A study on the environmental issue from historical, anthropological, social, psychological, philosophical, economic, political and juridical perspectives

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example current and controversial also in Italy, where the so called Gelmini reform
(from the name of former Education Minister Maria Stella Gelmini) has imposed to
the school system heavy cuts, especially in humanistic subjects. Among such
measures, for instance, the reduction of the number of hours per week of Latin in
scientific lyceums and the creation of a new scientific lyceum without Latin, in
favour of an increase of the hours of physics and mathematics; the decrease of the
hours of history in the first two years in every type of high school and the unification
of history and geography in a single subject which, from last year also used only a
unique book of geohistory which has reduced the complexity of historical and
geographical knowledge20
.
It may seem that societies driven by profit maximisation and only looking at the
new divinities of technological and economic progress seem to believe that a strong
preparation in economic and technical subjects is the correct answer for future
generations in the future world. Entrepreneurship, information technology and
English are the three drivers of many Ministers of Education today. However how
many of today’s students will become entrepreneurs? It may seem that the
widespread use of computers and applications will instead give a good reason not to
increase but to decrease the number of hours dedicated to information technology.
Only the English aspect seems important, but not so much, considering that a good
part of the population does not ever speak a word of English if not in a couple of
weeks on holidays abroad in summer, and that English is studied anyway by
everyone from primary school. The scope of such reforms often might seem only to
form people ready to become good consumers or users for the market. However the
primal duty for the schooling system is to prepare good citizens for tomorrow’s
society.
Such mutilations united to those which involve the school workers, cut by the
decrease of the number of hours in almost every discipline and school and by the
creation of bigger and bigger classes might suggest that politics does not put
education as one of society’s priorities. Maybe to have ignorant people tomorrow
better serves the scope dishonest politicians have in their minds. What kind of
country, society and individual could we live in tomorrow if the system today is
treated like so? What kind of person could a child be if formed in a classroom with
20
http://archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it/riforma_superiori/nuovesuperiori/index.html

2. 104
other 29 classmates and only one teacher? And one who will mostly learn
technological information and technical preparation in spite of humanistic subjects?
Nussbaum will probably not intend to give practical solutions. Her investigation
is mainly not on how but on why humanistic culture is losing importance in today’s
societies21
.
However, even the most reactionary humanist knows very well that often the
problem of his discipline is not only the reduction of hours in the week, but also how
this subject is taught. Often a poor quality of didactics is the main cause for a social
damage which will show its effects along many years in the future, as education is
one of the greatest investments a society can undertake in terms of future citizens.
Humanism of poetry, history and art works in school as an invisible science which
does not produce measurable and quantifiable data, but tools to better understand and
perceive the world for the student22
.
French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin describes the seven fields which
according to his vision should become fundamental for every educational system in
any country and society. Morin explains that these themes will allow integration
among the existent disciplines and stimulation of the developments of a type of
knowledge aimed at facing the challenges our individual, cultural and social life
encounters. His investigation is not concerned with the set of subjects which are or
should be taught in school: it wants to schematically expose seven fundamental
problems, which are to be taught, according to the author, especially because of the
fact that they are currently totally ignored or forgotten. Finally, the scientific
acquisitions on which Morin’s work is based to inquire the human condition are not
21
Who asks himself what is the importance of the study of classical disciplines such as poetry,
history, philosophy, arts might find in Nussbaum’s study an answer: a list of precise competences
regarding reasoning on political problems without dialoguing delegating family or authority, the
ability to recognise in other citizens people with our same rights, the skill of being able to depict and
understand the variety of problems of life. Finally, the ability of critically exercise one’s own thought
by looking at humanity and its needs. To deprive schools of humanistic sciences could mean,
according to Nussbaum, to deprive with time society of critical citizens, men able to solve problems in
a creative way and of democratic people. Refer to Nussbaum, Martha (2011) Not For Profit: Why
Democracy Needs the Humanities Princeton University Press / Non Per Profitto – Perchè le
Democrazie Hanno Bisogno della Cultura Umanistica Il Mulino, p. 11
22
One could claim that humanistic disciplines, invisible and not measurable, are also not actual by
definition, in the sense that they do not have immediate resonance and utility in the present. A non-
for-profit knowledge, different to that typical of technical disciplines or work which could be learnt
instantly, could not be like the economic one applied soon after. But what is not usable might,
according to Nussbaum, constitute future potentiality. Ibidem, p. 9-10

3. 105
only provisional, but are also concerned with mysterious issues such as the universe,
life and the birth of human beings23
.
References:
- Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova
Visione del Mondo Mimesis
- Deschooling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling_Society
- Fukuoka, Masanobu (2011) The One-Straw Revolution: an Introduction To
Natural Farming Emmaus / La Rivoluzione del Filo di Paglia –
Un'Introduzione all'Agricoltura Naturale Libreria Editrice Fiorentina
- Fusco Girard, Luigi
Professor Luigi Fusco Girard’s lecture at the University of Nova Gorica’s
(Slovenia) PhD Economics and Conservation of the Architectural and
Environmental Heritage programme during the academic year 2010-2011
- llich, Ivan (1993) Tools For Conviviality Harper / La Convivialità Red
23
The list of such issues is formed by the blindness of knowledge, principle of a pertinent knowledge,
teaching of the human condition, teaching of the terrestrial identity, confrontation with uncertainties,
teaching of comprehension and ethics of the human species. Refer to Morin, Edgar (2001) Seven
Complex Lessons In Education For the Future UNESCO / I Sette Saperi Necessari all'Educazione
del Futuro Cortina

4. 106
- King, Franklin (2011) Farmers For Forty Centuries: Or Permanent
Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan Bruce
- Morin, Edgar (2001) Seven Complex Lessons In Education For the Future
UNESCO / I Sette Saperi Necessari all'Educazione del Futuro Cortina
- Nussbaum, Martha (2011) Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the
Humanities Princeton University Press / Non Per Profitto – Perchè le
Democrazie Hanno Bisogno della Cultura Umanistica Il Mulino
- Participatory Budget
http://www.unesco.org/most/southa13.htm
- Peak Oil
http://transitionnetwork.org/about
- Permaculture
http://urbanharvest.org/permaculture
- Italian Secondary School 2010 Reform
http://archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it/riforma_superiori/nuovesuperiori/index.h
tml
- Slow Cities
http://www.cittaslow.org/section/association
- Slow Food
http://www.slowfood.it/1/cosa-e-slow-food
- Transition Towns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns
http://www.transitionguelph.org/whatis.php
- Urban Planning Paris
http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2012/08/09/stop-
alle-auto-sul-lungosenna-parigi-riconquista.html

5. 107
5. THE RELATION BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE
In contrast with the Cartesian mechanistic vision of the world,
the concept of the world which emerges from modern physics
can be characterised by words such as
organic, holistic and ecologic.
It could be designed even as a systemic vision,
in the sense of the general theory of systems.
The universe is no longer seen as a machine
composed by a multitude of objects,
but must be represented as an indivisible, dynamic set,
in which all parts are essentially interconnected
and can be intended only as structures of a cosmic process.
Fritjof Capra
Fundamentals of the Industrial Model
The industrial model was born out of its epoch and philosophical visions and
thoughts, which belonged to it. The pillars of such model are positivism,
materialism, mechanical philosophy, reductionism and determinism.

6. 108
Figure 5. 1 Industrial Model’s Funding Paradigms – The industrial model may be derived from a
set of paradigms, namely positivism, materialism, mechanical philosophy, reductionism and
determinism.
Positivism tends to deny every metaphysical aspect of reality. What is visible or can
be seen is real while the rest is not.
Some scholars, as Maria Pusceddu, believe that matter could transform into
energy and vice versa, not to mention experts who study space-temporal models
concerned with Einstein’s black holes in which parallel realities and universes are
anticipated. Moreover all the so called paranormal activities and synchronic
phenomena (as well as the study of the unconscious, typical of analytical
psychology) may seem, according to the author, to be aspects of life far from being
known and understood by modern official science1
.
1
Refer to Pusceddu, Maria (2010) Gioco di Specchi – Riflessioni Tra Natura e Psiche Persiani, p.
33-34
INDUSTRIAL
MODEL
POSITIVISM
MATERIALISM REDUCTIONISM
DETERMINISMMECHANICAL
PHILOSOPHY

7. 109
Materialism gives importance to the material aspects of existence, leaving aside
the spiritual, psychical, emotional and sentimental ones, for instance.
Energy and matter in reality seem to coexist, as results obtained by two world
famous physicists such as Danish Niels Bohr and German Werner Eisemberg show2
.
Mechanical philosophy intends reality as a huge machine composed by elements
and mechanisms which allow to the same elements to coordinate; no importance or
significance to ethical or moral aspects is attributed, for instance, to the same single
elements.
Reductionism holds that sets can be studied by analogy with the behaviours and
laws which govern the single elements which compose them. No importance to laws
and dynamics which are concerned with the whole set is given, nor to the web of
relations which coordinate and bind a set composed by single parts.
However, both at the level of bee swarms, bird storms and fish banks for instance,
it has been proved that the set may possess skills and characteristics which do not
appear to be present in the single individuals3
.
Events, according to determinism, are exclusively produced by events which
occurred before. The state of the world in a given moment might therefore be
sufficient per se to explain the state of the world in a following moment.
It might seem that within our civilisation a deficit of importance granted to the
cultural sphere in favour of material aspects of life is nowadays taken for granted.
Communication, Energy and Their Impact on Culture
It seems that the modalities and perceptions of oral transmission of knowledge might
be lost if a civilisation does not pass on its knowledge, at least in part with the use of
writing. In the current highly digitalised Western civilisation where by accessing the
internet one can get every kind of information simply by reading, the above cited
modalities and perceptions might seem to be almost lost. In this sense it might not
2
Ibidem, p. 32
3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour

8. 110
appear reasonable to claim that civilisations in which the transmission of culture is
only oral or practical are inferior to ours4
.
Rifkin produced a theory on the convergence of the fields of communication and
energy. He believes that such relation determines a configuration not only of a
civilisation, roles and social relations, but of human awareness. Communication
revolutions modify, according to the author, man’s spatial and temporal orientation
and, through this, change the way in which the brain comprehends reality. Oral
cultures are based upon mythological consciousness; written civilisations have
opened the way to theological consciousness; printing civilisations have
accompanied ideological consciousness and the electricity civilisations spread the
psychological one5
.
Figure 5. 2 Elaboration of Rifkin’s Convergence of the Fields of Communication, Energetic
Regime and Common Beliefs – A double relation between the energetic regime and the
communication system with the common general beliefs seem to arise for each epoch throughout
history.
4
Refer to Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova Visione del
Mondo Mimesis, p. 93
5
Refer to Rifkin, Jeremy (2010) The Empathic Civilisation: the Race To Global Consciousness In a
World in Crisis Polity / La Civiltà dell'Empatia – La Corsa Verso la Coscienza Globale nel Mondo in
Crisi Mondadori, p. 34-37
ORAL
CIVILISATIONS
WRITTEN
CIVILISATIONS
PRINTING
CIVILISATIONS
ELECTRICITY
CIVILISATIONS
MYTHS RELIGION IDEOLOGIES PSYCHOLOGY

9. 111
Each communication revolution, more and more sophisticate, puts in contact more
and more people in webs of relations which become thicker and wider. By extending
the central neurological system of each individual and society in its complex, the
communication revolutions would offer according to Rifkin, a more and more
inclusive context which allows empathy to mature and consciousness to expand6
.
At the individual and collective consciousness level, one could perhaps propose a
different model. A model which studies the convergence of communication, energy,
vision of reality and psychology rather than the dual one based on the combination
communication-consciousness.
The first civilisations which based their transmission of knowledge in an oral way
used mainly human and animal force as energy in their activities. The mythological
vision of the world typical of primitive societies has meaningful analogies with a
type of psychological awareness similar to Freud’s personal unconscious (the inner
force which drives everyone and depends a lot on the relation he had with sex and
the physical relation with his parents, according to psychoanalysis7
). The primitive
man would perhaps only communicate with himself and have an individual
perception of his inner world, fears, sensations, intuitions and revelations.
Figure 5. 3 First Model of Convergence from Energetic Regime to Communication System to
Psychological Awareness – The model tries to explain how human force and oral transmission in
communication influenced the common general belief on myth, which was linked to a general
psychological awareness based on the personal unconscious.
6
Refer to Rifkin, Jeremy (2010) The Empathic Civilisation: the Race To Global Consciousness In a
World in Crisis Polity / La Civiltà dell'Empatia – La Corsa Verso la Coscienza Globale nel Mondo in
Crisi Mondadori, p. 37
7
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/614101/unconscious
Oral
Civilisation
Human Force Myth
Personal
Unconscious

10. 112
With the passage to ancient history and the invention of writing also energies became
more evolved. From the discovery of the wheel to the use of sails to capture wind’s
power mankind evolved from the unique use of man and animal force. Here as well
a progressive expansion and diffusion of communication can be acknowledged. This
may have brought to an increase in the number of people connected to each other and
also the amount of information which was passed on also thanks to the invention of
writing. In parallel to such phenomenon collective awareness might have evolved in
the Junghian way of collective unconscious. Such concept differs to Freud’s one in
that it is characterised by an increased awareness of knowing that every man
possesses deep in his soul a common psychological heritage, regardless of the place
in which he lives or time he is living in (represented by the so called archetypical or
collective unconscious figures)8
. Such ancient common heritage might support and
guide man in the journey he faces together with his fellowmen in the search of
interior development (the so called process of individuation, according to analytical
psychology, namely the ultimate goal of each life)9
. The first great religions,
monotheist and polytheist were created.
Figure 5. 4 Second Model of Convergence from Energetic Regime to Communication System to
Psychological Awareness – The model tries to explain how natural power and written transmission in
communication influenced the common general belief on religion, which was linked to a general
psychological awareness based on the collective unconscious.
8
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/32765/archetype
9
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/286336/individuation
Written
Civilisation
Nature Power Religion
Collective
Unconscious

11. 113
The passage from the Middle Ages to the modern era was characterised from the
energetic point of view by the discovery of coal and the steam engine as well as the
industrial revolution. The industrial revolution itself was anticipated by the
invention and diffusion of printing, which in turn further increased the pool of people
and amount of available knowledge as common heritage around the planet. The
ideologies that were born in those times, capitalism and communism above all,
developed and became the new paradigms which guided mankind in many ways
substituting religions. At this stage one could refer to a collective historical
awareness, somehow along what German psychologist and writer Erich Neumann
thought of when he found out that the psychology of man is forged as well as on
daily and common factors such as those typical of the Junghian vision also by the
evolution of the historical facts and scientific and technological discoveries along
time. Such events have an unconscious impact on everyone, and as a consequence,
are passed on generation by generation in each society and nation. This is why the
psychological condition of a primitive man would probably be different to that of a
man in of the Middle Ages10
.
Figure 5. 5 Third Model of Convergence from Energetic Regime to Communication System to
Psychological Awareness – The model tries to explain how steam power and printing transmission in
communication influenced the common general belief on ideologies, which was linked to a general
psychological awareness based on the historical unconscious.
10
http://www.bu.edu/arion/files/2010/03/Paglia-Great-Mother1.pdf, p. 14
Printing
Civilisation
Steam Power Ideologies
Historical
Unconscious

12. 114
Finally, the last step, the discovery and diffusion of electrical power and all of its
related applications starting from the 20th
century might have brought a final increase
in the amount of people and the level of interconnection and knowledge in the
telecommunication and information technology fields, like never before. Even this
might have helped people to develop an ecological awareness which grows as time
goes by. More than myths, religions, ideologies, what peoples may feel to have in
common is the heritage of the biosphere, which is today known to be our home in the
universe. Fatally this common heritage might seem never to have been so much in
danger as it is now, and this could hopefully prove a key factor in implementing
positive actions in future.
Here the ecobiopsychological vision of Italian psychotherapist, psychoanalyst,
ecobiopsychologist and writer Diego Frigoli may arise. Frigoli claims that, from the
first time from the birth of psychoanalysis (as well as the personal, collective and
historical unconscious) there is need and space for highlighting and recognising a
physical, geographical, biological or biospherical psychological condition, common
heritage to all living beings. What we have become through time in the physical and
psychological level is strictly linked to the planet as a double DNA filament, the
scholar argues. We were born here and we developed as the planet in time,
according to the universal laws of astrophysics, chemistry, botany, ethology and
anthropology11
.
Figure 5. 6 Fourth Model of Convergence from Energetic Regime to Communication System to
Psychological Awareness – The model tries to explain how electrical power and TLC and IT
transmission in communication influenced the common general belief on the biospherical vision,
which was linked to a general psychological awareness based on the ecobiopsychological paradigm
unconscious.
11
Refer to Pusceddu, Maria (2010) Gioco di Specchi – Riflessioni Tra Natura e Psiche Persiani, p.
15-18
TLC and IT
Electrical
Power
Biosphere
Ecobio-
psychology

13. 115
Knowledge and Technology For Society and the Environment
If an invisible hand is moving, as Rifkin puts it, it seems to be the hand of empathy
which matures, supports, and that of awareness which expands to reach the spatial
and temporal boundaries determined by every new energetic regime12
.
The possibilities which are today available thanks to the development of new
technologies in the sector of communication were up to some year ago not even
thinkable: programs to communicate in real time and videoconference such as Skype,
social networks like Facebook and Twitter, browsers and sites like Google,
Wikipedia and Youtube. It seems that the tools to effectively spread a new paradigm
of knowledge linked to a different vision of the world, much more based on man and
the environment, have never been so powerful.
The under-30 generation, so called digital natives, surf the web and know it as no
other generation before. As well as negative effects such as alienation, addiction and
the fact that all of the digital skills might come to the price of losing sensorial and
manual skills, interesting possibilities for positive outcomes might arise. The
transmission of knowledge in places before impossible to reach is today reality.
Education could one day, for instance, not need classrooms and teachers anymore,
but only a personal computer with an internet connection.
12
Empathy, according to Rifkin, is the factor that builds a more and more differentiated and
individualised population in an integrated social tapestry, allowing for the social organism to function
as a single set. The author argues that every new phase of consciousness represents an expansion of
the central nervous system (which absorbs aspects of life which become deeper and deeper) made
possible by the advent of a more and more complex civilisation which runs on a ever growing level of
energy. An increasing number of scholars from different disciplines, as well as psychoanalysts and
analysts, hypothesize that it is not only our instinct of survival and reproduction to have determined
such dynamics of ever growing complexity and extension. If it were only a survival issue, we would
probably have maintained a much lower number of people on the planet, and lived in a Palaeolithic
way. Such scholars are convinced that there is something deeper at work, as shamans, warlocks,
theologians, thinkers, psychoanalysts and analysts claim, each in their own terms. We seem to be part
of a species that by nature is gregarious, the exponents of which continuously try to widen and deepen
their relations and connections with others and the universe, to transcend their selves by participating
to a wider and more meaningful community. Rifkin argues that the more and more complex social
structures arise, among other factors, the more tools for such quest could be created. More and more
complex and resource-hungry civilisations may allow man to compress time and space, the author
claims, and to expand, as explained before, a sort of collective nervous system which might enable to
embrace wider fields of existence. Everything seems made to find meaning through belonging to a
richer and deeper context of reality, Rifkin concludes. American theologian John Cobb claims that
“[if] man is evolution which became consciousness, surely this is caused by his own awareness which
longs for joining its own forces with the universe, in man’s passionate quest for truth of temporal and
spatial relations. The need to expand one’s own self in time and space, the need to create to live,
breath, be, anticipates, rather, necessarily exceeds, the need for reproduction as personal function of
survival”. Refer to Rifkin, Jeremy (2010) The Empathic Civilisation: the Race To Global
Consciousness In a World in Crisis Polity / La Civiltà dell'Empatia – La Corsa Verso la Coscienza
Globale nel Mondo in Crisi Mondadori, p. 37-40

14. 116
After having substituted with machines agricultural works and more and more the
manual one within factories, the last phase of society’s development could be the
represented by the substitution of people even in the sector of services (as the above
mentioned school system case for instance).
The Khan Academy is an educational non profit organisation created in 2006 by
Bangladeshi engineer Salman Khan. With the declared goal of “providing a high
quality education to everyone anywhere”, the site of the organisation gathered (by
the end of 2011) more than 3,200 video-lessons, uploaded through the popular video
sharing service Youtube, which comprehend a wide range of disciplines
(mathematics, history, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics).
Each lesson runs ten minutes. In a statistical analysis of December 2010, the courses
of this virtual university registered an average of more than 35,000 daily visits. The
financing of the project is accomplished through voluntary donations, which were
calculated to be around 150,000 dollars a year. In September 2010, Google donated
two millions of dollars to the Khan Academy, to facilitate the creation of new courses
and allow for the translation of basic lessons in the most popular languages of the
planet (within the so called 10100
Project)13
.
Open Source Ecology is a network of peasants, engineers, supporters which share
the primal goal of the eventual achievement of a Building Set for a Global Village.
As described by Open Source Ecology, “Building Set for a Global Village is an open
source platform which allows the simple accomplishment of fifty industrial
machineries needed for the construction of a small settlement furnished with the
main modern comforts”. Groups in different American states like Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New York and California are developing projects and building
prototypes. The same machineries have been built and tested at the Factor and Farm
headquarters which are based in a rural area in Missouri. American physicist Marcin
Jakuboski founded the group in 2003. During his last PhD program at the University
of Wisconsin, he had the intuition that current sciences were too distant from the real
problems of the planet, and wanted to dedicate himself entirely from then on to the
Open Source Ecology project14
.
The initiative The Granaries of Memory created within the activity of the Italian
association Slow Food aims at retrieving and restoring value to “the rural and artisan
13
https://www.khanacademy.org/about
14
http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs.php

15. 117
tradition, full of rituality, conviviality and, to some extent, slowness” as Petrini says.
“It is not the hard work which scares us but the loss of meaning” the association’s
founder continues. The web archive represents a new and fascinating historical and
anthropological interpretation of the world’s skills15
.
Born directly out of Slow Food, this project is now four years old. It is
international, in the sense that it intends to recover and restore value to all that is
becoming farer away as time goes by and societies develop. Values maybe never as
today useful in order to make people think about the particular historical period we
are currently living. How? Through a video, photographic and written
documentation of all knowledge and skills which risk (perhaps because of a human
evolution not always in harmony with its past) to be lost forever. By gathering oral
proof, rituals, music, typical and unique agricultural or artisan products, stories of the
lives of real people. The project is currently followed by the University of Wine and
Sood Sciences of Bra (Italy) in its different phases and various contexts. Some
examples (from every part of the world) are already accomplished and have been
presented in the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 editions of Terra Madre, the festival of
biodiversity and food from all over the world, which is held every year in Turin,
Italy, and organised by Slow Food. If the majority of the people on this planet would
continue to favour and adopt a life style which is not respectful of the environment,
believing that development is not concerned with knowledge, culture, empathy,
philosophy, communication and information, but with production, possession and
consumption of material goods, the alternatives to our disposal might perhaps be a
few.
Soft power is a term used in the theory of international relations to describe the
ability of a political body to persuade, convince and attract others with intangible
resources such as culture, values and political institutions16
.
Success of soft power heavily depends on the reputation of the other actors in the
international community, as well as by the amount of information among actors.
15
http://www.slowfood.it/sloweb/a20d2d081500631b71fc0cacd5ce3f63/sloweb
16
The term was coined by American political scientist Joseph Nye, which remains today its prominent
proposer, in an article appeared in 1990 in the American magazine Atlantic Monthly. While its utility
as descriptive theory is contested, the concept of soft power has since entered in the political
discourse. Soft power, as the scholar claims, is “the other side of power”, opposed to hard power, an
historically predominant measure of national power through quantitative indexes (such as population,
military capacity, gross domestic product) as a qualitative estimate of the level of which values
perceived by a nation or culture inspire affinity on others. Refer to Nye, Joseph (2005) Soft Power:
the Means To Success in World Politics Public Affairs / Soft Power Gli Struzzi

16. 118
Soft power is therefore often associated with the birth of globalisation and the
neoliberal theory of international relations. Popular culture and media are usually
pointed out as sources of soft power, as the spreading of a national language or
particular set of legal structures are. A country with a wide accumulation of soft
power and with the benevolence which it generates could inspire others to
acculturation, avoiding the resort to costly expenses on hard power. In this sense soft
power might represent a most powerful tool in social and environmental issues. It
could in fact represent a turning point in such battles when the cultural challenge in
social and ecological issues might be won by eco-aware populations or countries,
namely those which managed to widen their ecobiopsychological consciousness and
to influence others17
.
In the current crisis of capitalism, Ricoveri argues, a community or people’s
culture might perhaps represent both a defence on the territory (for the sustainable
management of local resources, such as hydro-geological defence and the
regimentation of waterways, traditional and organic agriculture, the defence of public
spaces) and a tool for the democratic participation of the population in choices in
which it is involved18
.
17
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/soft-power
18
Modern communities, according to Ricoveri, are not to be intended, however, as an administrative
articulation of central government, of which they instead want to correct the bureaucratic centralism
and delegitimisation, but as a tool of horizontal or participative democracy which gives back meaning
to the sovereignty of the state and the same democracy. Ricoveri argues that within globalisation
delegated democracy is no longer sufficient and could be integrated with new forms of direct
democracy. It is also evident, according to the author, that the climate of social disaggregation today
does not favour such developments, which seem however necessary. The issue might be placed in
different terms in the countries of the South where a holistic vision of the world still persists and
where nature is considered sacred, the author argues. In India, for instance, “[...] the Constitution
(artt. 72 and 73) recognises the panchayat, the council of about five members which governs each
Indian village, as the organisation at the base of self government and democratic functioning at the
community level [...]. Indigenous self determination, sustainable agriculture and democratic pluralism
are based on the communities’ self government”. Even in the countries of the South American Andes
indigenous communities and their cultures seem the pillar of social and productive life, as the recent
approval of the new constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador testifies. Refer to Ricoveri, Giovanna
(2010) Nature For Sale: Commons Versus Commodities Pluto Press / Beni Comuni vs. Merci Jaka
Book

17. 119
References:
- Analytical Psychology
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/286336/individuation
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/32765/archetype
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/614101/unconscious
- Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova
Visione del Mondo Mimesis
- Emergent Properties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour
- Khan Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org/about
- Matriarchy
http://www.bu.edu/arion/files/2010/03/Paglia-Great-Mother1.pdf
- Nye, Joseph (2005) Soft Power: the Means To Success in World Politics
Public Affairs / Soft Power Gli Struzzi
- Open Scource Ecology
http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs.php
- Pusceddu, Maria (2010) Gioco di Specchi – Riflessioni Tra Natura e Psiche
Persiani
- Ricoveri, Giovanna (2010) Nature For Sale: Commons Versus Commodities
Pluto Press / Beni Comuni vs. Merci Jaka Book
- Rifkin, Jeremy (2010) The Empathic Civilisation: the Race To Global
Consciousness In a World in Crisis Polity / La Civiltà dell'Empatia – La
Corsa Verso la Coscienza Globale nel Mondo in Crisi Mondadori
- Slow Food
http://www.slowfood.it/sloweb/a20d2d081500631b71fc0cacd5ce3f63/sloweb

18. 120
- Soft Power
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/soft-power

19. 121
6. DEVELOPEMENT
A person should never walk with so much impetus
to leave tracks so deep that the wind cannot delete
(from a Blackfoot Indians’ teaching)
The Energy of Tomorrow
Around the 1970s technology-produced energy overtook that which originated from
the photosynthetic process. Basically it is more than forty years that the energy
utilised on our planet is more artificial than natural. This implied a significant
problem of calculation of indirect costs, in that the so called hidden or collateral costs
of such a model of development might not be fully calculated, since the costs derived
from any kind of natural energy production and its environmental impact are equal to
zero, while artificial energy’s are not1
.
Illich, contrary to Rifkin’s position on the increase of collective awareness in
relation to a widespread use of more powerful energies and increased technological
level, claims that as long as the energy used by man was of natural type, an energetic
value of a maximum of around nine times that derived from human force could be
1
Refer to Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova Visione del
Mondo Mimesis, p. 87

20. 122
reached (one could think about the energy produced by animals, wind, water, for
instance). We are today well aware of which are the levels of energy deriving from
the use of internal combustion engines, the production of energy from electrical
plants, and that from thermonuclear reactors. According to Illich, it seems that man,
basically, might have been bewitched by the enormous potentialities in terms of
levels of energetic efficiency by artificial inventions employed to the detriment of
natural energy. To the point that he could or would not take into consideration the
consequences of a choice which seems by now highly oriented toward the artificial
paradigm. The harm to man and the environment is perhaps already evident, without
having to mention the latest social and environmental disasters occurred around the
globe in recent times2
.
Elaborated in two years, the World Wildlife Fund Energy Report is concerned
with the global problem of the need of energy, including transportation, and the way
to make it safe and available for everyone. “If we continue to depend on fossil
combustibles we will end up in a future of increasing concerns for the cost of energy,
the safety of the supplies and the impacts derived from climate change” Stefano
Leoni, president of World Wildlife Fund Italy claims. “We offer an alternative
scenario (much more promising and entirely reachable). The Energy Report shows
that in four decades we could enjoy vibrant economies and a civilisation completely
fuelled by clean, low cost and renewable energy, as well as a significantly higher
quality of life. The report is more than a scenario (it is a call for action). We can
create a cleaner and renewable future, but we need to start now”3
.
The World Wildlife Fund’s report excludes the possibility of nuclear power at the
global level and does not consider such technology necessary for giving up fossil
combustibles. “We must face reality, namely the fact that nuclear fission produces
dangerous waste which remains so for thousands of years, and that no place on the
planet where we could stock them without risk exists. As well as that, the materials
and technologies needed for the production of nuclear energy can be also used to
create weapons” Leoni continues. The report highlights that nuclear power is an
extremely dangerous alternative. “Before destining billions to the creation of a new
generation of electrical nuclear plants, we should ask ourselves if it would be more
2
Refer to Illich, Ivan (1993) Tools For Conviviality Harper / La Convivialità Red, p. 50-52
3
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_solutions22/renewable_e
nergy/sustainable_energy_report

21. 123
favourable to destine such resources to other sustainable energetic technologies. It is
precisely the same question that we place in Italy, and the answer that we get is
definitely yes, it is more favourable to aim at renewable sources and energetic
efficiency” Leoni concludes4
.
The Energy Report, divided in two parts, contains a detailed analysis and a
scenario forecasted by Ecofys, a well known consultant of World Wildlife Fund. The
dossier shows how by 2050 the need for electricity, transportation, industrial and
private energy could be satisfied by renewable energies, with only a residual and
isolated use of fossil and nuclear combustible (thus reducing dramatically the
concerns related to energy certainty and safety, environment and catastrophic climate
changes). Energetic efficiency of buildings, vehicles, and industry could become a
fundamental ingredient together with an increase in energetic needs satisfied by
electricity produced by renewable sources and supplied by efficient and intelligent
distribution networks (so called smart grids). According to the World Wildlife Fund
- Ecofys’ scenario, in 2050 total demand of energy will be 15 per cent lower than that
of 2005, in spite of the increase of population, industrial production, transport and
communication (making it available also for those who are currently not using it).
According to the report, the world could no longer depend on coal or nuclear
combustibles, while international regulations and cooperation could limit potential
environmental harm deriving from the production of biofuels and the development of
hydroelectric power. The World Wildlife Fund report was completed just before the
2011 European Council dedicated to energy and innovation and underlines the
crucial importance of energetic efficiency to reach a safe, sustainable and renewable
future. This is exactly the point on which the World Wildlife Fund requires European
leaders to focus on5
.
“In the Energy Report we intentionally do not base our estimations on extravagant
hypotheses on the benefits of technologies which are not yet available or ready to be
used” says Kees Van Der Leun, Ecofys director. “It is a moderate estimation on
future renewable energy of which we could enjoy by 2050. The solutions for a
global energetic challenge are available here and now. There are numerous ways to
use energy in a more efficient way . This allows us to manage the current energetic
resources in a more sensible way. Moreover we grasp the opportunity to use the
4
Ibidem
5
Ibidem

22. 124
enormous quantities of sustainable energy of which we dispose of”. To supply safe,
accessible and clean energy in the demanded quantity will perhaps require a global
effort (similar to the global answer to the global financial crisis). But the benefits
might be greater in the long term and the savings from inferior costs could balance
all of the new investments in renewable and efficient energy by 2040. According to
the report, the savings, in a business as usual scenario (the current one) could amount
to about four billions of euros, due only by the lower cost of energy by 2050. Other
benefits, the report continues, could result from the decrease in conflicts for energetic
issues, environmental leakages and interruptions of supply which occur when one
gathers fossil combustibles which are finishing in areas that are under political and
environmental risk. The Energy Report scenario would see the emissions of CO2
reduced by 80 per cent by 2050 (with greater probabilities of limiting the average
increase of global temperature under 2°C in comparison with the preindustrial era,
avoiding the risk of catastrophic environmental changes). “We will live in a
different way, but we will live well”, Leoni concludes. “We must supply energy to
everyone without putting the planet at risk and this report shows how to do it”6
.
Everyone in A Class is a campaign promoted by the Italian environmental
association Legambiente which has a very precise goal: to highlight the importance
of energetic efficiency in the construction industry and give an outlook on national
regulations. In this report still ongoing problems regarding the application of
European regulations are pointed out, as well as good experiences of some Italian
councils through construction provisions. From 2000 to 2010 the consumption
related to the construction industry is the one which increased the most in Italy, and
represents in total 53 per cent of electrical consumption as well as 35 of total
energetic one. It might therefore seem therefore vital to intervene in the construction
industry, if one wants to invert such trend and reduce CO2 emissions7
.
The European Union has taken such challenge very seriously starting from
directive 2002/91/CE which introduced precise goals in terms of energetic
performance and obligation of certification for new buildings (with different classes
of belonging, from A, the best, to G, the one with the worst performances) and in the
sales of existing ones. And the European Union has gone even further with directive
31/2010, which provides for precise dates for a “radical transition”: from 1st
January
6
Ibidem
7
http://www.legambiente.it/contenuti/dossier/tutti-classe-A

23. 125
2019 all new public buildings built in the countries of the European Union, and from
1st
January 2021 the new private ones will have to be “neutral” in energetic terms,
that is, they will have to guarantee performances of the insulation so that they would
not need heating and warming contributions or they will have to fulfil them through
renewable sources. To oblige energetic certification and making it a clear and
transparent tool means perhaps a battle in the interest of citizens as well as the
environment. It seems that citizens have the right to know how the flat in which they
will live and for which often they sacrifice a lot of their efforts has been projected
and built8
.
The Water and Food of Tomorrow
As well as energetic saving the saving of any resource or product might seem often
primal. Including water and food. In front of the impoverishment of consistent
social groups abundant and exaggerated levels of consumption appears morally not
tolerable and offensive, especially for who lives in severely difficult economic
conditions, Galdo claims, and should perhaps stimulate a deeper attention to the
relationship between quality and price of what is bought, also induce to avoid
wasting. It seems that one could live better with less, Galdo continues: this might
help to find a more satisfying internal equilibrium, safeguard our future and that of
future generations, menaced by pollution and the progressive depletion of resources,
the author continues9
.
8
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/internal_market/single_market_for_goods/construction/en002
1_en.htm
9
Galdo argues that there are many things each of us, with a little effort, could do to contribute to the
planet’s balance. First of all wasting must be avoided. By now many actions related to wasting are
not even longer perceived as so, so much we have gotten used to them. For instance in the excessive
consumption of water or in that of food. To waste food seems one of the most perverted habits of the
contemporary Westerner, the author argues. A waste which has many sides and many protagonists:
from the food industry to the distribution stores, from agricultural fields to an average consumer’s
table. Only some data: in the world a percentage between 30 and 40 per cent of produced food is
wasted and destroyed in the production process. In such situation the paradox of a two-sided planet
seems to arise. Galdo claims that two parallel epidemics are present in today’s world: on one side a
sixth of humanity feeds on the equivalent of two bowls of cereals a day, while the other one is
represented by a billion obese people. Also water, as food, is a two-sided issue. In those societies

24. 126
There are many different cereals, but 60 per cent of world consumption is
composed by only three: corn, wheat and rice. The majority of the vegetable
energetic supply which composes our diet derives then from the same source, and
this is not only unhealthy (because the lack of variety reduces the nutritious supply
and weakens metabolism) but damages the planet, by sacrificing very wide areas
with intensive culture plantation. For years the United Nations Organisation for
Food and Agriculture has been trying to make institutions aware of a more
sustainable and healthy use of food resources. The univocal definition of sustainable
diet is a 2010 conquest, coined in the United Nations’ International Symposium on
Biodiversity and Sustainability of Diets: “Sustainable diets are low environmental
impact diets which contribute to food and nutritional safety as well as to a healthy
life for present and future generations. The contribution to the protection and respect
of biodiversity and ecosystems, is culturally acceptable, economically just and
accessible, adequate, safe and healthy in the nutritional sense, and optimises natural
and human resources”. A definition that gave the start to the editing of an essay,
Sustainable Diets and Biodiversity, edited by the United Nations Organisation for
Food and Agriculture and Italian-based international research centre Biodiversity
International10
.
The essay seems to represent an important reference for research in the sector and
provides guidelines for the spreading of a sustainable nutrition which does not
damage the planet. “In spite of several significant improvements in agriculture in the
last three decades, it is clear to everyone that all food systems and diets continue not
to be sustainable” the essay author Barbara Burlingame of United Nations
Organisation for Food and Agriculture’s division of Nutrition and Protection of
Consumers writes in the essay’s introduction. Around the world, Burlingame
explains, people who suffer hunger are 900 millions, but the obese ones are more,
two billions of which suffer from lack of micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron, or
with no shortage problems water is considered an infinite good that might therefore be wasted without
harm; in poor countries instead, water is a very scarce resource if not insufficient. According to a
United Nations’ report, a billion people (but the number is destined to increase in the next future) does
not have efficient water-resources to satisfy primal needs and is thus condemned to epidemics and
famine. Water waste in the West starts from the beginning of the production of the good since 40 per
cent of it does not reach our taps and gets wasted in badly maintained pipes. Refer to
http://www.ilrecensore.com/wp2/2011/03/basta-poco-di-antonio-galdo-per-una-nuova-ecologia
10
http://www.repubblica.it/ambiente/2012/08/09/news/la_dieta_eco_fa_bene_al_pianeta_aiuta_la_terra_
e_la_salute_umana-40588324

25. 127
iodine. This because the mechanisms which regulate nutrition always follow more
the criterion of quantity rather than that of quality. “The speed at which biodiversity
is being lost and ecosystems degraded, with all health-related problems for humans,
makes the issue of the quality of agricultural and food systems fundamental” the
author continues. Poor diets in terms of variety are strictly linked to the increase of
non-transmittable illnesses such as diabetes and cardio-vascular ones. Agricultural
industrialisation and transportation on long distances, moreover, transformed refined
carbohydrates and fats into cheap and largely used products, available to the whole
world. The diet which today the majority of developed countries follow is rich in
meat, dairy products, fats and sugars. But to produce a slice of beef has an
environmental impact much higher than to grow an eggplant and thus the nutritional
regime which everyone follows has a heavy ecological footprint in terms of carbon
dioxide and consumption of water. And it impoverishes day by day our nutrients,
tastes, diversity, local wine and food and cultural tradition11
.
Hobby farming is a phenomenon (in reality it is the old urban tradition of
cultivating a small vegetable garden at home or in dedicated places in the city) so far
escaped from censuses and statistics, which is a passion for more than a million
people only in Italy. Such phenomenon has its main magazine, Life in the Country,
with 83,000 copies followed by a community which shares problems and
experiences, and also organises its own fair, which has the same name of the
magazine. A phenomenon, finally, which has in part counter balanced the
abandoning of countries and the crisis of professional agriculture. Nomisma, a
famous Italian consulting firm which conducted the first research on hobby farming
in Italy, claims that “By cross checking the data on surveyed agricultural surfaces in
1990 and in 2000, from which almost two million hectares seem vanished, confirmed
by the parallel lost of about 43,000 agricultural firms, through satellite surveys, a real
11
Moreover the essay holds that modern diets and methods of food production dramatically reduce
genetic vegetable and animal diversity. Out of 47,677 species studied by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature, 17,291 were defined at risk of extinction. “We must change the agricultural
production’s paradigm” explains Emile Frison, general director of Biodiversity International. “We
must go beyond main plantations, looking at the hundreds and thousands of vegetable and animal
species neglected and unutilised which make the difference between a sustainable diet and one that is
not” he argues. To think that a unique sustainable diet prevails is however wrong. Each country has
its own, based on local products. Sandro Dernini, of the Forum of Mediterranean Food Cultures
concludes “The key word is frugality. We must promote plantations linked to the territory, chose
seasonal food, favour as much as possible biodiversity. Only by doing so we could save ourselves by
chronic cardio-vascular diseases and obesity”. Refer to
http://www.repubblica.it/ambiente/2012/08/09/news/la_dieta_eco_fa_bene_al_pianeta_aiuta_la_terra_
e_la_salute_umana-40588324

26. 128
decrease of agricultural surfaces of only 143,000 hectares resulted in the same
period, inducing us to think that cultivated lands not surveyed by the Italian National
Institute of Statistics anymore are not vanished, but passed to hobby farming”12
.
Amateur farmers are a different figure to professional and part-time ones.
Amateurs, in fact, do not want to gain money out of the land they cultivate but have
different motivations. More than half of them has been cultivating for more than ten
years, even if the time dedicated depends on the condition: employed people remain
under ten hours per week of work, while retired people go above twenty. The main
motivations are two: the desire to spend some time in the open air making a little
physical activity and the one to eat healthier fruit and vegetables, motivations which,
as Petrini explains, are according to the campaign promoted by Slow Food which
inspired the creation of more than three hundred didactical vegetable gardens. In
fact, the plantation preferred by hobby farmers (on average for 1-1.2 hectares) are
vegetable gardens (88.6 per cent) and orchards (65 per cent), vineyards and olive tree
groves. Hobby farmers are very concerned with their results and to help them, in the
years, dedicated equipment and tools have been created. But the thing they mostly
need is know-how, because they rarely possess a specific competence. So far they
managed with manuals and magazines, as the leader Life in the Country. Now the
annual fair could become a reference meeting point with its didactic factory, 11
experts, more than one hundred courses and the exposition of dedicated machineries
and products. But the utility of the phenomenon is much wider: a social and cultural
revolution. Hobby farmers rediscover the times and cycles of nature. Many, around
38 per cent, work the land received as inheritance and thus are bound to it by
affection and memory: this is also why they worry and care about the protection of
landscape. Moreover, they help to safeguard those species of plants which will
otherwise be forgotten because not suitable for main distribution13
.
12
http://www.vitaincampagna.it/eventi/2011_lafiera/area_stampa/download/presentazione_ricerca_nomi
sma.pdf, p. 1-2
13
Ibidem, p. 3

27. 129
A More Ecological Lifestyle
A further aspect linked to the concept of development which in the West seems to be
popular is represented by the overproduction and accumulation of artificial goods,
often to the detriment of a healthy interest for environmental goods and inner well
being. It seems that massification of such a model may bring to standardisation of
places and societies, the detriment of cultural and biological diversity, which is one
of the fundamentals of nature.
According to Italian philosopher Remo Bodei after “the binge of consumerism it is
important to return to give meaning to things”. How? Simply by opposing to
electrical appliances’ operators favourite sentence when you ask them to repair a
device: “Forget it, it is more convenient to buy it again”. Galdo observes that this is
the logic which brought American families to fall into debt by 10,000 dollars each”.
Galdo claims that “It is time to learn to recover objects. And not only to save. Also
to live better. To give meaning to the things which are around us means to give more
meaning to our life”. For what a certain healthy mobility is concerned, the author
goes beyond and claims: “A stroll might save us (allowing for urban pollution). It is
obvious that the first obstacle to remove for those who want to adopt an ecological
lifestyle is to renounce cars. Cars as we conceive them are soon destined to go from
streets to museums. While waiting for electrical cars, we can start by using bicycles.
Or, even better, to walk. This time Americans can be an example to be followed”.
The author continues: “In Manhattan almost 80 per cent of the inhabitants do not use
cars anymore. Everybody walks. We instead move only with cars. Only by going to
Villa Borghese, in Rome, on a Sunday, not many people can be spotted. And this is
the biggest European urban park”. It seems that also to recover leftovers is a good
practice which could be resumed. Resumed in the sense that before the coming of
consumerism it was a very well deep-rooted habit among each of the social classes.
Galdo continues: “someone would recall those little manuals which, in times of war,
would teach housewives how to reuse leftovers”. The author argues: “Diets should
be organic to appraise the work of who cultivates without causing harm to the
environment. Of course, this implies extra spending. Which can be recovered by
using every single leftover. And also less mineral water. We (Italy) are third world
consumers after Mexico and Saudi Arabia: won’t it be excessive? Less quantity,
more quality. Globalisation is a fact. Surely the economic system which will prevail

28. 130
on the globe could not be that which is typical of Western civilisation: it would not
be sustainable for the planet. Firms need to be obliged to bear the change” Galdo
concludes. The author believes that we should escape from a logic which pushed us
to consume more and more to learn to chose quality over quantity. Gross domestic
product is not, according to Galdo, the best parameter to measure happiness14
.
Economics is a social science which is relatively young, if compared to the time
man and even more the biosphere have been here. Economics today seems however
to have become a totem, the most important subject of all and the one which must
guide every choice both at the local and global level. Only by listening to the radio,
watching television or reading a newspaper one might realise that daily contents and
even the language has changed in favour of the economic and financial spheres. This
might appear quite dangerous and also short-sighted, because very delicate and
important choices seem to be often based on a subject which might not be so
fundamental as it seems, if compared to ecology and sociology, in regard to the issue
of well being and preservation of the biosphere and the subjects who inhabit it. It
may be that ecology, especially the deep one, might at least try to become an
indicator for a culture which adopts a vision of the world less and less careful for
what the real problems of the biosphere are concerned.
The concept of sustainable development, namely a contradiction in terms, ought
to be be better explained, because an evident contradiction seem implicit in its
formulation. Development means growth, increase, and enlargement. In a biosphere
characterised by limited resources, it might seem obvious that a growth, or
development, could not be sustainable, if not to the detriment of the quality and
quantity of natural resources and in general of the same biosphere. The only
imaginable sustainability to which one could refer and which could last in time might
not be a material one but a development of the mind and spirit. A development
which does not undermine the biosphere and the elements that are in it15
.
As ecobiopsychology claims, man is like a cell part of a greater organism which
includes the elements, plants and animals of the biosphere. The vision which holds
14
http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2011/febbraio/04/Riparare_frullatore_camminare_Manuale_ecologi
a_co_9_110204026.shtml
15
Refer to Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova Visione del
Mondo Mimesis, p. 85

29. 131
man as unique inhabitant of the planet with the totality of the biosphere at his
disposal might seem archaic, short-sighted and not sustainable..
In the same way, it seems that a paradigm which conciliates with ecological and
social aspects ought to be based on two principles stated in the United Nations’
Agenda 21 from the 1992 Earth Summit, namely the principle of precaution and that
according to which who pollutes is made to pay16
.
References:
- Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova
Visione del Mondo Mimesis
- Energetic Saving
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/internal_market/single_market_for_g
oods/construction/en0021_en.htm
http://www.legambiente.it/contenuti/dossier/tutti-classe-A
16
The principle of precaution invites not to undertake activities which may harm the environment,
while the second one imposes to the subjects responsible to refund ecological and social damage
caused and to provide for the recovery of the polluted environment. Refer to Shiva, Vandana (2011)
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace Zed Books / Il Bene Comune della Terra
Feltrinelli, p. 76

30. 132
- Good Practices
http://www.ilrecensore.com/wp2/2011/03/basta-poco-di-antonio-galdo-per-
una-nuova-ecologia
- Global Footprint
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/energy_s
olutions22/renewable_energy/sustainable_energy_report
- Hobby Farming
http://www.vitaincampagna.it/eventi/2011_lafiera/area_stampa/download/pre
sentazione_ricerca_nomisma.pdf
- Illich, Ivan (1993) Tools For Conviviality Harper / La Convivialità Red
- Reuse
http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2011/febbraio/04/Riparare_frullatore_cammi
nare_Manuale_ecologia_co_9_110204026.shtml
- Shiva, Vandana (2011) Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace
Zed Books / Il Bene Comune della Terra Feltrinelli
- Sustainable Diet
http://www.repubblica.it/ambiente/2012/08/09/news/la_dieta_eco_fa_bene_al
_pianeta_aiuta_la_terra_e_la_salute_umana-40588324

31. 133
7. THE NEWTWORK IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE INDIVIDUAL
This world is really a living being with a soul and intelligence...
A visible unique living being, which contains all the other beings,
all of which are by nature akin to it...
Plato
The Laws of the Universe
Ecobiopsychology is a fairly new specialised branch of analytical psychology which
has arisen some years ago. One of the key concepts of such new discipline seems to
be constituted by the fact that as well as the traditional analysis typical of analytical
psychology centred on the human nature of the individual in the conscious and
unconscious biological aspect, also the chemical, biological, physical spheres are
enquired in a deeper psychological way1
.
1
http://www.aneb.it/filosofia

32. 134
Figure 7. 1 Relation Among Psychoanalysis, Analytical Psychology and Ecobiopsychology –
Ecobiopsychology derives from analytical psychology, which in turn came directly from
psychoanalysis.
Prominent scholars from psychoanalysis and analytical psychology such as Freud,
Jung, Neumann and Hillman did not take too deeply into consideration, because
science in their time did not allow it, the aspects relative to the physical evolution of
living beings. It seems important to add that, as well as the classical analysis of
modern analytical psychology, also the motives (the so called phylogenesis) and
ways (the so called ontogenesis) a human being has developed, by cross checking by
analogy the evolution of the species both in physical and psychological terms along
time might be investigated. Basically by joining the external and inner aspect of the
person. Linking the material and the immaterial parts which compose all of the
living beings of the biosphere. A psychosomatic approach2
.
The basic principle on which the ecobiopsicological vision is based on is the
concept which investigates how human beings are part of the biosphere, as every
organ within an organism. According to the ecobiopsychological vision, from the
Big Bang to current days, every organism, including human beings, has developed in
a unique and special way. Simple and not very structured microscopic organisms,
sacrificed some of their specificities to aggregate with other organisms akin to them.
To give up some prerogatives made possible the reaching of a better condition in
2
Refer to Pusceddu, Maria (2010) Gioco di Specchi – Riflessioni Tra Natura e Psiche Persiani, p.
15-18
PSYCHOANALYSIS
ANALITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
ECOBIO
PSYCHOLOGY

33. 135
evolutionary terms: a new, more structured, developed and efficient organism formed
by the union of more simple pre-existing ones. According to the
ecobiopsychological vision this process began with the evolution of atoms, went over
with cells, molecules and finally organic matter3
.
Ontogenesis (the set of processes through which the biological development of a
living being is accomplished) is always preceded by phylogenesis (the process of
ramification of the lines of progeny in the evolution of life), in the sense that the
result of evolution always follows a logic and determined project, as Haeckel
claimed. This seems in line with the way evolution through history went on, not only
for humans, but for the entire universe. Such principles could therefore be taken as a
paradigm and a model and considered by all civilisations in order to perhaps allow
for a more aware and at the same time ecologic vision of life4
.
By analogy one could might that all the subjects belonging to the biosphere are
deeply linked to each other and bound by the same chemical, physical, biological
laws which determine both phylogenesis and ontogenesis within the evolution of
species. From an environmental point of view one might imagine the biosphere as a
set of elements, flora, fauna and human beings, all within a system in a very delicate
equilibrium (homeostasis).
Thermodynamics is that branch of physics and chemistry (physical chemistry)
which describes the transformations which a system underwent following processes
which involve the transformation of mass and energy. The state of a system which is
in homeostasis is specified by physical quantities called thermodynamic variables
such as temperature, pressure, volume, chemical composition5
.
Entropy is a physical quantity which is interpreted as a measure of disorder
present in any physical system, including as a limit case, the universe. In this case
3
The so called emergent properties are what is latent and hidden but present in any organism, and
which shows up when the organism gives up part of its specificities and functions to aggregate with a
similar one in order to become a more evolved and structured living being. In evolutionary terms the
efficiency and value of the single and new aggregation prove to be greater than the total sum of the
single individual organisms which compose it. Ibidem, p. 22-24
4
Ibidem, p. 19-21
5
The first principle of thermodynamics (also known as law of conservation of energy) is a
fundamental assumption of the theory of thermodynamics. Such principle states that nothing comes to
be or perishes. The second principle of thermodynamics instead takes into account that many
thermodynamic events are irreversible (for instance the passage of heat from a hot body to a cold one).
It possesses several different formulations, one of which is based on the introduction of a state
function: entropy. Refer to http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/591572/thermodynamics and
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/591572/thermodynamics/258541/The-first-law-of-
thermodynamics

34. 136
the second principle of thermodynamics holds that the entropy of an isolated system
far from its thermal equilibrium tends to increase in time, until the equilibrium is
reached. Practically, during any conversion of energy within a system a part of
energy is always irreversibly lost6
.
A more and more energy-consuming civilisation might always bear in mind that
to maintain an ever growing level of equilibrium in a highly sophisticate, complex
and structured society more and more energy would be needed in order to maintain it
constant. It may seem that energy is the factor which determines for how long
certain conditions can last within a given system (a system which could also be
represented by a civilisation or society).
This might induce thinking, for the fact that it might seem evident that the level of
energy used by man these days to maintain the current technology is extremely high.
Since the majority of energy is today artificial and not natural7
, globally, an obliged
stance toward a shift, from artificial to natural energies might seem implied. The risk
otherwise could perhaps be represented by the collapse of the biosphere and all of the
dramatic consequences which such a situation might bear. The greenhouse effect
might only be one of the many which could occur, but which also seems one of the
most dangerous, for the harm that it would directly be placed to the biosphere and its
inhabitants.
Without having to mention all of the natural disasters and catastrophes occurred in
recent times, following is only one of the many stories which occur every year, and
that might be perceived as an umpteenth signal to everyone. It is concerned with the
increasing glaciers’ retirement around the Polar Circle, and happened in 2012.
The Biosphere’s Entropy
On a sailing boat of 9.3 meters, Swedish Nicolas Peissel and his crew broke the last
Arctic frontier: they managed to cross on a small vessel the Northwest Passage,
6
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/531511/second-law-of-thermodynamics
7
Refer to Illich, Ivan (1993) Tools For Conviviality Harper / La Convivialità Red, p. 50-52