Ugo Bardi
Resilience.org
Italy
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Past articles by Ugo:
"The Limits to Growth" after 50 years: More relevant than ever
"The Limits to Growth" basic message was that growth could not continue to go on forever on a finite planet. → Read More
Afghanistan: The Twilight of the Global Empire
In the 1990s the oil reserves of the Caspian region, adjacent to Afghanistan, had been exaggerated by at least an order of magnitude. → Read More
Star Parasites: Carbon-Based Life and the Future of the Universe
Why the universe is the way it is? Why do radioactive elements exist? Why is carbon-based life so dependent on their existence? → Read More
The Long Term Perspectives of Nuclear Energy: Revisiting the Fermi Paradox
Despite the hype, nuclear energy of any kind may remain forever a marginal source of energy, no matter what its proponents say. → Read More
How Resource Depletion Leads to Collapse. The Story of a Lost Kingdom
The idea that a civilization may collapse because of resource depletion is often hard to believe for historians. → Read More
Can we predict collapses before they happen? What we learned from the pandemic
The science of complex systems only developed in the second half of the 20th century, as soon as tools like computers were available. → Read More
Money, Gods, and Taboos: Re-sacralizing the Commons
I came to the conclusion that, yes, Erik Assadourian and the others are on to something: it may be time for religion to return in some form. → Read More
The Politics of the Coronavirus: a lesson from Italy on how to deal with emergencies
If Italy is an example, it may be that in case of a truly serious climate emergency, governments may finally decide to react and do something serious. At the same time, the same people who are now thundering against "climate alarmism" would fall in line and ask for national unity against the climate threat. → Read More
Italy under the coronavirus attack: the return of the Plague Spreaders
The Web can spread hate and fake news at an unbelievably fast speed. In Italy, the COVID-19 epidemics arrived just a couple of days ago and the social media are already exploding in a wave of hate against the current untori, in this case supposed to be the Greens, the Government, the Communists, Immigrants, Africans, and in general the "do-gooders" (in Italian, buonisti), supposed to have done… → Read More
The Fight Against Climate Science. Why is Italy at the Forefront of the Battle?
Sometimes, my American friends tell me how lucky I am because I live in a country where the top politicians haven't embraced climate science denial as they did in the US. But things are changing: climate is becoming a politically explosive issue in Italy. → Read More
The Sower's Strategy: Norway Leads the Way Toward the Energy Transition
Norway produces about 100% of its electrical power from renewable sources, mainly hydroelectric power. About one-third of vehicles bought are electric, → Read More
Why do Societies Collapse? Diminishing Returns are a Key Factor, a New Study Says
One of the most fascinating interpretations of the collapse of civilization is Joseph Tainter's idea that it is due to diminishing returns. → Read More
Peak Diesel or no Peak Diesel? The Debate is Ongoing
In a recent post, Antonio Turiel proposed that the global peak of diesel fuel production was reached three years ago, in 2015. → Read More
Why Economists Can't Understand Complex Systems: Not Even the Nobel Prize, William Nordhaus
Nordhaus' approach to climate change mitigation highlights a general problem with how economists tend to tackle complex systems → Read More
Could Donald Trump be the last world emperor?
Empires are short-lived structures created and kept together by the availability of mineral resources, fossil fuels in our times. They tend to decline and fall with the decline of the resources that created them, and that's the destiny of the current World Empire: the American one. → Read More
Dealing With Collapse: The Seneca Strategy
The basic ideas in the behavior of complex systems are: complex systems are complex because they are dominated by the mechanism we call "feedback." → Read More
Did the Club of Rome Ever Disavow "The Limits to Growth"? A Story of Ordinary Disinformation
The Club of Rome is inextricably linked to the legendary report that it commissioned to a group of MIT researchers in 1972, The Limits to Growth. → Read More
Plastic Pollution: The Age of Unsolvable Problems
Does that mean that the problem of plastic pollution unsolvable? No. It is, actually, a minor problem in comparison to other difficult problems we face. → Read More
Stunning News from the Memesphere: Forest Fires had no Effect on the Public's Perception of Climate Change
The results are starkly clear: there is NO evidence of an increased public interest in climate change as a result of the fires. → Read More
So, You Think Science Will Save the World? Are You Sure?
A critical element of the soft belly of modern science is the process called Peer Review. I will attempt to explain the process... → Read More