Epilogue - Thanatia: The Destiny of the Earth's Mineral Resources - page 515

generations will surely be grateful for such accounts. Yet a major intellectual effort
needs to be undertaken from the concepts stated here. In the end, however, the
real overall accounting unit will be the residence time of the human species on the
planet (Valero and Valero D., 2012a, 2013).
17.5.2 Appeal to the UN and the EU by thermodynamic
researchers
As a final message, a group of concerned scientists who attended the 12th biannual
Joint European Thermodynamics Conference, held in Brescia, Italy, from July 1-5,
2013, launched an Appeal to the UN and the EU calling for a better preservation
of the Earth's resources endowment and the use of the laws of Thermodynamics for
the assessment of energy and material resources as well as the planet's dissipation
of energy. The following statement, first published in IJOT (2013) was signed
by thirty one distinguished scientists who are using and developing the laws of
Thermodynamics.
Climate change and mineral resource depletion are two of the major challenges
humanity is faced with, and are interlinked. The United Nations comprehensively
addressed the former a few decades ago by setting up the United Nations Program
for Environment and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, of which the
International Panel on Climate Change is an offspring. The above initiative can
be seen as response model, which mobilises the scientific community so as to
provide ideas, tools, propositions, etc in the combat against climate change.
The depletion of mineral ores and of energy resources (as illustrated by the con-
sumption of non-recycled rare earths and other minor metals), meanwhile, has
become a major concern more recently since there is a growing awareness that it
threatens present-day human civilization.
The laws of thermodynamics provide the central framework for the assessment
of the use of energy and material resources as well as the Planet's dissipation of
energy. Such laws can be used on a system's level, as well as on smaller scales.
In the quest for a better preservation of the Earth's resources endowment, we
scientists, familiar with the power and possibilities of these laws, appeal to or-
ganisations of the international community for worldwide action and urge the UN
and EU to ensure that proper attention is given to the analysis and evaluation of
systems using non-renewable energy sources and minerals.
Sustainability is a journey, Thanatia a destination
Antonio Valero and Alicia Valero, January 2014