As Newell-Morris put it, there are always costs for evolution, and these costs should be emphasised in relation to the improvements. The result would be a shift from the concept of the common participation of all humans within certain organisational frames and therefore in culture-specific rythms, toward a uniform, taxonomic concept of evolution. The four major criteria are rapid, uncontrolled growth, destruction of the ecosystem, colonisation and urbanisation, and the relative uniformity of human communities. Sure, there is no doubt that the ecosystem is exhausted, that the world population is still exploding, and that waste is the major product of our mass consumption societies. Obviously, the problem nowadays is so virulent that from a biological point of view the question is no more to see it as a political power relationship.
All energy has to be put into finding solutions.
Moreover, it was quite astonishing that the notion of evolution was not epistemologically critically evaluated, in the sense of conveying it a new meaning. Of course, in relation to the socio-biological analysis on the impact of the global population upon the ecosystem, such an attempt had to remain a quite idealistic vision from a social anthropologist. Full of new ideas and opinions, many synapses having grown, swaying between the global and the local, it was time to seek shelter in the places of tradition. The dome, although symbol of Florence' magnitude, could not fulfil that desire, as it was safelly in the hands of the global tourism. In Florence itself, COTA members gathered together to discuss organisational problems, issues of scientific contributions, and the work of the Steering Committee.