Articles by: Ugo Bardi

The owners of a shoe repair shop in Florence (*). In this picture, taken just after the end of the coronavirus lockdown, they are preparing to reopen their shop. They look happy, even euphoric. Time will tell if that optimism was justified.

Three months later, Florence restarts. But not quite

The epidemic is almost over in Italy. After almost three painful months of lockdown and the loss of about 30.000 lives, the daily number of victims of the coronavirus is slowly dwindling to zero. In a couple of weeks at most, the epidemic will be completely gone. It is time to restart, but the damage has been terrible. The lockdown[Read More…]

by 29/05/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Coronavirus: Why aren’t the Italians singing anymore?

Coronavirus: Why aren’t the Italians singing anymore?

At the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, a few weeks ago, Italians seemed to have found a moment of national unity when the country’s lockdown began March 9. Everyone understood that it was a difficult moment, but took it as a challenge to fight the virus together. Italian flags were hung from windows and people sang from their balconies and windows. More[Read More…]

by 25/04/2020 1 comment World
Collapse: The Coronavirus is not a Cause, it is a Trigger

Collapse: The Coronavirus is not a Cause, it is a Trigger

Do you remember the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back? It is an illustration of how overloaded systems are sensitive to small perturbations. Could the COVID-19 epidemic be the straw that breaks the back of the world’s economy? Like an overloaded camel, the world’s economy is strained by at least two tremendous burdens: one is the increasing[Read More…]

by 17/04/2020 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
 Coronavirus: What’s Happening?

 Coronavirus: What’s Happening?

The most recent data indicate a decrease in the number of coronavirus infections in Italy. That means we could get out of the epidemic in the coming months. But why do we expect this trend? It is explained in the field of Science called “epidemiology” that studies how epidemics spread. The first epidemiology studies date back to 1927, when two[Read More…]

by 31/03/2020 Comments are Disabled World
The Politics of the Coronavirus: A Lesson from Italy on how to Deal with Emergencies

The Politics of the Coronavirus: A Lesson from Italy on how to Deal with Emergencies

There was a moment, a few weeks ago, when I was scared. Truly scared. The Italian Right had started mounting a hate campaign that exploited the coronavirus threat. The gist of the campaign was that the coronavirus was a threat brought to Italy by those filthy Chinese, known for their disgusting eating habits. And the African immigrants were doing the[Read More…]

by 13/03/2020 Comments are Disabled World
The Earth Sign: Greeting Each Other in the Age of the Coronavirus

The Earth Sign: Greeting Each Other in the Age of the Coronavirus

In these rapidly changing times, we need to change our behavior in many ways My students doing the “Earth sign” or the “Gaia Sign” while floating in space. It is a gesture of greeting symbolizing respect for our mother Earth It might be a good idea to resurrect this kind of greeting in the times of the coronavirus.    Humans[Read More…]

by 06/03/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Climate Change: A Concise Assessment of What we are Risking

Climate Change: A Concise Assessment of What we are Risking

The failure of the Madrid climate negotiations, the Cop25, was not really unexpected. Even today, very few people, be they politicians or citizens, understand the risks of what’s happening, and those who do are accused of “alarmism”. But how long can we carry on as if nothing is happening? What do we risk if we do nothing? The answer is[Read More…]

by 18/01/2020 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
The Effect of the Sanctions: Is Iran Cracking Down Under the Strain?

The Effect of the Sanctions: Is Iran Cracking Down Under the Strain?

In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, at that time the only remaining free African country. Why exactly that happened is a long story. Let me just say that, in part, it was a revenge for a defeat suffered long before, when an early attempt at invading Ethiopia had failed. In part, it had to do with reacting to the financial crash[Read More…]

by 09/12/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Report From Iran: The Country Moves Onward

Report From Iran: The Country Moves Onward

Iran is a country that maintains something of the fascination it had in ancient times, when it was both fabulous and remote. In our times, it remained somewhat remote, but also something that couldn’t be ignored as it went through a series of dramatic events, from the revolution of 1979, the hostage crisis, the Iraq-Iran war from 1980 to 1988,[Read More…]

by 28/10/2019 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
The Public Interest in Climate Change Reaches an All-Time High. It is the Effect of Greta Thunberg

The Public Interest in Climate Change Reaches an All-Time High. It is the Effect of Greta Thunberg

A little more than one year ago, I wrote a post titled “Why, in a Few Years, Nobody Will be Talking About Climate Change Anymore.” It turned out that I was completely wrong: Greta Thunberg changed everything. My mistake was the typical one we all make when we try to predict the future. As I tend to say, “the surest[Read More…]

by 08/10/2019 1 comment Climate Change
Notes on Gaian Theology: Is the Goddess a Superorganism?

Notes on Gaian Theology: Is the Goddess a Superorganism?

The beauty of the Gaian theology is that, unlike for ordinary theology, you don’t have to rely only on second-hand reports about the subject of your studies. Gaia exists, and you can perceive Her all around us. Then, the question is: what or who is She? As you know, the modern idea of Gaia as a denizen of the Earth’s ecosphere[Read More…]

by 03/09/2019 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Europe, Europe! The Dream Doesn’t Die

Europe, Europe! The Dream Doesn’t Die

There was a time, long ago, when the term “Europe” was a vague definition for the lands north of the Mediterranean Sea, a vast regions of fog and swamps, inhabited by hairy Barbarians. In time, the Roman Empire came to dominate the area we call today “Western Europe” but nobody would even dream to call him or herself “European.” For[Read More…]

by 29/05/2019 1 comment Resource Crisis
When the Going gets Tough, Women get Going. “MIddle Ages 2.0” and the Great Transformation Awaiting us

When the Going gets Tough, Women get Going. “MIddle Ages 2.0” and the Great Transformation Awaiting us

In Europe, Greta Thunberg has smashed all the memetic barriers succeeding in doing what nobody else had succeeded before: bringing the climate emergency within the horizon of the public and of the decision makers. In parallel, on the other side of the Atlantic, another young woman, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez has been doing something similar with her “Green New Deal.”These are[Read More…]

by 19/03/2019 1 comment Resource Crisis
What can we Learn About Collapse From the Middle Ages? The Great Challenge of the Seneca Bottleneck

What can we Learn About Collapse From the Middle Ages? The Great Challenge of the Seneca Bottleneck

The idea that a collapse is awaiting our civilization seems to be gaining ground, although it has not reached the mainstream debate. But no civilization before ours escaped collapse, so it makes sense to think that the entity we call “The West” is going to crash down, badly, in the future. Then, just as it happened to the Romans long[Read More…]

by 04/03/2019 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Winning the War of Climate Communication. Is Greta Thunberg the Memetic Weapon we Needed?

Winning the War of Climate Communication. Is Greta Thunberg the Memetic Weapon we Needed?

Who speaks on behalf of young people about climate? Greta Thunberg does. She is the embodiment of the concept that what matters in communication is not the message but the messenger. Only a believable messenger can pass a believable message. And she is believable: she has a direct stake on the issue, it is HER future she is defending, just[Read More…]

by 26/02/2019 2 comments Climate Change
What’s Emperor Trump Doing? He is Busy at Splitting the Empire in Two

What’s Emperor Trump Doing? He is Busy at Splitting the Empire in Two

Flavius Theodosius Augustus “The Great” (347- 395 CE) was the last emperor to rule over the whole Roman Empire. His success was probably due in large part to his habit of plundering Pagan temples for the gold he needed to pay his troops. But Pagan temples were a limited resource and Theodosius himself seemed to understand that when, shortly before[Read More…]

by 12/02/2019 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
The Biodiesel Disaster: Why bad Ideas are Always so Successful?

The Biodiesel Disaster: Why bad Ideas are Always so Successful?

Sometimes it happens that you are asked a question that forces you to reflect. So, a few days ago, I was at a public meeting on energy and climate and I was telling about the work we do at the university and with the Club of Rome. In the debate, someone asked me: “But, professor, from all these models of[Read More…]

by 05/02/2019 1 comment Alternative Energy
“Energy Dominance,” what does it mean? Decoding a Fashionable Slogan

“Energy Dominance,” what does it mean? Decoding a Fashionable Slogan

“Now, I know for a fact that American energy dominance is within our grasp as a nation.” Ryan Zinke, U.S. Secretary of the Interior (source) “All Warfare is Based on Deception” Sun Tzu, “The Art of War” Over nearly a half-century, since the time of Richard Nixon, American presidents have proclaimed the need for “energy independence” for the US, without[Read More…]

by 08/01/2019 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Peak Diesel or no Peak Diesel? The Debate is Ongoing

Peak Diesel or no Peak Diesel? The Debate is Ongoing

In a recent post, Antonio Turiel proposed that the global peak of diesel fuel production was reached three years ago, in 2018. Turiel’s idea is especially interesting since it takes into account the fact that what we call “oil” is actually a wide variety of liquids of different characteristics. The current boom of the extraction of tight oil (known also[Read More…]

by 17/12/2018 1 comment Resource Crisis
Why is it so Easy to Lie to Us? The Case of Russia and Climategate

Why is it so Easy to Lie to Us? The Case of Russia and Climategate

Our media feed us routinely with lies and the story of the involvement of the Russian Secret Service with the Climategate hack is just one of them. I thought it was worth discussing it here in light of the fact that it is one of the most blatant lies I could ever find. Also a good illustration of the incredible[Read More…]

by 14/12/2018 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Peak Oil, 20 Years Later: Failed Prediction or Useful Insight?

Peak Oil, 20 Years Later: Failed Prediction or Useful Insight?

 20 years ago, Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere published an article on “Scientific American” that was to start the second cycle of interest on oil depletion (the first had been started by Hubbert in the 1950s). Their prediction turned out to be too pessimistic, at least in terms of the supply of combustible liquids, still growing today. Yet, it was a valuable[Read More…]

by 20/11/2018 2 comments Resource Crisis
The "base case" scenario of "The Limits to Growth" 1972 report to the Club of Rome. The strong non-linearity of the behavior of complex systems -- including the global economy -- is nearly impossible to understand for people trained in economics. William Nordhaus, the recent Nobel prize winner in economics, is no exception to the rule. In this post, I'll report how, at the beginning of his career, Nordhaus criticized "The Limits to Growth", showing in the process that he had understood nothing of the way complex systems work.

Why Economists Can’t Understand Complex Systems: The case of William Nordhaus, Nobel Prize in Economics

After having been awarded the Nobel prize in economics of this year, William Nordhaus has been often presented as some sort of an ecologist (see, e.g. this article on Forbes). Surely, Nordhaus’ work on climate has merit and he is one of the leading world economists who recognize the importance of the problem and who propose remedies for it. On the[Read More…]

by 15/10/2018 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Empires are short-lived structures created and kept together by the availability of mineral resources, fossil fuels in our times. They tend to decline and fall with the decline of the resources that created them, and that's the destiny of the current World Empire: the American one. Will new empires be possible with the gradual disappearance of the abundant mineral resources of the past? Maybe not, and Donald Trump could be the last great emperor in history.

Could Donald Trump be the Last World Emperor? States and Empires After the End of the Fossil Age

A warlord named Sargon of Akkad was perhaps the first man in history to rule a true empire, around mid 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamia. Before him, humans had been warring against each other for millennia, but the largest social structures they had developed were no larger than city-states. Gradually, new forms of social aggregation emerged: kingdoms and empires, structures[Read More…]

by 07/10/2018 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Aurelio Peccei in 1969, when he was appointed the first president of the Club of Rome

Did the Club of Rome Ever Disavow “The Limits to Growth”? A Story of Ordinary Disinformation

The Club of Rome is inextricably linked to the legendary report that it commissioned to a group of MIT researchers in 1972, “The Limits to Growth.” Today, nearly 50 years later, we still have to come to terms with the vision brought by the report, a vision that contradicts the core of some of humankind’s most cherished beliefs. The report[Read More…]

by 24/09/2018 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Plastic Pollution: The Age of Unsolvable Problems

Plastic Pollution: The Age of Unsolvable Problems

How bad is the situation with plastic pollution? Rather bad, by all means. Citing from a recent paper by Geyer et al., more than 8 billion tons of plastic have been produced since the 1950s. Of this plastic, 9% percent was recycled, 12% was incinerated, the rest is in part still in use, in part dispersed in the ecosystem. It is this[Read More…]

by 17/09/2018 1 comment Environmental Protection
How the World Elites are Going to Betray us: Lessons from Roman History

How the World Elites are Going to Betray us: Lessons from Roman History

The more I study the story of the Roman Empire, the more I see the similarities with our world. Of course, history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it is impressive to note how with the start of the collapse of the Western Empire, the Roman elites abandoned the people to build themselves strongholds in safe places. Something similar may be[Read More…]

by 08/08/2018 2 comments Resource Crisis
A Seneca Collapse for the World’s Human Population?

A Seneca Collapse for the World’s Human Population?

  This is a condensed and modified version of a paper of mine that appeared on “The Journal of Population and Sustainability” this year. The image above is the well known “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” by Albrecht Durer – 1498. Yes, I know it is catastrophistic, but it is not my fault if biological populations do tend to collapse![Read More…]

by 17/07/2018 2 comments Resource Crisis
The Queen and the Philosopher: what we can learn today from the story of Boudica’s rebellion against the Roman Empire

The Queen and the Philosopher: what we can learn today from the story of Boudica’s rebellion against the Roman Empire

  We know very little about Queen Boudica of the Iceni (20 AD (?) – 61 AD) and most of what we know is probably deformed by Roman propaganda. But we may still be able to put together the main elements of her story and how it was that she almost threw the mighty Roman Legions out of Britain. Above, a fantasy[Read More…]

by 10/07/2018 2 comments Resource Crisis
Overpopulation Problem? What Overpopulation Problem?

Overpopulation Problem? What Overpopulation Problem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke6UoG8WKU0 I keep reading more and more comments about overpopulation on the social media. It is not just an impression: the trend of increasing interest in population matters is visible in Google Trends. Still weak, but it is there. It is puzzling how the question is returning. It had disappeared from the media after it had been popular in the 1970s, at[Read More…]

by 04/07/2018 1 comment Resource Crisis
The Betrayal of a Nation. How the Kiribati People Will be Left to Drown

The Betrayal of a Nation. How the Kiribati People Will be Left to Drown

Anote’s Ark is a beautiful movie that follows the fight of Kiribati’s president, Anote’s Tong, on behalf of his people, trying to save them from the rising sea. The movie succeeds in telling the story and in making its case without preaching or pleading. But it hides the last phase of the story: the betrayal of an entire nation, taking[Read More…]

by 25/06/2018 1 comment Climate Change
Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right

Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right

During the past few weeks, we have seen a true political revolution in Italy. Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italian League, has successfully exploited his new position of Minister of the Interior to gain personal prominence. The M5s movement had won the elections, this year, but it has been emarginated to a secondary role, while Salvini acts and looks like[Read More…]

by 22/06/2018 1 comment World
The Time of the Great Slaughter: the Seneca Cliff of Rabbit Island

The Time of the Great Slaughter: the Seneca Cliff of Rabbit Island

Little rabbits, little rabbits, come to me and hear this story. I can tell it to you because I am the oldest rabbit of all the island and I have heard it by rabbits older than me, who heard it from rabbits older than them. And so, this is the story of the island where we live, that we call[Read More…]

by 26/05/2018 4 comments Resource Crisis
Five Things You Should Know About Collapse

Five Things You Should Know About Collapse

The Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca was perhaps the first in history to identify and discuss collapse and to note that “the way to ruin is rapid.” From Seneca’s idea, Ugo Bardi coined the term “Seneca Effect” to describe all cases where things go bad fast and used the modern science of complex systems to understand why and how collapses[Read More…]

by 16/05/2018 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
The road to the Seneca Cliff is paved with evil intentions. How to destroy the world’s forests

The road to the Seneca Cliff is paved with evil intentions. How to destroy the world’s forests

The oldest stories of human lore have to do with cutting trees and with the disasters that followed as a consequence. Above, Legendary Sumerian heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the guardian of the trees, Huwawa (image source). Several thousand years afterward, we don’t seem to have learned much about how to manage our natural resources. I expected this to happen, perhaps not[Read More…]

Saving the World: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? A Review of the Latest Report to the Club of Rome, “Come On”

Saving the World: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? A Review of the Latest Report to the Club of Rome, “Come On”

Nearly half a century has passed since the publication, in 1972, of the first – and still the most famous – report of the Club of Rome, “The Limits to Growth.” That first report was heavily criticized but, nowadays, it is turning out that it had correctly identified the main lines of the trajectory that the human industrial society was[Read More…]

by 19/04/2018 2 comments Resource Crisis
How Big a Disaster Can Climate Change Be?

How Big a Disaster Can Climate Change Be?

Above, you can see an image from the paper by Marsicek et al., just appeared on Nature. It shows a reconstruction from pollen records of the temperatures of the past 10,000 year or so, the “Holocene,” for North America and Europe. Note the black squares, showing how fast temperatures have been growing during the past 50 years or so. As all[Read More…]

by 03/02/2018 3 comments Climate Change
Above, two characters of the Earthsea world: Ged and Vetch (Ged is the one with the scars on his face). Behind Ged, the Shadow. A wonderful image by Paul Duffield.

Epistemology of Earthsea: Is The Universe A Machine?

I propose here a modified version of a post that I published last year on “Chimeras“.  I argue here that all our troubles are epistemological in nature: we don’t know how to find the truth. In the Earthsea series, Ursula Le Guin gave us some hints – although no solution – about this dilemma.  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable[Read More…]

by 15/01/2018 1 comment Life/Philosophy
The great “pulse” of mass exterminations that occurred during the 20th century (graph created by Rummel). According to this chart, 262 million people were exterminated during the last century, mainly by governments in a series of actions that Rummel defines as “democides”. The question is, could something similar occur in the future? It turns out that mass exterminations are like earthquakes, their occurrence cannot be predicted exactly; but we can estimate the probability of an event of a certain size to occur. And the more time passes, the more likely a new pulse of mass exterminations becomes.

Are You Ready For A New Round Of Mass Exterminations?

In this sobering exclusive analysis for INSURGE, Professor Ugo Bardi dissects historical statistics on war to unpick the patterns of violence of the past and uncover what this says about the present — and our coming future. He warns that statistical data suggests we are on the brink of heading into another round of major wars resulting, potentially, in mass deaths on a[Read More…]

by 13/11/2017 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Is Climate Science Denial Going Through A Seneca Cliff?

Is Climate Science Denial Going Through A Seneca Cliff?

Sometimes I think about how difficult it must be to be a climate science denier. I have been studying climate science for years and I can tell you that it is tough stuff and that climate scientists are smart people who have been building their competency over decades of work. Climate science deniers can have a good time telling each[Read More…]

by 31/08/2017 1 comment Climate Change
Italian Blackshirts in the early 1920s. There is a Fascist song from those times that says (translated), "Fascists and Communists were playing cards. The Fascists won with the ace of clubs."  But the clubs used by the Fascists were only a marginal elements in a struggle that had as a fundamental factor the supply of energy to the Italian economy.

What Fuels Civil War? Energy And The Rise Of Fascism

History, as we all know, may not repeat itself, but it surely rhymes. So, the theme of a civil war and of a return of Fascism is much discussed in the US nowadays. What kind of rhymes with past events can we perceive? On this point, I can propose to re-examine how Fascism took over in Italy, in the early[Read More…]

by 24/08/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Which EROI Do We Need To Collect Berries?

Which EROI Do We Need To Collect Berries?

The question of EROI – the energy return on energy invested – is raging nowadays, with some people insisting that a civilization cannot exist without an EROI of at least variously estimated values, at least 10 and higher . And that is said to mean we absolutely need sophisticated technologies, such as nuclear, in order to survive. Yet, this morning I[Read More…]

by 16/08/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Our Photovoltaic Future: The Metabolic Revolutions of the Earth’s History

Our Photovoltaic Future: The Metabolic Revolutions of the Earth’s History

Illustration from the recent paper by Olivia Judson on “Nature Ecology & Evolution (2017) “The Energy Expansions of Evolution”.  Olivia Judson published a very interesting paper this March on “Nature Ecology & Evolution“. It is a wonderful cavalcade along 4 billion years of the history of the Earth, seeing it in terms of five “metabolic revolutions.” It is an approach that goes in[Read More…]

by 08/08/2017 Comments are Disabled Alternative Energy
Mining The Asteroids: How Desperate Can We Become?

Mining The Asteroids: How Desperate Can We Become?

It seems that, when we are in trouble, we tend to revert to our childhood memories, seen as happy times that, somehow, could return. That may explain why President Trump is dreaming of an impossible return to coal. He may see the idea through his memories of childhood as a time of happy miners and prosperous families. Some others, instead,[Read More…]

by 21/07/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Benito Mussolini: Italy's leader for more than 20 years, met an ignominious end in 1945. It is a story that can illustrate what I called the "The Camper's Dilemma", how deception may be an operational strategy for governments and for elites.

When Governments Operate In “Cheating Mode”: Italy During WWII

How you react to a threat depends on how serious you consider it. Small or moderate threats don’t deserve a strong reaction, while extreme, “existential” threats generate emergency measures. In between, there is an intermediate threat zone where you can think that it is a good idea to save yourself by cheating. It is what I called the “camper’s dilemma.”[Read More…]

by 20/07/2017 1 comment Climate Change
What Can Governments Hide From Us? Lessons From WWII

What Can Governments Hide From Us? Lessons From WWII

Governments are not known to be benevolent organizations. On the contrary, when it is question of ensuring their own survival, they are ruthless. And they are well known to lie to people. The case of the “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq is well known but, at least, eventually it became clear that it was a lie: these weapons didn’t[Read More…]

by 08/07/2017 4 comments Resource Crisis
The Senecca Cliff

Climate, Fossil Fuels, Resources And All That

This interview was recorded this February and is reported here from the site of the European Project MEDEAS, only minimally edited. Take into account that none of the people involved (interviewers and interviewed) are native English speakers and you can understand why the grammar and the syntax are, well, let’s just say “not perfect”. Then, as in all non-edited interviews, the[Read More…]

by 08/06/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
“Peak Hats.” Social Change And The Coming Demise of Private Cars

“Peak Hats.” Social Change And The Coming Demise of Private Cars

For a long time, hats were oversized and expensive status symbols more than tools for protecting people’s heads. During the past half century or so, they have nearly disappeared. A similar destiny may befall on private cars, also oversized and expensive status symbols rather than tools for transporting people. With the disappearance of cars, we may see hats coming back. [Read More…]

by 21/05/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Make The Anthill Great Again! The Ant Colony And The Human Ones

Make The Anthill Great Again! The Ant Colony And The Human Ones

Image above: the 1998 movie “AntZ”. This post was inspired by a post by Antonio Turiel titled “Of Ants and Men” where he used the example of an ant to discuss the difficulties that humans have to perceive the real problems facing humankind today. Here, I examine again, a little more in depth, the same issue. Imagine yourself as an[Read More…]

by 16/05/2017 3 comments Resource Crisis
The Apple And The Ant

The Apple And The Ant

Antonio Turiel keeps what I think is one of the best blogs in the world (perhaps the best) dedicated to energy and fossil fuels: The Oil Crash. Too bad that, despite the title, the blog is written in Spanish. But if you can read Spanish or are willing to spend some time to decipher a Google translation, then you can truly[Read More…]

by 12/05/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Go Electric, Young Man! The Story of the Electric Fiat "500"

Go Electric, Young Man! The Story of the Electric Fiat “500”

Some ten years ago, myself and my friend Pietro Cambi had the weird idea of “retrofitting” Pietro’s old Fiat 500, turning it into an electric car. To understand why we embarked in such a task, you have to consider that we were (and are) both “peak oilers”; but also we were (and are) both Italian and the Fiat 500 is[Read More…]

by 09/05/2017 2 comments Counter Solutions
Crimea: From World War 0 To World War III

Crimea: From World War 0 To World War III

Today, we remember little about what we call the Crimean war (1853-1856), even though it was the largest war ever fought in history up to that moment. It prefigured many of the elements that would later reappear in the two world wars of the 20th century, so much that we might call it “World War 0.” It included fossil fuels[Read More…]

by 11/04/2017 2 comments World
Why EROEI Matters: The Role Of Net Energy In The Survival Of Civilization

Why EROEI Matters: The Role Of Net Energy In The Survival Of Civilization

A lively debate is ongoing on what should be the minimum energy return for energy invested (EROEI) in order to sustain a civilization. Clearly, one always wants the best returns for one’s investments. And, of course, investing in something that provides a return smaller than the investment is a bad idea. So, a civilization grows and prosper on the net[Read More…]

by 14/03/2017 1 comment Alternative Energy
"While there may be a tendency to be complacent about the recurring record temperatures, with each month come more climate-related consequences that cannot be ignored, and they make for big news stories," writes Astrid Caldas of the Union of Concerned Scientists. (Photo: Francesco Bonito Oliva/flickr/cc)

MEDEAS: The Next Step After The Paris Climate Agreement

Let me start with something to dispel the confusion about what models are for. When you deal with complex, adaptive systems, models are NOT meant to predict the future. As John Gall said in his book on complex systems, “systems always kick back” – to which I may add, “and sometimes they kick back with a vengeance“. (another way to[Read More…]

by 23/02/2017 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Checkmated OnThe “Climate Pause”: The Mistakes Scientists Make

Checkmated OnThe “Climate Pause”: The Mistakes Scientists Make

David Rose popularized the concept of the “pause” in global warming in a 2012 article on the Daily Mail. There never was such a thing, but it became a highly successful meme (*), still widely cited today as proof that global warming doesn’t exist or it is nothing to be worried about. By now, the rapid rising temperatures of the[Read More…]

by 07/02/2017 2 comments Climate Change
Trump: The Defeat Of Science

Trump: The Defeat Of Science

Defeats are supposed to teach people how to do better; in theory. In practice, it often happens that defeats teach people how to become masters in blame-shifting. With some exceptions, this seems to have been the main result of the recent defeat of the Democrats in the 2016 presidential election, where we saw a truly spasmodic search for culprits: Putin,[Read More…]

by 24/01/2017 2 comments Uncategorized
Amelie The Amoeba: How Things Grow

Amelie The Amoeba: How Things Grow

This academic year, I gave a lesson on the growth mechanism of complex systems. It is a fascinating subject that can be applied to several fields, from biology to economics. Since the students I was talking to were not specializing in complex systems (they were students of geology), I used a light tone and used “Amelie the Amoeba” an image[Read More…]

by 18/01/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Carbon Capture Finally Cracked? Why You Can’t Fight Climate Change With Coke or Pepsi

Carbon Capture Finally Cracked? Why You Can’t Fight Climate Change With Coke or Pepsi

Some time ago, I found myself trying to explain to a journalist why I opposed CO2 mining in Tuscany. I said something like, “it makes no sense that the regional government spends money to reduce CO2 emissions and, at the same time, allows this company to extract CO2 that, otherwise, would stay underground.” “But”, the journalist said, “I have interviewed[Read More…]

by 09/01/2017 1 comment Alternative Energy
Bringing Back Science Into The Fold Of Humanism

Bringing Back Science Into The Fold Of Humanism

Yesterday, I was invited to give a talk at a public meeting on the usual themes: climate change, resources, pollution, and the like. This time, a question I received from the audience caused me a small enlightenment that I am describing here as I remember it (h/t Lorenzo Citti for having organized this interesting meeting)  Thanks for this question –[Read More…]

by 20/12/2016 1 comment Counter Solutions
The Trump Effect: Is Climate Change Denialism On The Rise?

The Trump Effect: Is Climate Change Denialism On The Rise?

  The results of a search for “climate hoax” on Google Trends  Google Trends shows a remarkable spike in the interest for the coupled terms “climate” and “hoax”. Does that mean that people are becoming more skeptical about climate science? Or simply more interested in the subject? On this point, Google Trends tells us that there has been no special[Read More…]

by 12/12/2016 2 comments Climate Change
John Glenn (1921-2016): The End Of An Era

John Glenn (1921-2016): The End Of An Era

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, in 1962. It was the start of the adventure that led to the lunar landing in 1969; only seven years later. It was an age of enthusiasm and of great expectations; a time that, today, looks remote. The conquest of space may have been made possible by the high energy[Read More…]

by 10/12/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis, World
Italy’s Referendum: The Great Defeat Of Matteo Renzi, As Commented By Leon Tolstoy

Italy’s Referendum: The Great Defeat Of Matteo Renzi, As Commented By Leon Tolstoy

There is a clear parallel between the results of the Italian constitutional referendum of Dec 4th, 2016 and those of the Brexit referendum and the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the US. In all cases, we saw devastating failures for the mainstream media. People refused to listen to the messages beamed to them. They had the feeling of being swindled[Read More…]

by 09/12/2016 1 comment World
Climate Science Communication: Trust Begets Trust

Climate Science Communication: Trust Begets Trust

Why are we failing at communicating the danger of climate change? Maybe people don’t have enough information? (This is the “information deficit” model). Or maybe they have too much information? (This is called the “cultural cognition” model). Or maybe they are not getting the right information? Or there is something else that’s wrong? Without going into the details of the[Read More…]

by 06/12/2016 1 comment Climate Change
Peak Oil In A Fact-Free World: The New “Oil Bonanza” In West Texas

Peak Oil In A Fact-Free World: The New “Oil Bonanza” In West Texas

So, the USGS comes out with a press release that the media immediately diffuse in terms of a great discovery: 20 billion barrels, somewhere in Texas in a place called “Wolfcamp”.  Bloomberg multiplies the number by the current oil price and comes up with a title that reads: “A $900 billion Oil Treasure,” for a piece that tells of “bonanza”[Read More…]

by 01/12/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
Tiffany’s Fallacy: The Mineral Pie Is Shrinking, And Most Of What’s Left Is In The Sky

Tiffany’s Fallacy: The Mineral Pie Is Shrinking, And Most Of What’s Left Is In The Sky

In the debates that deal with energy and fossil fuels, it is rather common to read or hear statements such as “oil will last for 50 years at the current rate of production.” You can also hear that “we still have one thousand years of coal” (Donald Trump stated exactly that during the US presidential campaign of 2016). When these[Read More…]

by 29/11/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
Jay Forrester: The Man Who Saw The Future

Jay Forrester: The Man Who Saw The Future

Jay Wright Forrester (1918-2016) may have been the source of inspiration for Hari Seldon, a fictional character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. In Asimov’s novels, Seldon develops “pyschohistoric equations” that allow him to predict the impending collapse of the Galactic Empire. In the real world, Forrester developed “system dynamics equations” that allowed him to predict the impending collapse of the[Read More…]

by 23/11/2016 2 comments Counter Solutions
Why Do The Poor Vote For The Rich? Trump, Berlusconi, And The Empire Of Lies

Why Do The Poor Vote For The Rich? Trump, Berlusconi, And The Empire Of Lies

The results of the US elections were not so surprising for me: after all, I live in a country where politics has been dominated by a financial tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, for more than 20 years. Berlusconi and Trump share many characteristics, but the most curious one is that they are rich and that the poor vote for them. Why is[Read More…]

by 09/11/2016 4 comments World
The Mother Of All Promises And How Science Failed To Maintain It

The Mother Of All Promises And How Science Failed To Maintain It

In the 1950s, during the high times of the “atomic age”, someone had the unfortunate idea of claiming that nuclear technologies would give us, one day, “energy too cheap to meter.” We might call it “the mother of all promises” and, of course, it was not maintained. But, as propaganda often does, it stuck in people’s minds and it seems[Read More…]

by 24/10/2016 1 comment Alternative Energy
Kite surfing on the IJsselmeer lake, in the Netherlands; a picture that I took a couple of weeks ago. These are not kites for airborne wind energy (AWE) but, for some reason, Holland is the country where the idea of energy kites seems to be most popular; in particular because of the work of the late Wubbo Ockels (1946 – 2014), pioneer of wind energy. The technology is promising, but there is a long way to go before it will become a commercial reality.

An AWEsome Energy Source: Where Do We Stand With Airborne Wind Energy?

I have been following the development of airborne wind energy (AWE) for more than 10 years and I keep following it. This summer, I visited the campus of the Technical University of Delft, in Holland, where I met the people of “Enevate”, the university spinoff dedicated to kite power, a field in which the university of Delft has been active[Read More…]

by 10/10/2016 2 comments Alternative Energy
Creative Collapsing: A Way To Avoid The Climate Disaster

Creative Collapsing: A Way To Avoid The Climate Disaster

Illustration from the paper “The Sower’s Way.” by Sgouridis, Csala and Bardi  recently published in the IOP Environmental Research Letters journal. The main points of the paper are summarized in a previous post. Note how fast the production of energy must fall in order to prevent temperatures from rising above the 2°C limit. It is a true “Seneca collapse“, necessary[Read More…]

by 21/09/2016 2 comments Climate Change
An Asteroid Called “Peak Oil” – The Real Cause Of The Growing Social Inequality In The US

An Asteroid Called “Peak Oil” – The Real Cause Of The Growing Social Inequality In The US

In a recent article on the Huffington Post, Stan Sorscher reports the graph above and asks the question of what could have happened in the early 1970s that changed everything. Impressive, but what caused this “something” that happened in the early 1970s? According to Sorscher, X marks the spot. In this case, “X” is our choice of national values. We[Read More…]

by 15/09/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
Depletion: If A Jellyfish Stings You, You Know Why

Depletion: If A Jellyfish Stings You, You Know Why

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine showed me three bright red stripes she had on her arm. It was the result of an unfortunate encounter with a jellyfish while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Today, it has become a normal occurrence; it seems to be normal that, when you swim in the sea, you have to maintain[Read More…]

by 01/08/2016 1 comment Resource Crisis
Lessons From The Failed Coup In Turkey

Lessons From The Failed Coup In Turkey

 About two thousand years ago, the Romans had developed the most effective military apparatus seen before in history and, with it, they had created a vast empire. However, with the first century before our era, they found that they had a problem: their stupendous military power was going out of control. One of the warlords of that time, Julius Caesar,[Read More…]

by 26/07/2016 3 comments Globalisation
The Real EROI Of Photovoltaic Systems: Professor Charles Hall Weighs In

The Real EROI Of Photovoltaic Systems: Professor Charles Hall Weighs In

Charles Hall is known for his multiple and important contributions in the field of sustainability, and in particular for having introduced the concept of Energy Return on Energy Investment, EROI or EROEI. He is now emeritus and still active in research; among other things as chief editor of the new Springer journal: “Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, BERQ. Here, he[Read More…]

by 18/06/2016 Comments are Disabled Alternative Energy
A 100% Renewable World Is Possible? A Poll Among Experts

A 100% Renewable World Is Possible? A Poll Among Experts

I am reporting here the results of a small survey that I carried out last week among the members of a discussion forum; mainly experts in renewable energy (*). It was a very informal poll; not meant to have statistical value. But some 70 people responded out of a total of 167 members; so I think these results have a[Read More…]

by 18/06/2016 Comments are Disabled Alternative Energy
Why Joe The Plumber Doesn’t Want Renewable Energy

Why Joe The Plumber Doesn’t Want Renewable Energy

Joe the plumber is a real person, but also an abstraction for the troubled American blue collar worker. In a previous post, I argued that a global transition to 100% renewable energy would be very expensive, but possible and that it could also be fast enough to avoid exceeding the emission targets set by the COP21. This opinion triggered the[Read More…]

by 18/06/2016 Comments are Disabled Alternative Energy
But What’s The REAL Energy Return Of Photovoltaic Energy?

But What’s The REAL Energy Return Of Photovoltaic Energy?

Some time ago, a colleague of mine told me the story of when he had been in charge of the installation ofone of the first photovoltaic plants in Italy, in 1984 (shown in the figure, on the right). He told me that, shortly after the installation, a high-ranking politician came to visit the plant. As a demonstration, my colleague connected[Read More…]

by 17/06/2016 Comments are Disabled Alternative Energy
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