oil exploration in abruzzo

[anxanum]

You do sound naive Kerry & Susan , I get the feeling you live in the UK . What my Abruzzohome stated above is exactly right. and please dont tell me about the young people of Abruzzo not having work I know all about the difficulty they have as I have 2 of them still at home !
A friends son did a concorso for the ASL not so long back when he had finished the exam and gone outside along with the other candidates , he suddenly remembered he had forgotten his identity card so he went back inside to get it and found all the commision members standing around 1 remaining candidate and all helping him fill in the concorso papers, he wasent terribly shocked as it happens all the time . They had all been wasting there time that morning as it was already decided who would get the job , the one who was able to slip "bustarelle" this is the side of Italy you are unaware of .

[juliancoll]

Anzanum, may I ask what your son did to alert and complain through the proper channels about this blatent abuse he witnessed? Did he take the Italian stance?

[anxanum]

No it was a friends son an Italian friend , and he didnt do anything which seems to be fairly normal , I agree with you I would of created hell, but they dont !

[Kerry & Susan]

You're right I do live in the UK but have a place in Abruzzo and visit regularly. It is possible to have oil and gas production running alongside environmentally sensitive areas if the required measures are in place. Here in Lincolnshire we have well established offshore gas production and a small amount of onshore oil and gas production. The oil and gas industry in this area provides a reasonable contribution to the wealth of the region, mainly towards the north and east.

I agree Abruzzo is a fantastic place and a crime would be committed if it was environmentally ruined but you can't just have one big national park called Abruzzo and expect to live off the tourists for the whole region. Italy has to import virtually all of its oil, mainly from Libya, with spiralling oil costs and a stagnant economy it probably makes economic sense to explore its oil reserves further now.

I don't want to get into a fight, come across as an uncaring sod or seem as though this is just a wind up. We all need oil to live the lives we do, we drive cars, fly, heat our homes expect electricity at the flick of a switch and expect to live a comfortable 1st world lifestyle. This comes at a price at this moment in time, the price is we need fossil fuels to live.

You're probably all right and the Italians starting oil production in Abruzzo could be a disaster and could possibly ruin a lovely area. Perhaps it is naive of me to think they would do it properly, but it can be done so the environmental impact is negligble and the economic impact fantastic. It'd be a shame, if there is oil there, that the economic bonus wasn't taken and /or the environmental impact was a disaster.

Kerry

[AllanMason]

Originally Posted by Kerry & Susan

...but you can't just have one big national park called Abruzzo and expect to live off the tourists for the whole region...

Especially when there seems little effort put into selling the place as a holiday destination. The tourist folks do seem to think that the same Italians coming back to the same sun lounger on the same Adriatic beach every summer is what tourism is really all about. And since Italians are such creatures of habit in such matters, they obviously don't need to do anything to ensure serried ranks of baking bods every August.

How many of your friends - even those who have been to Italy before; even the Italophiles - have any idea where Abruzzo is, nevermind what it has to offer visitors?

Al

[juliancoll]

Selling Abruzzo to tourists. Perhaps a new career is in the 'pipeline' for you Allan.

[Penny]

[quote=Kerry & Susan;89709]..... Just look at the standard of living of the people in Aberdeen compared to most of the rest of the UK...

Sorry Kerry & Susan (not meaning to "bash you") but I cannot leave that comment unchallenged. I have just come back from working in Aberdeen for a couple of weeks and all I saw was depressing, dispiriting levels of drug abuse, violence and alcoholism (and that was just on my way to work each day). I was actually taken aback by how little of the vast profits from oil have affected the quality of life in Aberdeen. I really wouldn't want that as a successful example of the benefits of finding oil.