The European Space Agency in Paris hosted the book launch of “SOS TREATY (The Safe Operating Space Treaty) – A new approach to managing our use of the Earth System” (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016) on Oct. 7. Our very own Senior Scientist Alessandro Galli was among the guests as one of the contributors. He co-wrote a chapter on the need to develop and use solid indicators, including the Ecological Footprint, to correctly assess humanity’s pressure on the Earth.
Spearheaded by the Portuguese environmentalist NGO ZERO, the SOS book project gathered a multidisciplinary group of jurists, Earth system scientists, ecologists, economists, social scientists and philosophers. Their task was to explore, each from their own vantage point, a new legal framework alongside a novel accounting system that would help humanity nurture and strengthen a favorable state of the Commons at the scale of the planet, and live in harmony with it. This much-needed conversation is only getting started.
