La veille

Jumping into the future head first, blindfolded, handcuffed, and in darkness

In a previous post, I defined this graph as “the most amazing graph of the 21st century.” It shows how the US oil production restarted growing in 2010, picking up speed and surpassing the historical record of the “Hubbert Peak,” which took place in 1970. It overcame the dip caused by the Covid pandemic and, two years after my first post on this subject, it keeps growing.

You would think that we have more than sufficient troubles caused by global warming, pollution, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, ecosystem disruption and a few more. But there is a problem that’s not directly related to the natural world, but by a purely human construction: the financial market. Here is a discussion by Ian Schindler — maître de conference émérite (emeritus professor of mathematics) at the University of Toulouse 1, France, who proposes that we are close to a financial collapse.

A post for the anniversary of the execution of Sophie Scholl by the German Nazis in 1943

The Goddess is said to be benevolent and merciful, but she may get angry and become cruel and ruthless. We are used to discussing major events that may destroy civilization, or even the whole humankind. Most are related to global warming: tipping points, “hothouse Earth,” famines, tsunamis, and all the rest. Then, there are other human-made disasters, including the nuclear holocaust and homemade exterminations that can be carried out with simple tools such as machetes. Recently, it became fashionable to cite artificial intelligence as a threat to human beings.

Au 1er siècle de notre ère, le philosophe romain Sénèque (en latin Lucius Annaeus Seneca) observe le début de la désintégration de l’Empire romain. Ce processus ne s’achèvera que quelques siècles plus tard mais il était déjà évident pour ceux qui étaient prêts à regarder au-delà de la surface de l’Empire encore puissant.

The new version of the “Seneca Effect” blog on Substack is doing reasonably well, so I thought it was time to prepare a page that explains what the Seneca Effect is and what it can teach us. (image by Dall-E) During the 1st Century AD, the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca observed the start of the disintegration of the Roman Empire. It was a process that would take a few more centuries to complete, but that was already evident to those who were willing to look beyond the surface of the still powerful Empire.

During the past decades, the idea of acting to counteract the damage done to the ecosystem by humankind's activities has moved along at least two planning stages.

Cela fait des décennies que l’on s’inquiète de la déplétion des ressources notamment minérales, depuis le rapport Meadows. Plus récemment les travaux d’Ugo Bardi avec sa courbe de Sénèque ont attiré l’attention sur la contradiction entre les besoins en métaux de la transition énergétique et l’état des ressources naturelles exploitables....

Years ago, James Schlesinger noted that human beings have only two operational modes: complacency and panic. It is an observation that rings true and that we can generalize in terms of groups: some humans are catastrophists, and some are cornucopians. I tend to side with the catastrophists, to the point that I created the term "Seneca Effect" or "Seneca Cliff" to define the rapid decline that comes after that growth stops. Indeed, catastrophes are a common occurrence in human history, but it is also true that sometimes (rarely) a catastrophic decline can be reversed: I termed this effect the "Seneca Rebound." 

Le Club de Rome publiait le rapport Meadows il y a 50 ans. Destiné à alerter l'opinion publique sur les limites de la croissance dans un monde aux ressources finies, le rapport annonçait un effondrement de la société au courant du présent siècle. En cause: une augmentation de la population, l'épuisement des ressources et la pollution. Ce document, traduit en français par « Les limites de la croissance », a été à la fois encensé et décrié depuis un demi-siècle. Il revient à l'avant-scène depuis quelques années, avec la crise climatique en tête. Qu'est-ce que l'avenir nous réserve? Pour en parler nous recevons, le professeur Ugo Bardi, qui a réactualisé le rapport Meadows. Il est professeur et chimiste au département des sciences de la Terre à l'université de Florence et membre du Club de Rome.

The book Limits and Beyond, edited by Ugo Bardi and Carlos Alwarez Pereira, provides a 50th anniversary review of the seminal report Limits to Growth (LtG). The following is from the back cover of the book. 50 years ago the Club of Rome commissioned a report: Limits to Growth. They told us that, on our current path, we are heading for collapse in the first half of the 21st century. This book, published in the year 2022, reviews what has happened in the intervening time period. It asks three basic questions:

In 1972, a book changed the world. The Club of Rome commissioned a report that shifted how we see what humans are doing to the planet. Looking back five decades later, what happened next, what did we do and not do, what did we learn, and what happens now? In The Limits to Growth, a team from MIT studied the way humans were using the resources of the earth. Using sophisticated computer modelling, the researchers developed scenarios to map out possible paths for humanity, the global economy and the impact on the planet.

Presentation of the book "Beyond the Limits," a new report to the Club of Roma edited by Ugo Bardi and Carlos Alvarez Pereira. It tells the story of the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth" and its relevance 50 years later.

Ceci est un modeste complément rebondissant sur les réflexions d’Ugo Bardi sur l’effet Sénèque : la descente plus rapide que l’ascension, la destruction plus rapide que la construction. Ce n’est que l’exploration d’hypothèses (toutes pouvant se voir invalidées). La conclusion tentera une sortie positive, bien qu’en évoquant des banalités.

What could bring down the industrial civilization? Would it be global warming (fire) or resource depletion (ice)? At present, it may well be that depletion is hitting us faster. But, in the long run, global warming may hit us much harder. Maybe the fall of our civilization will be Fire AND ice.

Ugo Bardi est chercheur et professeur de chimie à l’Université de Florence et membre du Club de Rome. Il s'intéresse notamment à la déplétion des ressources minérales, à la modélisation de la dynamique des systèmes et à la science climatique. Dans son ouvrage, The Seneca Effect (2017), il applique la théorie des systèmes au monde réel et décrit l’effondrement d'un point de vue multidisciplinaire. Il est également l’auteur de Before the Collapse (2019) et The Empty Sea (2021).

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One of the most fascinating interpretations of the collapse of civilization is Joseph Tainter’s idea that it is due to “diminishing returns.” It is a well-known concept in economics that Tainter adapts to the historical cycle of civilizations, focusing on the control structures designed to keep together the whole system, the bureaucracy for instance...

L’essence du livre ‘L’effet Sénèque’, de Ugo Bardi (Département de Chimie, Université de Firenze, Italie), peut être trouvée dans une formule écrite par le philosophe stoïcien romain Lucius Annaeus Seneca: «La richesse croît lentement, mais la ruine est rapide». Cette phrase résume les caractéristiques du phénomène que nous appelons «effondrement», qui est généralement soudain et souvent inattendu, comme le château de cartes proverbial. Mais pourquoi ces effondrements sont-ils si communs et qu’est-ce qui les génère ? À partir de cette base, Bardi applique la théorie aux systèmes du monde réel, de la mécanique de la fracture et de l’effondrement des grandes structures aux effondrements financiers, aux effondrements dus aux famines et à la surpopulation, à la chute des civilisations entières et à l’effondrement le plus effrayant qu’on puisse imaginer