Our Energy Problem Is a Quantity Problem
Reading many of today’s energy articles, it is easy to get the impression that our energy problem is a quality problem—some energy is polluting; other energy is hoped to be less polluting.…
Resource Crisis
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…
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,…
Systemic Change Driven by Moral Awakening Is Our Only Hope
Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom. Overshoot is a systemic issue. Over the past century-and-a-half, enormous amounts of cheap energy…
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…
Overpopulation Leading Into Other Troubles
Co-Written by Sally Dugman and Steve Salmony Steve Salmony thinks: The number of human beings on Earth was 2+ billion in the year of my birth (1945). In all of…
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…
Why the Standard Model of Future Energy Supply Doesn’t Work
The most prevalent view regarding future oil supply, as well as total energy supply, seems to be fairly closely related to that expressed by Peak Oilers. Future fossil fuel supply…
Global Challenges
One voice from the wilderness is too weak to be listened to. My voice, for example, is not clear enough, strong enough, loud enough or adequately established so as to…
Our Latest Oil Predicament
It is impossible to tell the whole oil story, but perhaps I can offer a few insights regarding where we are today. [1] We already seem to be back to the falling…
Two ‘Clinical’ Perspectives On Humanity’s Ailment
Let us examine the human-induced global predicament from different 'clinical' perspectives. The first one invites you to recall J. D. Salinger's book, Catcher in the Rye (1951). Imagine you are…
A Proposal for a United Nations Framework Convention on Population Growth
Introduction Recently, an international assembly of scientists from 184 countries endorsed an article published in the journal Bioscience entitled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice”. As the warning states, “We…
How Donald Trump Plans to Enlist Fossil Fuels in the Struggle for Global Dominance
The new U.S. energy policy of the Trump era is, in some ways, the oldest energy policy on Earth. Every great power has sought to mobilize the energy resources…
The Human Population: Accepting Earth’s Limitations
I thank Fowler and Hobbs for their letter (2004) and their research (2003). The view that a complexity of factors impacts human population growth certainly makes sense, and they have…
The Last Oil: Gathering to Resist Trump’s Reckless Arctic Energy Policy
The Last Oil is not a warning that we are running out of oil. On the contrary, there is so much oil — and gas and coal and other unconventional fossil…
Collapsing Systems: What Empires And Avalanches Have In Common
The Italian chemistry professor Ugo Bardi has written a book about the Seneca effect. He refers to the abrupt collapse of systems: observed in avalanches and balloons, but also in financial…
Will The World Economy Continue To “Roll Along” In 2018?
Once upon a time, we worried about oil and other energy. Now, a song from 1930 seems to be appropriate: Today, we have a surplus of oil, which we are…
The Seneca Cliff Explained: A Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model
A Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model The Limits to Growth was published in 1972 by a group of world class scientists using the best mathematical computer modelling available at the time. It…
A Religion Called Economy
The idea that religions are giving way to a more advanced human level of existence is part of common knowledge. Science and technology are emancipating humankind from mythical and religious…
Conflicts Over Resources
Small scale and massive resource fights are totally understandable while predictable. They've been transpiring for millennia because practically everything alive needs to steal energy, directly or indirectly, from something or…
Saudis And Trump: Gambling Bigly
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son…
Preparing For The Future
One of my friends of ten years wrote, "The question of our time is this: Have we now moved past a critical fork in our evolutionary road and will this…
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…
Will China Bring An Energy-Debt Crisis?
It is easy for those of us in the West to overlook how important China has become to the world economy, and also the limits it is reaching. The two…
Devolution Everywhere: Spain, Italy, Britain And The Problems Of Complexity
The narrative about Catalan independence is that two major cities, Madrid and Barcelona, are competing for power, and one has decided that the best path forward is to declare independence…
The Approaching US Energy-Economic Crisis
I was recently asked to give a talk called, “The Approaching US Energy-Economic Crisis.” In other words, how might the United States encounter problems that lead to a crisis? As we…
Why political correctness fails – Why what we know ‘for sure’ is wrong (Ex Religion)
Most of us are familiar with the Politically Correct (PC) World View. William Deresiewicz describes the view, which he calls the “religion of success,” as follows: There is a right way to…
Energy And Authoritarianism
Could declining world energy result in a turn toward authoritarianism by governments around the world? As we will see, there is no simple answer that applies to all countries. However,…
Why Oil Prices Can’t Bounce Very High; Expect Deflation Instead
Economists have given us a model of how prices and quantities of goods are supposed to interact. Figure 1. From Wikipedia: The price P of a product is determined by…
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…
There is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, For Humans
On 28th July, I posted an essay of mine entitled The Global Crisis and Role of So-called Renewable Energies in Solving It on this blog-site (see below). It had been published a few…
Why Climate Change Isn’t Our Biggest Environmental Problem, And Why Technology Won’t Save Us
Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom. Overshoot is a systemic issue. Over the past century-and-a-half, enormous amounts of…
World GDP In Current US Dollars Seems To Have Peaked; This Is A Problem
World GDP in current US dollars is in some sense the simplest world GDP calculation that a person might make. It is calculated by taking the GDP for each year…
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…
Priceless!
For starters, I needed housing during my stay for a week to visit my daughter in PA from my home in MA, USA while she carried out her undergraduate education…
Staving Off The Coming Global Collapse
‘Overshoot’ is when a species uses resources faster than can be replenished. We’re already there. And show no signs of changing. Humans have a virtually unlimited capacity for self-delusion, even…
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…
Perils Of Overpopulation
The Guardian,UK. had a suggestion for the battle against climate change"Want to fight climate change.Have fewer children ." This was known already & yet, since this has been extensively researched…
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…
The Next Financial Crisis Is Not Far Away
Recently, a Spanish group called “Ecologist in Action” asked me to give them a presentation on what kind of financial crisis we should expect. They wanted to know when it…
After Peak Oil, Are We Heading Toward Social Collapse?
Several years ago, Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy (DOE), announced that worldwide oil…
Falling Interest Rates Have Postponed “Peak Oil”
Falling interest rates have huge power. My background is as an actuary, so I am very much aware of the great power of interest rates. But a lot of people…
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…
A Litmus Test For Academia
Of the issues which are totally ignored, for all practical purposes, there's one that we can spotlight here which -- if not addressed post haste -- stands to take us…
“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…
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…
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…
Why We Should Be Concerned About Low Oil Prices
Most people assume that oil prices, and for that matter other energy prices, will rise as we reach limits. This isn’t really the way the system works; oil prices can…
Why Energy-Economy Models Produce Overly Optimistic Indications
I was asked to give a talk to a committee of actuaries who are concerned about modeling the financial future of programs, such as pension plans, given the energy problems…
Moving Successfully Towards Future Improvements In A Distressed World
In my view, there is no major significant difference between legal, illegal or other immigrants (i.e., those with Visa or Green Card status) coming from out-of-state into my region. Indeed,…
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.…
2017: The Year When The World Economy Starts Coming Apart
Some people would argue that 2016 was the year that the world economy started to come apart, with the passage of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Whether or…
Scarce Minerals Are Running Out: Mining Quotas Are Needed
To ensure that sufficient zinc, molybdenum and antimony are available for our greatgrandchildren’s generation, we need an international mineral resources agreement. Molybdenum is essential for the manufacture of high-grade…
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…
What Has Gone Wrong With Oil Prices, Debt, And GDP Growth?
Our economy is a mystery to almost everyone, including economists. Let me explain the way I see the situation: (1) The big thing that pulls the economy forward is the…
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…
Peak Oil By Any Other Name Is Still Peak Oil
One of the most compelling charts I have ever seen is the “Growing Gap” chart that used to appear in every ASPO Newsletter. This is the one from the last…
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…
Why Energy Prices Are Ultimately Headed Lower; What The IMF Missed
We have been hearing a great deal about IMF concerns recently, after the release of itsOctober 2016 World Economic Outlook and its Annual Meeting October 7-9. The concerns mentioned include the…
Transforming Global Resources Into Commons
The greatest problem of our time is that for centuries we have been steadily weaned away from treating our common resources responsibly and carefully so that they can either regenerate…
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