to school by pedalling instead of double-parking the 4x4. We need to hate cars, not public transport. The policies of the towns must give incentives for public transport especially for the most vulnerable or those who are spread thinly over the territory as happens for the mountain communities or for the pensioners in the cities. At the same time, private transport, where it is not needed, for example, in the town centres, must be prohibited. Anyone who owns a car in a city must have their own car parking space, otherwise they cannot use it to then park it on the pedestrian pavements, on green spaces or where the Fxxk they want. Cars in cities must be subject to a quota system, and after a certain number they must be prohibited. The public land does not belong to FIAT.
New connecting roads, car parks, motorway connections must be evaluated with great attention. If they are of use to the community, to the towns that are affected, if they have long term value, they can go ahead. Otherwise, without “ifs” and “buts” they must be prohibited. The connecting road Broni-Mortara is of no use and it destroys the territory of the Lomellina. Has anyone asked the people of Pavia for permission? It’s just an example of how public money is spent without thinking of the citizens. Fewer hospitals, more bicycles.
We are the State and we will take it back.

The national meeting of the 5 star towns will be held in Florence’s Saschall Theatre on Sunday 8 March 2009.
The 5 stars correspond to the five specific areas: Water, Energy, Development, Environment and Transport. Today I am publishing an article on TRANSPORT. Use the comments facility to send in your thoughts.

TRANSPORT IN THE 5 STAR TOWNS
In the transport sector it’s necessary to intervene both at a technical level by giving incentives for the development of means of transport that are more efficient and less polluting, as well as at an organizational level, by favouring the development of public transport and providing negative incentives for the use of private transport especially in the areas that are heavily congested.
Definition of a non-polluting transport plan by every town both for connections within the town and also for connections external to the town.
Creation of a network of “safe” cycle tracks that allow for people to reach the points of major public interest, for example the schools, the hospitals, the town halls and so on.
The establishment of town bicycle parking lots.
Bring in the possibility of parking bicycles inside the condominiums.
Pedestrianisation of town centres.
Connecting transport between the urban areas and the areas dispersed about the territory, for example for the mountain communities.
To create the appropriate agreements to favour “car sharing” and “bike sharing”.
Establish a time for the unloading and loading of merchandise in cities at fixed times, for example from 6:30 to 7:30 in the morning.
Reduction in the tax paid to the towns , to be decided by each town, for those who do not own a private car.
Urban plan for the mobility of people with disabilities.
Financing of private organisations that operate transport for people with disabilities.
A sharp increase in the penalties and the possibility of losing the car for a period of from three to six months for those who park on the ramps for people with disabilities.
The facilitation of the establishment of public tele-working points.
Public buses to transport children to school.
The development of public transport with a strong social weighting is an important way of reducing the consumption of fossil fuels and of reducing the environmental impact with a knock-on effect on the health of the citizens.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 08:25 PM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (4)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend

February 05, 2009

5 Star town: DEVELOPMENT

David Borrelli, town councillor with the list GrilliTreviso: Rifiuti Zero a Treviso {Zero Refuse in Treviso}
There’s a lot of confusion about the terms consumption and development. Many people think that they are the same thing. The psycho-dwarf for example. To come out of the crisis he has transformed himself into a travelling salesman for white goods and Fiat cars. To get my ideas clear, I consulted a dictionary:
- To consume: to diminish or wear out with use; to exhaust; to terminate
- To develop: to cause to grow. To give strength to our future is the development without consumption. It is the model of society that needs to be changed or there will no longer be a society. Recycling is an economic resource. Saving is an economic resource. The planet in which we live is continually regenerating itself. The 5 Star town is a town of the Planet. A good that we have to pass on to our children.

The National meeting of 5 Star towns will be held in Florence at the Saschall Teatro on Sunday 8 March 2009.
The 5 stars correspond to five specific areas: Water, Energy, Development, Environment and Transport. Today I’m publishing an article on DEVELOPMENT. Use the comment facility to send in your thoughts.

”BEFORE ZERO REFUSE:
To understand the concept of Zero Refuse, put into practice by the State of California that is a part of the action strategies described in Barack Obama’s blog it’s necessary to start off with these concepts:
a) everything that cannot be re-used, recycled or composted, is an error and it must be substituted in the production cycle via a strategy that sees the institutions, the companies, and the universities collaborating from now on for the next 15 years.
b) the relationship between jobs created by the recycling industry with respect to incineration and landfill is 15 to 1. For every 15 jobs for recycling, only one job is created for landfill and incinerators. (source: Conai)
c) Incineration, once the public subsidies are taken away (taxes from the citizens), cannot stand up on its own from an economic point of view and it turns out to be the most costly method of waste disposal (source: Wall Street Journal!) and the research project “Light myfire”.
d) As has been proved by comparative studies doorstep collection rather than the current system of using large containers on the street, allows for not just a greater percentage of differentiated collection with better quality as well as a greater saving on the recovery of energy from materials that otherwise would be thrown away or burned and/or once more products in the production cycles (source: studio Tea-Mantova)
e) the economic damage from incinerators varies from 4 to 21 euro a ton handled, for landfill from 10 euro to 13 euro per ton handled (source studio: “Environmental impacts and costs of solid waste: a comparison of landfill and incineration” 2008-Ecole des Mines-Paris)
ZERO REFUSE IN THE 5 STAR TOWNS
Below are the steps to be taken to put in place a policy of zero refuse in your town:

...

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:12 PM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (0)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend

January 21, 2009

5 Star towns: ENERGY

Turin Council Meeting

In 2006, the blog collected your suggestions for a new development model for the country by means of the “Citizen Primaries”. Tens of thousands of people took part. The proposals were summarised in a document that I personally carried to our former employee Prodi, who was then President of the Council. The text of “Citizen Primaries” is still current for many aspects and in part it can represent the basis for an open discussion for the Five Star towns. The aim is to arrive at the occasion of 8 March in Florence with a Reference programme and an extract of that in “The Charter of Florence”.
The five stars correspond to the five specific areas: Water, Energy, Development, Environment and Transport. Today I am publishing the part that relates to Energy about the production of energy and the heating of the environment. Send in your thoughts on this via the comments.

THERMO-ELECTRIC PRODUCTION
The average yield of Enel’s thermo-electric generating stations is about 38%. The standard used for the construction of new generation generating stations using combined cycles is 55 to 60%. The widespread cogeneration of electrical energy and heat, with the use of the heat at the location of production and the distance transportation of the electrical energy, allows for the use of the energy potential of the combustible up to 97%. The current inefficiencies and the waste in thermo-electric production are not acceptable, not from a technological viewpoint, nor an economic one, nor a moral one. This is considering the devastating effects on the environment, and because it accelerates the using up of the fossil fuel resources. What’s needed is:
- increase in potential of the existing thermo-electric generating stations and the reduction of their environmental impact
- the provision of incentives for the distributed production of electrical energy with technologies that use fossil fuels in the most efficient ways, like the widespread co-generation of electrical energy and heat, starting from the buildings that devour the most energy: hospitals, shopping centres, industries that use technological energy, sports centres

...

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:10 AM in 5 Star Towns | Comments (3)
| Write | Sign up | Send to a friend