We are not becoming any more aligned with reality, nature or posterity. We are all addicted to modernity and only a global catastrophy of enormous proportions can give us the potential for a reset. What kind of culture will come next? Perhaps the same scenario plays out across future generation with a similar outcome, or maybe we are the last hominid and new life forms will evolve without our metastatic form of consciousness.
Environmentalists and conservationists have lost: the consequences they have been warning of are already here and are only going to get worse. But look, people are getting poorer and poorer, and of course they're looking for someone to blame. Well, blame or no blame, it's only going to get worse.
One thing that I am having a hard time figuring out is why exactly global tourism keeps growing each year. I mean, we are, in fact, getting poorer and poorer (at least in Europe and North American), which is mostly a factor of declining energy per capita. And yet, millions of humans (not just the rich ones, either) are burning what's left of fossil fuels on weekend getaways abroad. It's really odd. Maybe it's a result of so many urbanites having given up on things such as homeownership (unaffordable) and parenthood (ditto), which does in fact free up *some* energy, which can then be burned on a flight to Barcelona or Reykjavik.
I was wondering about the same thing. Actually, international tourism is growing, but it has not yet returned to the pre-pandemic levels. Maybe it will, or maybe it will not. In Florence, where I live, in 2023 it returned at almost exactly the same level as in 2018. The impression you have living here is that tourism is everywhere and is swamping everything. It may decline in the near future.
I have also been wondering how it can be that restaurants in Italy are always full. Prices have doubled in comparison to a few years ago, and yet people still eat at restaurants. It must be a question of allocating resources: some other expenses must be suffering.
From what I can see, people prefer services to goods. They buy fewer things and travel just as much (even if they probably don't go as far as they used to).
I very much sympathize. I live in Prague. City center is best avoided, since it's so overcrowded with tourists.
I do wonder where exactly people are cutting back. My guess is that they're giving up on major purchases, such as houses/apartments and cars, as well as family formation (or having another child). This frees up some resources for flying to Prague/Florence. But I don't think it's a matter of "shortsighted, selfish people not saving up for a mortgage and not having kids so they can annoy the locals in Prague/Florence." No. They took a look at their situation, decided that a mortgage/child was unaffordable, and the resources that are woefully inadequate for a house/child turned out to be adequate for semi-regular trips to popular tourist destinations.
My observation is that as the world becomes poorer, the desire for material riches only grows. It's no longer practical to afford a family on a normal job without inherited wealth so young people are wanting to become Instagram influencers or crypto bros. There is a certain logic to it.
Re the price of oil: it is around the same level in $US as 20 years ago. In inflation-adjusted dollars, it is less than half the cost. See $ 70 oil in 2004 and 2024:
Steven, you may be interested in McKinsey & Company's report from about three years ago. Their promo YouTube presentations stressed the volatility of oil pricing as the transition away from hydrocarbons (caused by either an orderly or disorderly transition) occurred: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-what-it-could-bring They also suggested that 8 to 9 percent of GDP should be spent on the transition Every year through 2050 to accomplish the transition, much greater than anything being discussed at COP almost three years later. We are on the scenario path called Too Little Too Late.
One explanation (that might not cover the whole issue either but need to be considered) might be that we can't do without refining petroleum to obtain the diesel we utterly depend on (from everything from mining, transportation, food production and so on).
But by doing so, we also obtain more volatile products like kerosene that have to be sold on the international market for the best price that could be paid for them so diesel can be kept as cheap as possible. Hence the fact that plane tickets are actually kept quite cheap even if the oil barrel is quite expensive.
These millions of humans don't really burn what's left of fossil fuel. They enjoy by-products of an economic system running on the heavy/oily stuff that is be produced from fossil fuel still available. Until then...
This, if true, would be an ironic twisted repeat in the history of oil. Way back in the mid-19th century when oil was first being pulled out of the ground in Pennsylvania, they distilled out the kerosene, which was what people wanted (for lighting, to replace whale oil) and dumped the gasoline in the river because they had no use for it. The auto industry was still decades away.
Again, it might not be the only factor at play. But in 30 years, oil extraction has risen by about 30%.
The aviation fuel is here. So if people are able and willing to buy plane tickets for any socieatl reason you can think of, it's made possible for quite a small price.
I'm not specialist... But it depends on what "poorer quality" stand for. Light petroleum like the ones obtained from tar sands and fracking are richer in light elements and heavier petroleum like the Venezuelan ones are richer in heavy stuff (and both have to be mixed together to be processed in the regular refinery units)
Kerosene is right in between. Lighter than diesel and heavier than gazoline.
My question is are people getting poorer? Is it a false premise that they are? Some of them certainly are. But the middle and working classes in the West, from where I'm sitting , are rolling in it.
People are feeling disenfranchised and stirred up over immigration, but I think they're still extremely well off. Hence, lots of holidays abroad.
In the UK many moan about not getting doctors appointments. They do this for political reasons. Myself and my 92 year old Mum never have any trouble seeing a doctor should we wish.
I think the West's economies will collapse, but they certainly havent' yet.
Cheap luxuries (e.g. vacations), unaffordable necessities (e.g. homeownership). If you focus on the former while ignoring the latter, it may indeed seem that "we" have never been richer.
If you say so. :-) I mean, I don't know where exactly you are (I know you said UK, but that's a big place). Where I am (Prague), it's almost funny how expensive housing is. One reads stuff like this:
Obviously, I won't be buying a 75 sq m apartment any time soon (heh), though I keep hoping I'll eventually manage to save up for a down payment on a 30 sq m studio. (A gal can dream, right?) That down payment would cover quite a few very fancy vacations, I can tell you that...
Rockefeller and white supremacists of course funded the Club of Rome, this was before they realised that the oil wasn't running out anytime soon and were happy to get Africans addicted to it.
Rockefeller was also keen to control both sides of the debate- the greens and the greenbashers. Just Stop Oil funded by getty oil money is working for the greenbashers, with their annoying stunts.
Greenbashing doesn't come from right wing conspiracies. It comes directly from industry, who started the conspiracies in the first place. That, for example, Rockefeller, and the club of Rome, are to blame for the fake climate crisis which is taking away our right to use oil. Which is a very strange thing for an oil baron to do. It doesn't make sense- but it's absolutely taken hold.
This notion of green left wing lockdowns forcing us into dairy free 15 minute cities gained so much traction with the 'covid' 'pandemic' that I believe the whole thing was on purpose to do this (as well as make a killing for Pfizer).
Trouble is, the activities of some green activists do contribute to natural disasters.
I live in south-eastern Australia, one of the most bushfire prone areas in the world. The only way to avoid major bushfires in eucalyptus forests is to periodically burn off the litter on the forest floor, called back burning. The aboriginal inhabitants here had figured that out and practiced back burning for millennia. But our modern day green activists know better and attempt to prevent back burning because they say it destroys habitat.
Sadly, there is no automatic increase in intelligence that comes from calling oneself a green.
hey professor ugo bardi one last question than I will never bother you again your earlier post the collapse of the european union you say in 2030 the european union will have 35 member states but how is this possible will the european union start collapsing now or from 2030 onward ?
My one quibble is that the left wing-nuts are as bad as the right-wing ones. Both commit the Techno-optimist and Cornucopian Fallacies. Neither are for shrinkage of human population and economies.
But saying you want to shink the economy and population is not be going to get any politician elected and would instead see them branded as extremists and/or a joke.
Interesting post. Like with so many other things, a number of things have contributed to the strong headwinds that the environmental movement has faced off and on. And when trying to list some of them, it is easy to spiral down into ever more detail. An enterprising author could write a book on this subject.
I think a key thought is that at the most basic level, societies tend to resist disruptive change that is not obviously beneficial until it is forced on them by circumstance. With this in mind, we can try to dissect the reasons that the Environmentalism movement seems to be floundering. So the questions and observations that can guide our thinking are: 1) Why are the necessary changes disruptive? and 2) Why are they not obviously beneficial?
One short answer to the first question might be that we waited too long to get serious, and now society is being asked to go into a "crash dive" to "catch up" to where it needs to be. So, then, why did we take so long to get started, and why are we now pulling back? I can think of a number of good reasons for that. Some of them are related to the second question.
The second question might a little more difficult to answer. For example: Failure of our educational system? The ease with which our economic system currently compensates for our bad behavior and masks the downsides of it? Our ingenuity in working around the road blocks that have come up so far?
As I said, there is a book here for an aspiring sociologist (and admittedly I am not one).
I can end with an observation on NIMBY. I live in coastal California (but away from the big population centers). The coast definitely leans left, and "talks the talk" when it comes to environmental issues. But they are not always so good at "walking the walk". There are a couple of big renewable energy projects proposed nearby.
One project is a grid-sized battery storage facility that would be located on the coast because there is an existing large switchyard there that it can be connected to. Residents are mostly opposed, and although they have hyped up the danger of a battery fire, the true reason is that there are people that want that coastal land to be developed for tourism.
The other project is a large offshore wind farm. This would be around 20 miles off the coast on floating platforms, so we would barely be able to see it. But the cables from it would come ashore near here. People are against this also, and again it seems to be nothing more than a rejection of what is deemed "industrial use of waterfront".
We are not becoming any more aligned with reality, nature or posterity. We are all addicted to modernity and only a global catastrophy of enormous proportions can give us the potential for a reset. What kind of culture will come next? Perhaps the same scenario plays out across future generation with a similar outcome, or maybe we are the last hominid and new life forms will evolve without our metastatic form of consciousness.
I hope that the sentient bonobos, canids, or cetaceans that evolve take our surviving artifacts as a dire warning, not something to strive for.
Imagine how different our civilization might be if we had ample evidence of an earlier, non-human civilization.
There is enough professional "Astroturf" out there to give real grass a bad name amongst the not-very-critical observers, which is most of us, right?
Stay confused. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Carry on...
Environmentalists and conservationists have lost: the consequences they have been warning of are already here and are only going to get worse. But look, people are getting poorer and poorer, and of course they're looking for someone to blame. Well, blame or no blame, it's only going to get worse.
One thing that I am having a hard time figuring out is why exactly global tourism keeps growing each year. I mean, we are, in fact, getting poorer and poorer (at least in Europe and North American), which is mostly a factor of declining energy per capita. And yet, millions of humans (not just the rich ones, either) are burning what's left of fossil fuels on weekend getaways abroad. It's really odd. Maybe it's a result of so many urbanites having given up on things such as homeownership (unaffordable) and parenthood (ditto), which does in fact free up *some* energy, which can then be burned on a flight to Barcelona or Reykjavik.
I was wondering about the same thing. Actually, international tourism is growing, but it has not yet returned to the pre-pandemic levels. Maybe it will, or maybe it will not. In Florence, where I live, in 2023 it returned at almost exactly the same level as in 2018. The impression you have living here is that tourism is everywhere and is swamping everything. It may decline in the near future.
I have also been wondering how it can be that restaurants in Italy are always full. Prices have doubled in comparison to a few years ago, and yet people still eat at restaurants. It must be a question of allocating resources: some other expenses must be suffering.
From what I can see, people prefer services to goods. They buy fewer things and travel just as much (even if they probably don't go as far as they used to).
Is it? Or are we not getting poorer?
I very much sympathize. I live in Prague. City center is best avoided, since it's so overcrowded with tourists.
I do wonder where exactly people are cutting back. My guess is that they're giving up on major purchases, such as houses/apartments and cars, as well as family formation (or having another child). This frees up some resources for flying to Prague/Florence. But I don't think it's a matter of "shortsighted, selfish people not saving up for a mortgage and not having kids so they can annoy the locals in Prague/Florence." No. They took a look at their situation, decided that a mortgage/child was unaffordable, and the resources that are woefully inadequate for a house/child turned out to be adequate for semi-regular trips to popular tourist destinations.
My observation is that as the world becomes poorer, the desire for material riches only grows. It's no longer practical to afford a family on a normal job without inherited wealth so young people are wanting to become Instagram influencers or crypto bros. There is a certain logic to it.
Re the price of oil: it is around the same level in $US as 20 years ago. In inflation-adjusted dollars, it is less than half the cost. See $ 70 oil in 2004 and 2024:
Inflation Calculator https://www.usinflationcalculator.com
If in (enter year)
I purchased an item for $
then in (enter year)
that same item would cost:
Cumulative rate of inflation:
Steven, you may be interested in McKinsey & Company's report from about three years ago. Their promo YouTube presentations stressed the volatility of oil pricing as the transition away from hydrocarbons (caused by either an orderly or disorderly transition) occurred: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-what-it-could-bring They also suggested that 8 to 9 percent of GDP should be spent on the transition Every year through 2050 to accomplish the transition, much greater than anything being discussed at COP almost three years later. We are on the scenario path called Too Little Too Late.
One explanation (that might not cover the whole issue either but need to be considered) might be that we can't do without refining petroleum to obtain the diesel we utterly depend on (from everything from mining, transportation, food production and so on).
But by doing so, we also obtain more volatile products like kerosene that have to be sold on the international market for the best price that could be paid for them so diesel can be kept as cheap as possible. Hence the fact that plane tickets are actually kept quite cheap even if the oil barrel is quite expensive.
These millions of humans don't really burn what's left of fossil fuel. They enjoy by-products of an economic system running on the heavy/oily stuff that is be produced from fossil fuel still available. Until then...
This, if true, would be an ironic twisted repeat in the history of oil. Way back in the mid-19th century when oil was first being pulled out of the ground in Pennsylvania, they distilled out the kerosene, which was what people wanted (for lighting, to replace whale oil) and dumped the gasoline in the river because they had no use for it. The auto industry was still decades away.
But how's this different from before? Were they not getting those byproducts 30 years ago?
Again, it might not be the only factor at play. But in 30 years, oil extraction has risen by about 30%.
The aviation fuel is here. So if people are able and willing to buy plane tickets for any socieatl reason you can think of, it's made possible for quite a small price.
Does poorer quality oil result in more kerosine?
I'm not specialist... But it depends on what "poorer quality" stand for. Light petroleum like the ones obtained from tar sands and fracking are richer in light elements and heavier petroleum like the Venezuelan ones are richer in heavy stuff (and both have to be mixed together to be processed in the regular refinery units)
Kerosene is right in between. Lighter than diesel and heavier than gazoline.
Tar sands do not produce light crude.
My question is are people getting poorer? Is it a false premise that they are? Some of them certainly are. But the middle and working classes in the West, from where I'm sitting , are rolling in it.
People are feeling disenfranchised and stirred up over immigration, but I think they're still extremely well off. Hence, lots of holidays abroad.
In the UK many moan about not getting doctors appointments. They do this for political reasons. Myself and my 92 year old Mum never have any trouble seeing a doctor should we wish.
I think the West's economies will collapse, but they certainly havent' yet.
Cheap luxuries (e.g. vacations), unaffordable necessities (e.g. homeownership). If you focus on the former while ignoring the latter, it may indeed seem that "we" have never been richer.
From where I'm sitting, focusing on either, 'we' have never been richer.
If you say so. :-) I mean, I don't know where exactly you are (I know you said UK, but that's a big place). Where I am (Prague), it's almost funny how expensive housing is. One reads stuff like this:
"The analysis of this data revealed that Prague residents need to earn an average of 25 Czech annual net salaries to buy a 75-square-metre flat in Prague, which therefore has the highest price tag in Europe." (https://www.dreamville.cz/en/prague-the-european-capital-with-the-most-expensive-accommodation-in-europe/)
Obviously, I won't be buying a 75 sq m apartment any time soon (heh), though I keep hoping I'll eventually manage to save up for a down payment on a 30 sq m studio. (A gal can dream, right?) That down payment would cover quite a few very fancy vacations, I can tell you that...
:(
I agree
Rockefeller and white supremacists of course funded the Club of Rome, this was before they realised that the oil wasn't running out anytime soon and were happy to get Africans addicted to it.
Rockefeller was also keen to control both sides of the debate- the greens and the greenbashers. Just Stop Oil funded by getty oil money is working for the greenbashers, with their annoying stunts.
Greenbashing doesn't come from right wing conspiracies. It comes directly from industry, who started the conspiracies in the first place. That, for example, Rockefeller, and the club of Rome, are to blame for the fake climate crisis which is taking away our right to use oil. Which is a very strange thing for an oil baron to do. It doesn't make sense- but it's absolutely taken hold.
This notion of green left wing lockdowns forcing us into dairy free 15 minute cities gained so much traction with the 'covid' 'pandemic' that I believe the whole thing was on purpose to do this (as well as make a killing for Pfizer).
Human intelligence cannot handle complexity. The Greens are as dumb in that respect as any of us.
good news eu close to agreement with china to get electric vechiles in the eu
A wonderful but sad essay, Signore Bardi. As you point out Nature does not care about our politics.
Trouble is, the activities of some green activists do contribute to natural disasters.
I live in south-eastern Australia, one of the most bushfire prone areas in the world. The only way to avoid major bushfires in eucalyptus forests is to periodically burn off the litter on the forest floor, called back burning. The aboriginal inhabitants here had figured that out and practiced back burning for millennia. But our modern day green activists know better and attempt to prevent back burning because they say it destroys habitat.
Sadly, there is no automatic increase in intelligence that comes from calling oneself a green.
One more of those things we know little about. Certainly, fires are something natural, but only within some limits
hey professor ugo bardi one last question than I will never bother you again your earlier post the collapse of the european union you say in 2030 the european union will have 35 member states but how is this possible will the european union start collapsing now or from 2030 onward ?
My one quibble is that the left wing-nuts are as bad as the right-wing ones. Both commit the Techno-optimist and Cornucopian Fallacies. Neither are for shrinkage of human population and economies.
Steve
But saying you want to shink the economy and population is not be going to get any politician elected and would instead see them branded as extremists and/or a joke.
Interesting post. Like with so many other things, a number of things have contributed to the strong headwinds that the environmental movement has faced off and on. And when trying to list some of them, it is easy to spiral down into ever more detail. An enterprising author could write a book on this subject.
I think a key thought is that at the most basic level, societies tend to resist disruptive change that is not obviously beneficial until it is forced on them by circumstance. With this in mind, we can try to dissect the reasons that the Environmentalism movement seems to be floundering. So the questions and observations that can guide our thinking are: 1) Why are the necessary changes disruptive? and 2) Why are they not obviously beneficial?
One short answer to the first question might be that we waited too long to get serious, and now society is being asked to go into a "crash dive" to "catch up" to where it needs to be. So, then, why did we take so long to get started, and why are we now pulling back? I can think of a number of good reasons for that. Some of them are related to the second question.
The second question might a little more difficult to answer. For example: Failure of our educational system? The ease with which our economic system currently compensates for our bad behavior and masks the downsides of it? Our ingenuity in working around the road blocks that have come up so far?
As I said, there is a book here for an aspiring sociologist (and admittedly I am not one).
I can end with an observation on NIMBY. I live in coastal California (but away from the big population centers). The coast definitely leans left, and "talks the talk" when it comes to environmental issues. But they are not always so good at "walking the walk". There are a couple of big renewable energy projects proposed nearby.
One project is a grid-sized battery storage facility that would be located on the coast because there is an existing large switchyard there that it can be connected to. Residents are mostly opposed, and although they have hyped up the danger of a battery fire, the true reason is that there are people that want that coastal land to be developed for tourism.
The other project is a large offshore wind farm. This would be around 20 miles off the coast on floating platforms, so we would barely be able to see it. But the cables from it would come ashore near here. People are against this also, and again it seems to be nothing more than a rejection of what is deemed "industrial use of waterfront".
Again, as Kübler-Ross showed in dying patients. The reactions are:
1. Denial
2. Anger, e.g. attacking the messenger, as a physician (or Green) one should not take it personally.
3. Bargaining, e.g. believing charlatans and false promises like MAGA.
4. Depression (if collective this will burst the everything bubble into an everything crash)
5. Acceptance
We are still in the stages 1-3. Prepare for the rest.