Page 121 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

The territory: common good of the Italians

Prof. Paolo Maddalena
Vice President Emeritus of the Italian Constitutional Court

1. In 1972 the first Report on development limitations, drawn up by Club
Roma which had been founded in April 1968 at the Accademia dei Lincei in
Rome by the entrepreneur Aurelio Peccei and the Scottish scientist Alexander
King, was published. As is known, this Report predicted that economic growth
could not continue indefinitely due to the limited availability of natural resour-
ces, especially oil, and the limited capacity of the planet to absorb pollutants.

The report resulted in uproar, also because of the oil crisis of 1973. But
then facts demonstrated that the Earth had more resources than had been fore-
seen (especially oil resources) and a greater capacity of absorption compared to
what had been initially supposed.

As a backlash, the theories of Friedman and Stigler caught on, both expo-
nents of the Chicago School, sustaining, on the other hand, the possibility of
limitless development, arriving at the point of affirming that concentrating
wealth in the hands of a few would have produced wealth for everyone, consi-
dering that the market would have mechanistically imposed an equal redistribu-
tion of collective wealth. An affirmation that brought us to the current, disa-
strous, economic situation affecting the West (United States included) and,
above all, Italy.

As far as the planet is concerned, scientific data on global warming have
supported Peccei and King’s claims. No-one denies the greenhouse effect any-
more and the highly frequent hurricanes with their tragic consequences are
clear for all to see. The polar icecaps and glaciers on the highest mountains are
relentlessly melting and it is not so long ago that news was released that the
remaining stretch of ice on the Arctic Ocean, covering the space between
America and Europe and dating back to the last Ice Age, was melting.
Essentially we have arrived at the point of no return: the equilibrium of our cli-
mate has been completely overturned, threatening the continuation of life on
Earth.

119