Page 122 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Prof. Paolo maddalena

Media do not give much coverage to this news, but an Assembly of the
UN was called to discuss this most serious and urgently pressing problem.

So there is no time to lose and general mobilization is required if we really
want to save our lives and the life of the entire planet. It is the whole Earth, the
entire biosphere, already defined by Leopold in 1949 as the “Biotic communi-
ty”, whose life is under immediate threat. It is indispensable that there is a spe-
cial agreement among the various States, meeting to tackle the problem that
must be resolved in all its planetary magnitude, with the commitment of all
States to undertake quick, decisive action with regard to the various territories
under their sovereignty.

2. Focusing our attention on the actions of single States, it is evident that,
rather than speaking about the “environment”, we need to speak about “terri-
tory”, i.e. that part of the biosphere that falls under the rule of a given legal
system and which includes the soil, the subsoil, the topsoil and all that exists on
the latter, meaning rocks, waters, vegetation, animals, human population and
their activity, agriculture, industry, tourism, the web, the legal system itself as
well as the existing economic systems. In a word, what is required is a universal

120