Minister Sangiuliano, I use this space to invite you to think again. Not to change her ideas, of course, but to listen to those of the kids of the Last Generation. On Sunday some of them returned to the Uffizi in Florence, they have arrived in front of Primavera by Botticelli and again they staged a protest. Truly symbolic, minister: no damage, no washable paint, no soup thrown on the case that protects the painting which then has to be washed. None of this, they stuck some flyers on the picture.
These kids are worried about climate change, for them the disappearance of winter which we have been witnessing for weeks is not good news, it is the confirmation of what scientists have been saying for some time: the planet is sick, and global warming will soon make the situation unmanageable. The damage will be enormous. They listen to science, that’s their fault. On Sunday at the Uffizi in particular they remembered the effects of the flood that hit Tuscany in November. There were deaths in Campi Bisenzio, destruction of homes and businesses and a few days ago it was calculated that almost two billion euros will be needed to restore the situation.
The young people who received a complaint at the Uffizi on Sunday were only asking for the establishment of a 20 billion repair fund that allows it to withstand the impact of extreme climatic events made increasingly extreme and frequent by climate change. Is this such a serious fault? She called them eco-vandals again and said they will pay dearly. But this is the language that a representative of the institutions, of the government, should it be reserved for children who, believing in science, are afraid of the future? Should they be punished harshly for posting flyers? A few days ago in Pisa there was the terrible episode of truncheon beatings to students demonstrating for Gaza. One of them in the city council then made a beautiful speech, which ends like this: “If you stopped for just a second to really listen to us, to hear our voice and our reasons, you would understand that we are not vandals, we are kids who fight for a common cause, we are the children and the future of every self-respecting democratic country”. Minister, listen to them.
the full version of this article it came out on March 5th in the press