How Many Questions On G1 Test

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The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is considered a measure of wealth in a country in a year. Forever, but with particular emphasis in recent months of financial and economic crisis, we hear about all the media of developments in the GDP: in the papers today I Draghi said that "According to estimates widely shared in average in 2009 the fall in GDP over the previous year, it will be in Italy around 5 percent 'I find the data that the White House talk of a 2% increase in GDP since 2010 and so on ...

But what measures the gross domestic product? It 's really an adequate indicator of collective well-being? In response to these questions is illuminating the speech given by Robert Kennedy March 18, 1968 at the University of Kansas, three months before being assassinated because of his awareness.

You can hear Kennedy's speech in the video below or read it by clicking here .

The impression that the GDP indicator is a measure of little significance has spread more and more to the point that alternative indicators have been developed. One of these is the Genuine Progress Index, commonly referred to by the acronym GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator).

The GPI measures the improvement in quality of life of a nation on the assumption that GDP growth has costs and benefits. It thus distinguishes the positive charges, which increase the well-being, from nil (crime, pollution, accidents ...), giving information about threats to the welfare of man and nature in a sustainable present and future.

Gpi The use of historical data shows that while GDP has grown continuously in the world to this day, the well-being increased until the '70s, and since then the Gpi decreases , revealing a growth uneconomic or unsustainable, and then self-destructive.

This awareness leads to various hypotheses on possible future: the transition to a post-capitalism, characterized by a negative interest rate and based on decrease, the most drastic and catastrophic weather. .. All very interesting theories but I'm not discussed here (please read, for example, Wim Dierckxsens, The global crisis of the XXI century or other economists as Latouche or Attali ) .

Rather, my intention is to hang on to theme of 'ecological footprint . The ecological footprint is a method for measuring the human impact on the sustainable capacity of Earth by calculating the area of \u200b\u200bland required to produce in a year, the resources consumed by a person, community or country in terms of products, food, energy, and to treat and dispose of waste and emissions. In this way, it is estimated that, compared to a biological capacity available of approximately 1.8 hectares per person, in 2001 the global average footprint was 2.2 hectares per capita. The ecological footprint exceeds the biological capacity by 20% then, and this percentage continues to grow (also because of demographic trends).

Not to mention that 20% of the world's population - tend to be resident in the North - is responsible for 80% of the ecological footprint while more than half the population - instead residing in the South - can not meet even its basic needs!

There are several websites that allow, to the nearest higher or lower, the calculation of its carbon footprint. Among them: footprintnetwork.org , Pandora , Earthday.net - although the best are not well calibrated for an Italian citizen.

the ecological footprint of the staff, as well as to make us realize the impact we have, allows correction of the lifestyle only minimal, it is very interesting to calculate the footprint at the community level. With appropriate methods for calculating was measured footprint of different countries, from different Italian regions, some provinces and even some cities such as Ancona, Cagliari and Siena. It might be interesting to also calculate the footprint at the municipal level of Milan or to make the most significant, in terms of hinterland.

Much can and must do to avoid the collapse of our economic system and ecological catastrophe, even from simple everyday actions. Municipal initiatives such as recycling, promote consumption of local products, water distribution points and so on are in the right direction, the only viable option to avoid self-destruction.

What else can you do to change the logic due to the current economic crisis - which has deep roots, linked to social injustice and the capitalist logic of profit as an end in itself - to a new model, ethical and sustainable?

The answer lies in the ability to propose creative solutions, with indignation at the injustices caused by the consumption patterns "West", and the habit of responding to the ordinary patterns of thought and resist the drowsiness that the company mass tends by nature to give in our bodies and our minds.

Dario Pagnoni