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Trump and Berlusconi: harbinger of the coming Seneca Cliff

January 20, 2018

Trump and Berlusconi: harbinger of the coming Seneca Cliff Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi have many similarities as country leaders. I argue here that they are the symptom of a giant political transition which is reversing the trends that started more than two centuries ago with the French revolution. Human rights have a cost and […]

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Is Peak Car Headed for Seneca’s Cliff?

January 9, 2018

Is Peak Car Headed for Seneca’s Cliff? This text follows my recent keynote at Seoul Smart Mobility International Conference. The author thanks  Seoul Design Foundation and @Seoul_gov for their invitation. I also thank XuanZheng Wang, professor, China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), for alerting me to the @Mobike developments. Two hundred people per second […]

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The Leveraged Economy BLOWS UP In 2018

January 5, 2018

The Leveraged Economy BLOWS UP In 2018 Enjoy the good times while you can because when the economy BLOWS UP this next time, there is no plan B. Sure, we could see massive monetary printing by Central Banks to continue the madness a bit longer after the market crashes, but this won’t be a long-term […]

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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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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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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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The Seneca Cliff as an Effect of Bureaucracy

September 27, 2017

The Seneca Cliff as an Effect of Bureaucracy The idea of the “Seneca Cliff” is that a certain entity, from a company to an empire, tends to fall rapidly when it is subjected to a dearth of resources and, at the same time, affected by pollution. More than once I noted that there are many […]

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The Dutch love affair with natural gas: A cautionary tale for the United States?

The Dutch love affair with natural gas: A cautionary tale for the United States? The story sounds familiar. For decades oil and natural gas drilling have been proceeding and creating prosperity for those involved. At some point significant earthquakes occur in areas where they were formerly very rare or nonexistent. Those quakes are linked to […]

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Another Example of a Seneca Cliff

October 16, 2016

Another Example of a Seneca Cliff The results of a Google Trend search for “Friendster”, an old social network. It is a nearly perfect “Seneca Shape.” Ruin is rapid, indeed! “Friendster” was a social network that, in many ways, pre-dated Facebook. Friendster collapsed rapidly, starting in around 2009, providing us with an impressive example of […]

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The end of the “population problem”? Another Seneca cliff in our future

The end of the “population problem”? Another Seneca cliff in our future Image from “National Geographic” If the demographic projections by the United Nations will turn out to be true, the world population should reach over 11 billion people by 2100. Some think that it will be a disaster, others see it as a good thing as it […]

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EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook and the Seneca Cliff

EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook and the Seneca Cliff The scenario above shows an Oil Shock Model with a URR of 3600 Gb and EIA data from 1970 to 2015 and the Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2016 early release reference projection from 2016 to 2040. The oil shock model was originally developed by Webhubbletelescope and presented […]

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The Physics of Energy and the Economy

February 8, 2016

The Physics of Energy and the Economy I approach the subject of the physics of energy and the economy with some trepidation. An economy seems to be a dissipative system, but what does this really mean? There are not many people who understand dissipative systems, and very few who understand how an economy operates. The combination leads […]

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Climate change: can the Seneca effect save us?

Climate change: can the Seneca effect save us? Nothing we do (or try to do) seems to be able to stop carbon dioxide from accumulating in the atmosphere. And, as a consequence, nothing seems to be able to stop climate change. With the situation getting worse and worse (see here for an example), we are hoping that […]

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