HISTORY, ENERGY AND SCIENCE: CHANGES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGNERS’ RESPONSIBILITY

A world of changes, of radical transformation is at the door of the present civilization age, and now more than ever, it is mandatory to ask ourselves in which direction these modifications would go, as George Eliot is questioning. This latest issue among those four of the SMC journal dedicated to the SDGs concludes the sequence that has actually appealed many scholars and experts desiring to offer a challenge for the future adoption of appropriate measures suitable to counteract the immense damage provided to Earth. It will deal with the complex and wonderful relationship between Science, History and Energy, according to the picture representing Pompei ruins (a cultural site) under the frame of the Vesuvius, which can be a symbol of Energy.
The winters and most of the summers of the 2020 and 2021 years have seen the worldly population and the governments very engaged and worried for the Covid pandemic, which of course appeared more urgent and important than the environmental question, because human lives were destroyed or at hazard. Although Science had not yet proved a direct correlation between pollution and this disease – letting arise very often some doubts – nonetheless some evidences on the possible influence of air quality, particularly in terms of cronicity of exposure on the spread viral infection in Italian regions, have been shown. ²
And even if the two disasters were not so strictly and so directly linked, also the Global Warming, the Climate Change and the general environmental pollution are so firmly and by now stable phenomena of the Globe, that no future action could be undertaken by humans without taking them into the right account.When – and if (it is at hazard to say) – we will emerge from this worldly sickness, the cost of the great damages provided to the environment, even due to the electricity consumption and CO2 emissions needed for internet use, will be so eminent that the human community will be difficulty raising up in a very profitable way.
How these transformations have been completed and with which kind of approach can be actually investigated in order to find out the main connection between the human habitat and the SDGs numbers from 7 to 12. Energy, industry, city, consumption and production have been proposed as main sub-topic of the present issue of the Journal, joined with the role of History and Culture as well as of Science. At the beginning, it has to be specified the role sustainable-development approach plays within this scenario. It is generally accepted that this subject includes also “… human beings working in harmony with their natural and manmade