“Pedestrianize all areas of the seafront or adjacent to beaches and the sea from 6 pm to 2 am”. Climate change looms and “we will have more and more extreme heat waves. Very high temperatures are expected in the coming weeks”. In light of this present and future scenario, “sea air and the action of plants create a healthy, refreshing environment” and are a sort of “climate therapy and prevention, which would be favored by closing these areas to traffic”. The appeal was launched by pediatrician Italo Farnetani, creator of the Green Flags that mark seaside locations suitable for children. “Mine is a proposal and a recommendation addressed to administrators throughout Italy”, he explains to Adnkronos Salute from San Benedetto del Tronto where “the ‘green flag raising’ was celebrated for the achievement of the 17th green flag obtained uninterruptedly by the city in the Marche, one of the first locations indicated at the beginning of the research” by pediatricians on the ideal beaches for families. The ceremony was held at the Oltremare chalet in the presence of local authorities.
“I am launching the proposal right from the seafront of San Benedetto del Tronto – the expert points out – because it contains all the characteristics and potential suitable for combating climate change and the resulting damage to health: the wide sidewalk that extends almost like an extension at the end of the beach allows for healthy air, in a city full of public greenery and tree-lined avenues, which has as a characteristic of the location itself the presence of palm trees. This allows for air along the entire path of the seafront that benefits from the effect of the sea breeze but at the same time is purified by the respiration of photosynthesis of plants. The result is an extremely healthy ‘natural aerosol’, and a cooler environment compared to the streets that wind between buildings and shops. The difference is easy to understand and for this reason I ask that areas like these be protected” from smog.
The pediatrician’s invitation, while the mercury column in the world continues to soar, is therefore to exploit these cooler ‘oases’, which in Italy can be found from North to South, freeing them from cars and giving them to citizens, “with the double advantage of healthy air and lower temperatures. The pedestrianized seafronts thus become therapeutic and prevention-friendly ‘marine spas’. It is important to keep away vehicular traffic which is a source of heat, as well as pollution, and risks instead producing an aerosol of hot air and exhaust fumes, nullifying the positive effects” of environments kissed by the sea and greenery. “The seafront of San Benedetto del Tronto – concludes Farnetani – offers catering, entertainment and hospitality activities linked to the chalets, open for a long period of the year, and it is therefore important to allow people to stay in a healthy and cool place, and to be able to create further aggregation activities after the long period of isolation brought on by Covid, particularly harmful for children”.
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