"There is no such thing as one pilot and many passengers. We are all pilots of that plane" is the argument put forward by Simone Molteni, scientific director of LifeGate, interviewed some time ago by Nadia Toffa of Le Iene. In the report aired on Sunday 18 February we discover "how to pollute less and live happily". Because, as Toffa reminds us, "all of us pollute with every kind of action, from taking the car to using our mobile phone, from eating a sandwich to flushing the toilet, even just sitting in our own home". Solutions, however, do exist and are within our reach: among them, the choice of energy from renewable sources.

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Many surprising facts explain why polluting is so easy

Eating fruit out of season is highly polluting: importing one kilogram of cherries from Chile results in the emission of 21 kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere, Molteni explains. And to think that fruit, in and of itself, has the lowest environmental impact — unlike foods such as red meat, cheese and fish. Another contradiction? We produce more pollution cooking pasta than making it, because we often forget the small precautions that make a difference.

Nadia Toffa takes us into the offices and shops of Milan to find out what temperature it is inside, and a single glance at the thermometer is enough to leave you dismayed. Even a shop assistant admits "I'm dying of heat". Finally, the choice of mode of transport is very important: driving to work in an SUV is equivalent to making the same journey in three small cars.

Let's choose renewable energy

Polluting less, then, requires very little. One final step is to choose electricity from renewable sources: it involves no additional costs or changes to the service, and in most cases all it takes to request it is a click or a phone call. "If all of Le Iene's viewers switched to clean energy, it would be like reforesting 750,000 football pitches," concludes Molteni.