I’ve been away from this for too long. It’s still early in the year and probably still within an acceptable time period for making new year’s resolutions. I maybe stretching that time, but I hope whoever regulates these things can give me a pass. So my resolution is to return to writing here regularly. That doesn’t mean every day, but at least a few times a week.
I’m working on a long-term writing project, a book I hope, on the Loire River. I'm probably repeating something I've said earlier. But in any case, it will be about things I saw while riding my bicycle along the river and things I want to know more about, especially environmental things. I’m also interested in some of the history, certainly about the chateaux, but also about the commercial and industrial history of the river and canals.
So I’ll be posting little blurbs about those topics. I also try to follow a couple of Italian newspapers and I’ll highlight environmental stories when I see them in those places; and, of course, similar stories in the U.S.
As it happens, the first post of the new year deals with Italy. I probably should have know this, but Rome has a serious smog problem. To try to cut down on auto emissions the local government has decreed a series of no-drive Sundays. The next one will be this coming Sunday, 19 January. Others are scheduled for 23 February and 23 March.
The government’s decision applies to the fascia verde or green zone, an area including about half of the city inside the GRA, the Rome “beltway.” The restrictions don’t apply to the entire day, only the morning hours of 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and then again from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
This may be a way of showing people they don’t need to be so dependent on their cars. But I doubt it will do much to reduce the smog.
No comments:
Post a Comment