My wife, Grazia, in a supermarket in Tehran, today. No effect of the economic sanctions is visible. The shelves are full of goods from everywhere. You can find even Coca Cola cansFor this Monday post on Cassandra's Legacy, I can…
2,000 years ago, on Oct 10, 19 CE, Germanicus Julius Caesar died in Antioch, Asia Minor, perhaps poisoned by his uncle, Tiberius, then the ruling emperor. If we see Hillary Clinton in the role of Germanicus and Donald Trump in…
Greta Thunberg is having a phenomenal success as climate messenger. Good targeting, flawless performance, the right person at the right moment. A little more than one year ago, I wrote a post titled "Why, in a Few Years, Nobody Will be…
Music has always been part of the war effort: a way to build up network connections in such a way to make the fighting system more resilient and more effective. Here, an especially effective version: "The Sacred War" sung by…
Proposed cover by Viola, Ilaria's daughter, 4 years old. For this Monday post, I can only put together a very short text. We (myself and Ilaria) have been very busy with the last retouched of the manuscript for our new book…
A US carrier strike group. It costs about 30 billion dollars to build and it may cost around 2-3 billion dollars per year to operate. These values may be optimistic and there are 10 US strike groups in operation today.…
Reposted from "Chimeras". Every book by Ursula Le Guin is by definition the best book by Ursula Le Guin. And there is no book by Ursula Le Guin that's not the best book by Ursula Le Guin. But this one,…
https://www.bioticregulation.ru/ Everything began with the idea of Charles Darwin of "evolution by natural selection." It was a dangerous idea according to Daniel Dennett, but there was nothing dangerous in it unless you misunderstood it. And we know how it was misunderstood…
Another lone scientist ready to save the worldWhen I stumbled into this article, I thought it was a joke. You know, the kind that goes, "Scientists find a solution to stop forest fires in the Amazon: all that's needed is…
One of the avatars of the Goddess. 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…
No comment. (h/t Steve Kurtz)…
Guest post by Brian Stewart. Brian Stewart is a Professor of Physics at Wesleyan University who specializes in the dynamics of small molecular systems. For twelve years, he has delivered an annual “Earth Week Rant” that documents the complex web…
Richard Gere on the stranded NGO ship "Open Arms" off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy. A humanitarian intervention that surprised most Italians who reacted by insulting ad vilifying Mr. Gere in all possible ways. This story may be highlighting a…
Here is one of the windows of my new home. No, not the big one. Look at where my wife, Grazia, is pointing. Yes, that one!This summer in Florence we already had two vicious heat waves. As I am writing,…
Gaia is neither benevolent nor merciful. She is harsh and ruthless. Environmentalists are sometimes defined as "Gaia worshippers," a term supposed to be an insult. That's a little strange because most people on this planet openly worship non-existing entities and that…
The start screen of the "Climadrom" site, kept by Aleksander Zhabskiy. The site is strongly oriented toward rejecting the current scientific interpretation of climate change, labeled as "climate alarmism," "hysteria," and the like. This view seems to be fashionable in…
With the massive onslaught of fake news we are subjected to, a particularly obnoxious one is that the Moon landings never took place. It is not just a fashionable idiocy, it is a symptom that the whole Western society is…
From left to right in the photo, Ishmael, Captain Ahab, and Captain Peleg. Actually, the top-hatted, harpoon-bearing person in the center is me (Ugo Bardi) giving a talk on sustainability in Bagnaia, Italy, on July 17, 2019. Near me, Albert…
"A lot of these laws and regulations were designed back when the US had a finite amount of energy. Before the new technology was put into place." Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the European Union, at the meeting titled "The…
The Goddess Inanna in her full regalia as depicted on a Sumerian cylinder seal. On the left, Ninshubur (the Queen of the East) Inanna's second in command. Inanna is sometimes called the "Goddess of Love," but she was no gentle…
Dr. Anastassia Makarieva describes the concept of the "Biotic Pump" at the Smart Biotic Pump Summit Prague 2018 This is not an easy video to follow, but I thought to propose it to you nevertheless. Perhaps its most impressive feature…
"Vanity Fair" may not be the best source for reliable scientific information, but this cover is typical of an idea that's becoming popular in the memesphere: that the Roman Empire fell because of climate change. Alas, this means stretching the…
The experience of relocating is curiously similar to an archaeological excavation of the ruins of a disappeared empire. Above, you can see two jars filled with old coins recovered from the nook and crannies of my house after emptying it…
The story of the boy who cried wolf too many times is a good way to illustrate our attitude toward the people who try to warn us about dangers ahead. Be it about a wolf or about climate change, the…
About Amelia the Amoeba, she is a pedigreed Naegleria Fowleri, a species known for her habit of eating human brains - an interesting case of a Seneca Collapse for the owner of the brain. But Amelia is a good girl…
This is EuropeThis is not Europe This is a reflection on how the breakdown of the Medieval cultural unity in Europe resulted in many different effects, from witch hunts to classical music. It came to me from putting together various…
This video exemplifies the problems the European Union has in managing its own image. It was produced in 2012 and then recalled after being widely labeled as "racist." In some senses, it was, but it was also one of the…
A simple but important study by Luciano Celi shows what is the real energy return that oil companies manage to attain. Much smaller than you would have believed, in several cases it is today well below 10. Which means…
We, humans, love gold so much that we have even imagined that giant, flying reptiles would share our love for the yellow metal. This curious vision of dragon's motives has a certain logic, although it takes some work to understand…
