Appeal to the UN and the EU by thermodynamic researchers. As a final message, a group of concerned scientists who attended the 12th bianual 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 consumption 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 organisations 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.