The environmental issue between urgency and ambivalence: the debate on wind power in Tuscany

The environmental issue is among the most relevant to manage, but also the most ambivalent. The torrid summer that has just passed has demonstrated how terribly urgent it is to face, and yet - when it comes to getting to the facts - it always seems deferrable to us. For this reason, regardless of its evolution, the proposal of PD secretary Schlein to unite all political forces, but also civil society, to deal with it appears acceptable.

The protests over wind energy

The ambivalence can also be seen in the protests of recent days in the areas where the Tuscany Region plans to implement wind power. For goodness sake: understandable. Bringing the development of renewables together with landscape protection is not at all simple. It is no coincidence that it will be one of the focuses of Repubblica Insieme on Wednesday, 23 September, at the Teatro della Pergola. But its very complexity should push us to change our attitude and seek greater collaboration.

Changing perspective

A change of perspective is needed which proceeds at two distinct levels: more individual awareness and better political mediation. Each of us must understand that we are talking about a tangible, concrete danger and not something abstract, hypothetical and postponable. Precisely, Summer '26 could represent a turning point. The obsessive attention that we have all paid to meteorological information, hoping and - in the end - almost begging for a bit of fresh air, perhaps for the first time has made us see first-hand the centrality of the issue, pushing away a preconception that has taken root in a large part of public opinion over the years: that going green is a slightly snobbish and slightly fundamentalist ideology of those who can afford it. A prejudice that has favored a few too many distractions among those called upon to decide. Individual awareness can attenuate the nimby reflex: go ahead, but away from my house!

Clean energy and territory