 Here we are. I'm starting to see some participants. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to International Virtual Studio. I'm going to wait for other people to come and to connect with us, but for the few of you who are here, can you please give me feedback if you can hear me or see me properly? Thank you. Hi, your radio. Thanks for being here. We are waiting for Professor Montini to enter. I'm going to present you Virtual Studio. For one of you who entered the first time, one of our Director of International Virtual Studio. I'm going to say that Virtual Studio is our interdisciplinary online project, designed, promoted and coordinated by using a campus cultural activities in collaboration with your radio and Cicloma Joe, which I say hi to them today. And I thank for being here. We are waiting for Professor Massimiliano Montini, who's a Professor of European Union Law and Sustainable Development Law. And he is also the scientific coordinator of the Europe Directorate at the University of Siena. And he's co-director of the R4S, the Regulation of Sustainability Research Group. And he's also the vice chair at the ELGA, the Ecological and Law Governments Association. We are waiting for him. Let me check. Sorry. I wanted also to remind you that International Virtual Studio is a weak appointment. So after today, we're going to see you next Thursday. And you can find our videos on UCN Account, Instagram account. And you can also find our directs on the YouTube channel of the University of Siena. Please, if you have any comments or any questions that you want to ask, you have the comment section down below. Wait for him. Okay, he's connecting with us. I'm sorry, but I'm having, he refused to enter. Okay, thank you. Perfect. Let me check again. Let me see if I can do it another way. I'm reading the comments of your radio, Siena. He's a friend of mine who's writing. Hi, Mathia. I know it's you. Let's try again. Okay, he says it's connected. Okay. Okay. Hi, professor. Welcome. Hello. Can you hear you? I can see you. Okay. Okay, perfect. I can hear you and I can see you properly. Yeah. Okay. I was actually, you know, presenting you, professor. And I said that you are a professor in European Union Law and Sustainable Development Law at the University of Siena. Today, we are actually using you because you are the director of the ARF West, the Regulation Sustainability Research Group. And you are also vice chair at the Elgadie Ecological Law and Governments Association. So the main theme of today is a post-COVID-19 ecological law and governance approach. Based on this title, professor, the first question that I wanted to ask you is what are the data and the information that we are collecting now about our ecological situation during this 19 pandemic situation? Yeah. So what we are trying to do, obviously, is to look at the crisis of COVID-19 from our perspective. We have been launching our global platform four years ago, the Ecological Law and Governments Association. This started in 2016 with a declaration we first had our gathering in Oslo. And so we have a founding document which is called the Oslo Manifesto and dated 2016 that everybody can find on our website, elgadie.org. And obviously, this is our starting point. It's a network. So obviously, nowadays with the current emergency, COVID emergency, we are connecting with all our partners and colleagues and friends around the world to try and share ideas and share experience as we usually do. So we try to see whether our messages can be useful for the restart after the COVID. Try to use obviously the scientific data, but also the social sciences reflections that are appearing all over the world on these issues. During the last encounters with the professors and during the last international virtual studio live, we have discussed mostly about the short-term consequences of this pandemic situation, which could be mobility, which could be the social changing, which is actually now. But about our ecological and sustainable situation, what are the long-term consequences that we will face after the end of this pandemic situation? Yes, of course, we are now all worried and concerned about the current, you know, visible consequences. We are all more or less blocked at home. We have to reduce our normal activities. The crucial question nowadays that we should think about is, should we restart in the same way? I think this is the most interesting question. So we hopefully have a bit of time now. Everybody has a bit of time more than usual. And so it's time to think both at the global perspective and at the local, at each one's life. So do we want to restart in the same way? Do we think that everything we were doing was correct both individually and collectively? So I think it's the right time to pose this kind of question. I think it might be the time to seriously think about a more sustainable society, about better ways to consume and produce our goods, about a better way to produce our energy and to live differently. This doesn't mean to completely change our lifestyle, but maybe to consider, for example, a different approach between humans and nature, which is one of the issues we are dealing with. So try to have a more balanced approach. So one of our keywords is that we should start a time of responsibilities. So try to consider our responsibilities towards nature and towards the ecosystems, which are the basis for life and not about life of old living beings. So I think this maybe looks a bit strange to some people, but it's actually, if we want to restart in a more sustainable way, this might be a way to rethink, as I was saying. Okay, so what you are suggesting now is to think and to rethink a new paradigm for the ecological approach to law and governments, is it correct? Yes. We talk about an ecological approach. Ecological approach means that we want to put first the integrity of ecosystems. If you look at the way humans have been developing in the last 50 years, this has been a story of domination and over-exploitation of natural resources. We now are in the middle of a very big climate crisis, and this is something that everybody is well aware of. We are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis. We are in a situation where we don't have equity around the world, and we have a lot of inequalities and poverty which are increasing. So all these should lead us to the conclusion that our economic model, which is based on the dominance approach, is probably not the right one. So we need to, and the way we deal with our relationship with nature with our other living beings. If we don't start with these underpinnings, with these philosophical foundations, I think we meet the reason why we need to change, and change will occur anyway, because we live in the middle of the crisis. Things will be different in the future, so I think it's time to do it properly in a conscious way, rather than being forced to change at some point by the natural events. Okay, thank you. One of the questions that I wanted to ask to you is that we, during the last meetings on international virtual studio, we have talked about even the worst consequences that this pandemic situation could have and could lead our society to. But I started to think, is it possible that this post-COVID situation could, could it be seen as an opportunity for re, to think and rethink the socio-economic models, and even, of course, based on the, you know, the ecological issues and matters? Trouble in seeing the professor. Can you see him? Because I, I can't, I lost him. Unfortunately, the connection is sometimes not very good. Sorry, Professor, I lost you for a minute. Okay. Can, can you hear me now? Can you see me now? Me too. No. Oh, okay, perfect. Lost again. Unfortunately, I have lost him again. Okay. Oh, Professor, here you are. Okay. Professor, lost him again. I think he's having trouble with, you know, the internet connection could happen during these days. Okay. While we are waiting for the professor to join us again to say, oh, he left. Oh my God. Okay. Let's see if we can connect with him back again. So sorry guys, but you know, it's, we are in an emergency situation, so this things could happen. Okay. Here we are. Maybe while we are waiting for the professor, I wanted to remember to, um, sorry if I, I am misspelling it, but serve J and Y. This is not the first time actually that we're doing studio in, or direct lives in English. This is actually the third because three weeks ago, we, you know, we started the international virtual studio, which is a weekly appointment. So if you want to listen to us, you can join us every week, every Thursday at 6 p.m. on these channels. Unfortunately, Professor is having, is still having troubles. Okay. Where is he right now? Ryan? I'm so sorry. I don't know where he is. Let me see if I invite him. Okay. They're telling me that he's changing the internet lines. So he'll be back in a few minutes. Uh, serve J and Y. Yes, I'm sorry. You lost the first two, but you can check them out in a few days on the YouTube channel of the University of Siena because we are, you know, uploading all the old live videos on the YouTube channel. Okay. Tell us a joke. I'm not good at jokes. I can smile. That's it. Okay. Okay. I changed the room. Yes. Okay. Perfect. So I hope it is a bit better. Yes. Okay. Let's, you know, just join back our conversation. Okay. The question that I have asked you before all of this was that we have talked that we have discussed with the other professors before you, um, the short term situation, the short terms, um, consequences and, um, even the worst consequences that we could face after this quarantine emergency situation. But, um, I have thought about something. The post COVID period, um, could it be seen as an opportunity for the rethinking of the social economic models and not just as the end of something that destroyed us? Yeah, of course. Um, I think we should, we should have an optimistic approach. I think we should have a, it sounds strange because now we are all a bit somehow depressed being at home, you know, being away from our traditional social connections. But I think we should see this as an opportunity. Many people have made a parallel between the current situation and the post war, um, situation after second world war, where of course people had to restart their economies in most countries almost completely. And this is a similar situation. I think it's, it's, it might be a big change. It might be the big change we were waiting for because we have been talking about these for many years. Uh, yesterday was the, you know, the 50th anniversary of the Earth Charter and the Earth Day and, and all that has followed that, you know, and in the beginning of the 70s, another big crisis occurred with the all big oil crisis at the beginning of the 70s. This was the first time that international institutions started to act. It was the time that the European Union started to act. So it's about 50 years that we have been talking about that about the limits of our economic model. And, and, and recently we have a lot of evidence with the climate crisis, as I was saying, and with other, um, you know, environmental and, and, and ecological crisis. So this might be the situation where, you know, we start thinking, okay, what, what should we change? Because I think we shouldn't, we shouldn't have the idea that everything can be started in the same way. So for sure we, we need to change something and we need to do that with a sort of an enthusiasm. And I think we need to engage particularly young people to come out with new ideas, with new opportunities. And I think this should be the way it is. It shouldn't be seen as something we lose, but actually as an opportunity we have to do things in a different way, maybe making a better use of technologies. And as you can see now, we have the opportunity to do these kind of meetings. We still have a lot of connection problems, which means that, you know, things are not perfect yet, but at least we can have, you know, a broad connection. We can connect people. We maybe couldn't be there if it was a physical meeting. So I think we should try to, you know, to work on that and to be, you know, to be proactive in the change. Because I think what will make a difference, it will be, you know, some people will be proactive and be part of the change. Some other people as usually in history will just, you know, be a passive approach and just have to cope with the consequences of change. And I think we should try to be, you know, proactive and enthusiastic because, you know, it's probably a different time, a new time, and we should be part of it. Should be resilient too, we could say. Exactly, it should be resilient. We have actually a question. More than a question is actually, you know, a statement. Your radio, Sena, is writing, the paradox is the countries who polluted the most are those who are less attentive to the climate crisis. Could COVID-19 be a real engine? For instance, the USA aren't fully persuaded of its urgency. Yes, it's true. I was expecting a question about the USA, because clearly this is a crucial example. It's a crucial example of the fact that if you look at the, you know, the way that the, you know, the president of the US is the, you know, the most evident example of the old approach, I would say, of the traditional approach, of the oil approach, of the carbon approach. But of course, I would say this is just, it should be seen as a person that is defending the past or is defending a past approach. It's not certainly projected in the future. So obviously we are not making your political considerations, but if we look at that, if you try to look at that in an objective way, you should see that of course, at the top of the US government now, there is a very conservative, a very old approach. On the other side, if you look at the local examples in the US, at the level of local communities, at the level of single states, which are part of the United States of America, I think of, you know, about California, for example, as always been proactive in environmental issues. These countries and these local communities are actually part of a broad network of people who are doing something to change the world. And so we should look at the positive dimension. Of course, I have a lot of friends in the United States, which are very unhappy about the, you know, the federal governments. But, and of course it is that, but if you, if you place that in, in an historical perspective, this might be, you know, just the, the end of an old paradigm. And then maybe other people will come with a new approach. And this might take some time, but for sure there are, you know, grassroots communities and people and a lot of initiatives. So we have to look at the positive side. Okay. And also maybe I would like to say something more about, before the interruption, I was about to explain the difference between our ecological approach and the traditional environmental approach. This is particularly relevant in the, in the legal and institutional dimension, which is my main area of work, although our association has an interdisciplinary approach. And the difference is that when we speak about ecological approach, we speak about an interconnection, as I was saying, between humans and nature. And so we protect ecosystems because we consider that humans are part of ecosystem. So we have a sort of eco-centric approach, but humans are embedded into the ecosystems. So we protect the ecosystem because we are part of it. So we don't see a separate protection of humans. For example, through human rights protection, we don't see as separated from environmental protection. And in law, so far, you had very different areas. So for example, human rights, where you protect the rights of humans and environmental protection, where you protect the environment. But the environment is always somehow detached from humans. It's always something that is other from humans. And the basic, you know, philosophical underpinning of our idea is that we are part of this ecosystem. We are protecting the earth and our, you know, local ecological constituencies because we are part of it. So that is a major, as I was saying, a major philosophical change. And we think this is very important because maybe, you know, not everyone is aware of that. Jeff wrote something actually a little bit of time ago that some people is actually thinking that this COVID situation was needed because the earth needed a break from us. You know, yeah, just a breakout. The world is breaking up from us. And this crisis was kind of needed. So can we like think or rethink the relationship between humans and nature thanks to this situation? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know if it was needed or not. But of course, sometimes you need situations which are challenging because if everything is the same and people live in their comfortable way of living, it's very difficult for people to make a change. In a way, this was, it might be useful, as I was saying, because it's a time where people are forced to think maybe a bit more in depth about the current situation. It was very interesting to see that, you know, the satellite data and the satellite photos that show that for the first time, maybe in many, many decades, the air quality in areas like the Pianura Padana, like the Milan area, was much cleaner than it usually is. Of course, we could have expected that because we had the data showing that this was one of the most polluted areas in Europe. And we have satellites now that are measuring that. But now we have actually the evidence that if you slow down our carbon-based economy, obviously the quality of the air will improve. And this will have positive consequences, for example, on ecosystem and on our human health. So this demonstrates, as I was saying, that the two things are related. So if you do something for nature and you do something for our human health as well, and the two goals can be connected, can be integrated. So in a way, this was a good showing the evidence also to people who wouldn't believe that. Or think about, for example, international newspapers and international websites. They have reported a lot about the clean water in Venice. I don't know if everyone saw that. This has been something very, very popular on international websites in recent weeks. Because seeing the clear water in Venice, and you can see fishes, and you can see a completely different city. And people were thinking this wouldn't be possible again. And in fact, it is possible. You just slow down all the transport and the private transport and the public transport. And this will be possible. It's very interesting in this sense. We are actually seeing dolphins in Caliara Sport. We are seeing deers in the main streets of London. We are seeing sea lions in Argentina in the streets. You Radio is actually asking another question. Is this the first time we have to take action, not because of financial issues, but due to a huge health crisis? Because our beloved dolphins have magically reappeared as well. Yes. Yes. No, no, it's important. Of course, the COVID emergency will also bring about a financial crisis. But of course, it is interesting that for the first time in many years, we do not only talk of that in an economic way from an economic perspective. Of course, this has economic consequences, but it is primarily an health issue. It's primarily an issue which is related to the relationship between humans and the rest of nature of animals. For example, what you were saying is very interesting. Imagine if we can see the tip of the iceberg. We can see wild animals re-appropriating spaces near the cities or in the cities. But imagine what does it mean that we are actually refraining from exploitation in wild areas, maybe for a few months? And this is an incredible positive news for these wild areas that have been destroyed or at least severely affected by human over-exploitation. So I think this is also an opportunity to think about that. Yeah, I was actually reading some days ago that this is the first time in years that from India you can actually see the Himalaya mountain, which is incredible. I also saw some pictures, yeah, yeah, the other day. And they are incredible, because due to the pollution factors from India, they couldn't see actually the biggest mountain in the world. But now they can, because everything stopped. We have another question. Sarv Jny is asking, after million years which we have been taking advantage of the earth, the earth is recovering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is great. I think, and this explains, and this is also an evidence that what many, many scholars are thinking is true that, you know, it's just about our human approach. You know, it's our human approach that is as major consequences on climate, on biodiversity and so on. So what we do, as I was saying individually and collectively, actually plays a big role, because the earth actually will find the possibility to recover. You know that there is some literature on the so-called sixth mass extinction. Some writers have been writing about that. And the major issue that this would be a problem mostly for humans, would be a problem for the major animal species, for some plants. But at the end of the day, even if we will cause, for example, a climatic catastrophe with our growing emissions, the earth will not disappear. The earth will find a way to go on and maybe restart somehow, recover. So the problem is created by humans, and mostly will be a problem of humans. That's why we need to defend our ecosystem for the benefit of a common flourishing of humans and other living entities. And this might be, as I was saying, an opportunity to see the evidence. So I guess now a lot of skeptical people will be convinced that the quality of air can be better, that climate change might be reduced, that the quality of water might be better, that we might keep on living by exploiting less resources. This is actually possible. Of course, we will need some change. We will find some middle ground between the old way and what we are doing now, which is almost nothing. But maybe there is some middle ground that we can find where we can live well within the planetary boundaries to use an expression that is now used by science. Yeah, we do actually have to take action and to embrace our responsibilities if we really do want to do something for the earth. I really thank you, Professor, because our time is running out. But I really thank you for your presence here today. Before leaving us, do you have any reading tips? Yes, yes. I have a couple of reading tips. I have selected two books, which are actually two books that I think many people will not know. That's the reason why I want to point out to these books. And in fact, it would be surprised that both books are not really new and both books, they have an American origin. They are from thinkers from the U.S. And this is also to demonstrate to many people that many people think in the United States, nobody was thinking about these issues. Actually, some of the great thinkers about the new approach between humans and nature were coming from the U.S. and were coming from the Americas. Not just them. Jane Fonda was actually arrested, which is one of the greatest actors. It's true. But this is something maybe even, let's say, the philosophical underpinning. Not many people are aware that a lot of great thinkers about this actually came from there. So the first one is a book, which is a bit dated, but it's one of the basis of this different approach between humans and nature. The author is Aldo Leopold, and the book is called A Sound County Almanac. It's a book that initially was written in 1949, so it's quite old. It had a golden age in the 70s when it was rediscovered when all this began with the Earth Day and so on. And yesterday I was reading actually that they just published, there is now a foundation under the name of Aldo Leopold in the U.S. and they just published a 50 years edition, and it will be very interesting. It's a book about the relationship between humans and nature, which was the starting point for a lot of reflections, first in the States and then all over the world. And the second book is also by a great thinker who was active in the U.S. It's a book dated 1999. The author is Thomas Berry, and the book is called The Great Work, and the subtitle is Our Way Into the Future. This is also a very interesting book that is talking about the objective of a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship. So on the basis of this book, a lot of thinkers have started to work, for example, on the legal and institutional dimension of a different relationship between human and Earth. That's why I think these books are very useful. They are not books that everybody knows, and that's why it might be an opportunity to bring them to the knowledge of people who didn't come across that. That's also what virtual studio means about. So that's perfect. Thank you, Professor, for your really positive message for us. And, you know, let's follow Jane Fonda and all of these thinkers and take action and respect our planet. Thank you, Professor. Have a nice evening, everybody. Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoyed it, and good luck for going on this very good program. Thank you so much. Nice evening, everybody. Bye. Bye-bye.