At least 20 thousand people (some say many more) marched in Berlin on August 1st 2020 to protest against the restrictions imposed by governments against the Covid-19 epidemic. Unanimously branded as "criminals," "neo-nazis," and "idiots" by the Western media, their…
First of all, a disclaimer: I am not advocating the extermination of anyone! This post is just an attempt of mine to place myself in the boots of the bad guys who could think of doing such a thing and…
In the 1960s and 1970s, the problem of world overpopulation was often debated, and birth control was proposed as a solution. It soon became politically incorrect even to mention this subject in public, but it may be that it wasn't…
In the 1976 movie, "Logan's Run," the law is that everyone must die when they turn 30. And everyone accepts that law. "Necroeconomics" is a concept used by some economists to describe the results of the collapse of the Soviet Economy,…
Colin Campbell, the founder of the association for the study of peak oil and gas (ASPO) explaining the essence of oil depletion. The considerations below originate from a post by Michael Krieger where he describes how he is so dismayed…
Above: Ugo Bardi uses highly sophisticated forecasting techniques. Prophecies often have a bad fame of ending in failure, as I described in a previous post, where I listed ten of the worst predictions in history. Here, I try to do the opposite:…
A new blog by Ugo Bardi, "The Proud Holobionts"Long-term predictive models don't have a very good record, but some turned out to be prophetic. One case is that of Hubbert's 1956 prediction of a peak in the production of fossil…
Italy is not a windy country and it relies mainly on the sun for its renewable energy. Nevertheless, some spots of the Appennini mountains are swept by enough wind to make it possible to build wind plants. In the picture,…
Ugo Bardi experiments with new predictive methods. This post was inspired mainly by the shock I had with the various failed attempts to predict the outcome of the Covid-19 epidemic. It was truly a sobering experience: bad predictions, clueless…
Many have noted the spike in the number of coronavirus cases observed in the United States. The fear is, obviously, that this increase will result in a corresponding spike in the number of deaths after some delay. The virologist Guido…
Latin was once considered a sacred language all over Western Europe. Today, we can see English as a global sacred language, but how long will it maintain this role? Imagine living in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman…
A few days ago, I was discussing with a friend and he used the term "superorganism" for Gaia as the Earth Goddess. When I said that Gaia is not a superorganism but a holobiont, he asked me, "but what is…
The former Italian prime minister, Mr. Silvio Berlusconi, evoking the Messina Strait by a magic spell in an image taken probably around 2002. As a modern version of Moses, Mr. Berlusconi didn't manage to do much more than creating a…
Are face masks useful against the Covid-19 epidemic? As obvious, it depends on various factors: the WHO says there is no scientific evidence of a benefit from the generalised use of masks by "healthy people in the community." But it…
Nowadays, we are encouraged to exterminate our skin microbiome by means of various poisonous substances. But this is not a good idea. We are holobionts, and our microbiome is part of us. If we kill the microbiome, we kill ourselves.…
Nato Bombing of the city of Novi Sad, Serbia, 1999 (image from Wikipedia)21 years ago, on June 10, 1999, the NATO campaign against Serbia ended after 78 days of bombing. We still don't know exactly the number of victims, civilian…
Mr. Trump has often being accused of "lying" in his many speeches and tweets. For sure, much of what he says can be said to be "contrary to fact." But is the president really lying or is he simply stating…
This post was inspired by a post by Chuck Pezeshki on the Aztec civilization, highly recommended as an introduction. Scene: Inside the temple at the top of the great pyramid of TenochtitlánCharacters: the ArchPriest (Master) and the Young Priest (Prentice)___________________________________________________________________Prentice: Grand…
There is a certain logic in the way the universe works and so it is not surprising that the same models can describe phenomena that seem to be completely different. Here, I'll show you how the same equations describe chain…
Over the history of the Lego company, more than 600 billion plastic bricks have been produced, which means about a hundred bricks for every living person on Earth. Impressive, but it amounts to only 1.5 Gt of carbon in total (2.5…
The owners of a shoe repair shop in Florence (*). In this picture, taken just after the end of the coronavirus lockdown, they are preparing to reopen their shop. They look happy, even euphoric. Time will tell if that optimism…
The 9/11 attacks of 2001 are classic examples of "catalytic events" that change the course of history. They can be seen as triggers for "Seneca Collapses," sudden and catastrophic, they are well described by Seneca's words, "the way to ruin…
I was surprised, today, to find this graph on Google. What struck me was the evident periodicity in the number of deaths in the US. Most of the deaths take place on Thursdays and Fridays. On the contrary, the minima…
The figure above shows the effect of the two major outbursts of plague in Europe (you can find a detailed discussion of this subject in my book "Before the Collapse"). Here, Rorberto Mussi developes a historical perspective of past epidemics…
The basic concept of the biotic regulation of Earth's temperature according to Victor Gorshkov and his coworkers. The figure shows the potential function U(T) for the global mean surface temperature. Stable states correspond to pits, unstable states to hills. The…
The cheetah in the figure knows very well that it cannot spend more energy in chasing the impala than the impala can provide once eaten (in other words, the cheetah needs an energy return on the investment (EROEI) >1). Carnivores…
Guest post by Federico TabelliniThis article was originally published last year on the Italian blog ‘Effetto Cassandra’. I repropose it here because I think the coronavirus crisis has made it somehow more relevant. The current situation raises new questions: is…
Scientists normally think that a scientific theory can be good or bad independently of the moral status of the person who proposes it. But in politics, the messenger can be blamed. That was the probable reason for the downfall of…
This year, we won't see the traditional victory parade in Moscow (Парад Победы в Москва) that normally takes place on May 9 (above, an extract of last year's parade). It is another effect of the COVID epidemics, but the parade…
That's how a hydrogen-powered plane could look like. Honestly, it is not very impressive: it looks more like an Elvis sighting and one may even reasonably doubt that this thing could fly. If it were easy to power planes using…
