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Are We Decoupling? (Not really, but happy 2018 anyway!)

January 2, 2018

Are We Decoupling? (Not really, but happy 2018 anyway!) “Decoupling”: are we really so smart that we can do more with less? Apparently not: we can paint things in green, but it is not the same thing. But so is life and happy 2018 to everybody! Decoupling looks like an obvious idea, isn’t it? […]

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An Open letter to the School of Public Health, UQ, re: the looming net energy cliff

December 31, 2017

An Open letter to the School of Public Health, UQ, re: the looming net energy cliff Geoffrey Chia publishes here the letter that he sent to his colleagues a few months ago. As you may have expected, he received no answer. But we know it is how it goes. So, here it is, for the […]

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Book Review: Food Scarcity. Unavoidable by 2100?

December 27, 2017

Book Review: Food Scarcity. Unavoidable by 2100? This is an excerpt from the review by Ugo Bardi published on the “Journal of Population and Sustainability“ Scientific studies that examine the food supply and its correlation to human population have a long tradition that goes back to Thomas Malthus and his “An Essay on the Future […]

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The Golden Rule of Technological Progress: Innovation Doesn’t Solve Problems, It Creates Them

December 21, 2017

The Golden Rule of Technological Progress: Innovation Doesn’t Solve Problems, It Creates Them Image from RealPharmacy See that thing up there? It is an autonomous security robot, something that’s becoming fashionable nowadays. Obviously, for every problem, there has to be a technological solution. So, what could go wrong with the idea that the problem of […]

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The Energy Transition: Too Little, Too Late

December 10, 2017

The Energy Transition: Too Little, Too Late The idea of the energy transition (“energiewende” in German) originated in the 1980s and gained legislative support in Germany in 2010. The idea is good and also technically feasible. But it requires sacrifices and, at present, sacrifices are politically unthinkable since most people don’t realize how critical the […]

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The Seneca Cliff Explained: a Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model

December 9, 2017

The Seneca Cliff Explained: a Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model A Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model In this post, Geoffrey Chia illustrates one of the fundamental characteristics of the “Seneca Effect”, also known as “collapse,” the fact that it occurs in networked systems dominated by feedback interactions. This is a qualitative interpretation of collapse that […]

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A Religion Called Economy

December 4, 2017

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 discourses under the effect of the belief that only rationality should guide us. Reason has replaced the old God. Nietzsche, more […]

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Why do we need jobs if we can have slaves working for us?

November 27, 2017

Why do we need jobs if we can have slaves working for us? We normally assume that anything that creates jobs is a good thing, but is it, really? Is our current prosperity related to having “jobs”? Isn’t it, rather, the result of the large number of “energy slaves” working for us in the form […]

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The Soft Belly of The Oil Industry: an Upcoming Seneca Collapse?

November 20, 2017

The Soft Belly of The Oil Industry: an Upcoming Seneca Collapse? Ugo Bardi explains his idea of an impending “Seneca Collapse” of the world’s oil industry at the session on climate change of the meeting of the Club of Rome in Vienna, on 10 Nov 2017. What follows are not the exact words said, […]

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Are you ready for a new round of mass exterminations?

November 13, 2017

Are you ready for a new round of mass exterminations? 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, […]

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The Seneca Paradox: If mineral depletion is a problem, how is it that we don’t see its effects?

November 8, 2017

The Seneca Paradox: If mineral depletion is a problem, how is it that we don’t see its effects? The recent workshop held in Oxford, “Strategic Minerals in a Low Carbon Future” saw a very interesting debate on resource availability in which two opposite views emerged: one says that the gradual depletion of natural resources is […]

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A Seneca Cliff for the Web as we know it?

November 1, 2017

A Seneca Cliff for the Web as we know it? We can’t ignore the evidence any longer. The “Web”, intended as a constellation of independent information providers is dying. It is going through a Seneca Cliff of its own, being replaced by a “Trinet”, controlled by the three giant companies, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. I […]

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Biofuels: Can They Save the Airlines from the Seneca Collapse?

October 31, 2017

Biofuels: Can They Save the Airlines from the Seneca Collapse? Painting planes green is much easier than making them run on biofuels. “Can the airlines be run on biofuels?” As it often happens, this simple question doesn’t have a simple answer. First of all, it is a question that makes sense only in terms of […]

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Linking Hurricanes to Climate Change? Not So Easy.

October 23, 2017

Linking Hurricanes to Climate Change? Not So Easy. The text below a reposting of something that I published on Oct 2, 2017 on “Medium”. On the basis of data from Google Trends, I proposed that, on the average, the public had not perceived the link of climate change with the spate of hurricanes of 2017. A […]

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You cannot have a war economy if there is no war. My 4th presentation of “The Seneca Effect” in Paris

October 18, 2017

You cannot have a war economy if there is no war. My 4th presentation of “The Seneca Effect” in Paris Above, at the Momentum Institute in Paris on Friday 13th, 2017. Ugo Bardi is on the left of the photo, Yves Cochet (president of the institute) is at the center, with the white shirt. The […]

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