Europe, Europe! The Dream Doesn't Die.

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 very few attempts the Union made to present itself in ways that go beyond the dull image of a bunch of bureaucrats acting in the name of the global financial powers. Without the ability to project a positive image of itself, the Union may be doomed. But it is also true that in the recent European elections the separatist parties didn't gain as much as they had hoped to. Good dreams never die, they bide their time. And, who knows? One day, the dream of a truly United Europe might come true. 

There was a time, long ago, when the term "Europe" was a vague definition for the lands north of the Mediterranean Sea, a vast regions of fog and swamps, inhabited by hairy Barbarians. In time, the Roman Empire came to dominate the area we call today "Western Europe" but nobody would even dream to call him or herself "European." For more than a millennium, the inhabitants of this region would proudly call themselves "Romans," even though they might never have seen the city of Rome in their lives.

After that Rome fell, in the 5th century CE, the European population declined and, by 650 CE, it is estimated that it had shrunk to some 18 million people. Europe was an immense forest punctuated by castles and villages here and there, and, occasionally, by the ruins of great cities. It was the start of what we call the "dark ages," that weren't dark at all.

It was at that time that Europe arose. Not that Europe was anything like a recognized entity -- people would call themselves "Christians," but never, ever "Europeans."  But Europe had become a recognizable cultural entity. It was the result of two powerful communication tools that Europeans had inherited from the Roman Empire: the Latin language and the codices that replaced the old rolls.

Latin was the language of the Roman Legions. Then, when the legions were gone, it became the sacred language of Christianity and, at the same time, the language of commerce and of politics. Few Europeans could speak Latin, most were limited to their vernacular languages, but if rulers and merchants wanted to speak other they had to use Latin. And the Western European intellectuals couldn't even imagine to express themselves in any other language.

The other tool that created the European cultural unity was the codex. A remarkable invention: it was what we call today "book," a number of sheets of paper, vellum, papyrus, or similar materials, bound together. The existence of books looks obvious to us, but, at the time, it was a major revolution. It allowed to store and access information in a much more efficient and rapid way than with the old rolls.

With Latin and codices, the Middle Ages became a sophisticated cultural entity that kept alive the classical literature and added much more to it. One of its features was the return of women as authors. They had been silent during Roman times, but now we hear again their voices: Hildegard Von Bingen, Marguerite Porete, Heloise, and many others. The Middle Ages were not "dark" -- they were, by all means, bookish.

By the 9th century, King Charlemagne attempted to make Europe not just a cultural entity, but a political one with his Holy Roman Empire. It was only partially successful, but with the start of the 2nd millennium, Europe had become powerful enough that it could expand out of its borders: it was the time of the crusades. There was no central European government at the time, but Europeans acted together as if there were one. The crusades saw the birth of entities that prefigured modern multinational companies: the Templar Knights were at the same time a monastic order, a military force, and a bank.

The crusades were only partially successful. The European economy peaked with the beginning of the 14th century and then collapsed with the Great Plague of mid 14th century, when Europe lost perhaps 30% of its population. Then, there came the time of the great rebound and this time Europeans engaged in the great overseas adventure that in a few centuries would lead them to dominate most of the world.

But something had gone wrong in the meantime. The process of European integration that had started in the Middle Ages ground to a halt with the "Renaissance." During the 17th century, the 30-years war saw Europeans fighting each other in what was perhaps the most destructive war ever waged in human history up to that moment. Europeans even waged a war against women: the Renaissance was the time of the great witch hunts that saw innumerable innocent women burned alive at the stake.

Over the centuries that followed, Europe never knew a moment of quiet and it disintegrated into a constellation of nation states. Enclosed within rigid and impermeable borders, these creatures were proud, touchy, and aggressive. With the 20th century, they started behaving like drunken gunmen engaged in a tavern brawl. The result was the disaster of the two world wars.

It was only in the second half of the 20th centuries that Europeans seemed to recover some of their mental sanity and started wondering what they had been doing. Was there a way to avoid new internecine wars? That was the origin of the idea of the European Community, later renamed the European Union. A movement of ideas of people genuinely convinced that Europe was a good thing that would prevent new wars. It was the first time in history when the people living in Europe would start seeing themselves as "European Citizens."

In some ways, the European Union was a success, but today it shows the problems that were not solved when it was created. States can be kept together only in two ways: by military force or by cultural bonds. Europe had known both ways in its history: during the Roman Empire, it had been turned into a single political entity by the mighty Roman Legions. Later on, it had been bound together by the common ties of the Christian culture and religion. Within some limits, the United Europe of the second half of the 20th century was the result of the might of the American legions. But legions are expensive commodities and if the American ones leave (and they will), what will keep the European states together?

Here, we see how the European Union was built on weak foundations. The European nation states had consistently refused to cede even an inch of what they saw as their divine right: that of using their national language and only that language in all occasions. The result is that Babel was reincarnated in the city of Brussels, where every statement, every document, every speech, needs to be issued in multiple versions in different languages.

National languages are much more important than colored flags, they are the essence of the concept of nation states. The failure of the founders of the European Union has been that of not pushing a European Language that would have united Europe. Perhaps it would have been possible to resurrect Latin or, more e simply, to adopt English, the de-facto international language of our times. But, instead, the founders thought that it was easier to pay the salary of a legion of interpreters who collected in Brussels like vultures on a fresh kill.

The result was a Europe of the banks rather than a Europe of Europeans. It was never loved, but accepted as long as it seemed to be able to keep the economy going. But, with the economic downturn, feelings changed. Most people tend to reason on the basis of the simplest and most schematic inferences. If the economy was going better before the European Union came, there follows that if we get rid of those ugly bureaucrats (and of the interpreters) in Brussels, things will go back to the good times and everything will be well in the best of worlds. One result was the Brexit disaster and it is a minor miracle and also a good illustration of the power of the European dream that the recent elections saw the separatists win only in some marginal regions of the Union. Overall, most Europeans still see themselves as Europeans.

But for how long can the European Union survive in its current form? Will it collapse and then bounce back? Will it become just a minor peninsula of the great Eurasian co-prosperity zone? Maybe a remote terminal station for the new silk road? And, with its mineral resources badly depleted by millennia of exploitation, can Europeans survive at all in a future where they are threatened by climate change and ecosystem collapse?

We cannot say. The only certainty is that good dreams never really die -- they bide their time. And the dream of a united Europe is not dead. It will come back, one day.

Those Weird Italians: do They Really Think Italy is a Sovereign State? A Comment on the Recent Failure of Forming a New Government

The political history of Europe during the past 5 centuries or so. Note how nation-states crystallized in the current form mostly during the 19th century. These entities turned out to be extremely resilient and they survived two major world wars and all sorts of disasters. Nation-states are much less important today in the age of the Globalized empire, but they are still alive and kicking. The recent events in Italy the attempt of creating a more independent national government clashed against the international political imperatives. It is all part of a general trend that may lead to the disgregation of the Eurozone and, perhaps, to a Seneca Collapse for the weaker European economies, including the Italian one.

A few things became clear in Italy during the past few days. One is that Italy is not a real "sovereign state," as it became evident when President Mattarella refused to accept a government which included people who had taken critical positions against the European Union and against the Euro. It was a necessary outcome of the situation: from 1943 Italy has been occupied by the troops of the victorious American Empire. Only a certain degree of fiction has been maintained to imply that Italy is able, in principle, to take independent decisions in matters dealing with the economy and foreign policy.

In practice, whenever Italian officers tried to take such independent decisions, they discovered that it was an unwise choice - even for their own physical survival. There have been several instructive cases in the past, starting with Enrico Mattei, president of the Italian National Oil Company (ENI). He pursued a politics of independence for the Italian energy system and he died in a mysterious (but not so much) airplane crash in 1962.

History, as usual, rhymes with itself and, recently, the winners of the latest Italian elections, the leaders of the M5s and the Northern League (now simply the League) parties, tried to form a government with a program of sweeping reforms which included an attempt to gain a larger degree of independence from the European Union in financial matters. The program didn't include anything equivalent to the British "Brexit" but it was, clearly, a step in that direction.

It didn't work, and it should have been obvious from the beginning that it couldn't. The rules of the imperial game are not based on democracy: defeated and occupied countries can't vote for their independence (it happened to Catalonia, too). Try a little exercise, imagine that, after the defeat of Queen Boudicca, the Celts of Britain had voted for a National government pursuing a policy of independence from Rome. You get the point, I think.

What's perhaps most surprising is how a lot of Italians reacted to the events. They took Mr. Mattarella's decision as an insult to the sovereignty of Italy. That is, they seem to believe that such a thing as an Italian sovereign state exists, despite the American troops occupying Italy with more than 10,000 men in at least a hundred military bases (all your bases are belong to US). And the military occupation is just a marginal element of a much more in-depth political and financial occupation.

Yet, in a certain sense, the Italians are right. In politics, often beliefs are stronger than reality - politics creates its own reality. And so, if Italians truly believe that Italy is an independent country, then at least it could become one. It is what happened in 1861, when Italy was created as an independent state for the first time in history.

Now, there are events that highlight long-term trends. The power scuffle about the new government in Italy is one of these events. It shows that the Global Empire is still strong, but also in evident decline because it could be challenged - although unsuccessfully - by the winning parties of the recent Italian elections. Empires are fragile things in the sense that they need a lot of energy to keep moving - and they tend to have a short lifetime in comparison to the more resilient entities we call "nations." Empires, in other words, are subjected to the kind of rapid collapse that I call the "Seneca Collapse"

The Global/American Empire is no exception. It is the product of the power of fossil fuels and it will persist only as long as fossil fuels are cheap and abundant. That can't and won't last forever, although at present it is impossible to say for how long. Rome was said to be eternal at the time of the Roman Empire, but it wasn't. The same is true for Washington D.C. (and for Brussels, which will probably fall earlier).

So, at some moment Italy may become again an independent state, as it was from 1861 to 1943. Most Italians, right now, seem to think that it would be a good idea. But will it be? Think about this: after the Roman Legions left Britain, were the Britons richer? Or happier to be ruled by tribal chieftains? Debatable, to say the least.

The people who are proposing that Italy should leave the Eurozone seem to think that all the problems for the Italian economy are financial and political. They don't understand the structural problems of an economy which is almost 100% dependent on the import of mineral commodities, and of fossil fuels in particular. Leaving the Eurozone or making cosmetic changes in the taxation system won't do anything to address this dependency. And, if it is true that nation-states are more resilient than empires, they too can suffer the Seneca Collapse if they lack the energy needed for their economy to function. So, the future is obscure, as always, but one thing remains clear: "Fortune is of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid" (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 BC-65 AD)

Brexit: a subversive in Brussels

The man from Gazprom: Ugo Bardi's speech at the hearing "EU Energy Security Strategy under the conditions of the Internal Energy Market" at the European Parliament, in Brussels, on Nov 5, 2014. 

I already described this experience of mine at the EU parliament in Brussels, in 2014 but, f you have 12 minutes, you may like watch this clip with my full speech. You can notice how I had noted the start of the collapse of the oil price. I couldn't imagine, at that time, that prices would tumble to less than $40 per barrel, but I had correctly identified the troubles that would befall on the shale oil and the shale gas industry. Nor I could exactly predict when shale oil production would peak in the US (it did in mid 2015). But I warned the parliament not to put too much trust in these overhyped new sources of energy.

Not shown in the clip is the reaction of the audience. After I had stopped speaking, someone from the public took up the microphone, saying, "I completely disagree with what you said." Then, he rose up and he left the hall. Later on, they told me that he was a member of the UKIP. During the debate, someone raised the old canard that the US had attained "energy independence" by means of shale oil and that they were becoming a net energy exporter, but I had no possibility to answer back. The whole hearing had been carefully engineered to give the impression that Europe would soon receive plentiful supplies of oil and gas from the booming shale industry in the USA. No need to bow down to the evil threats of Putin and his minions. Some days after that the meeting was over, I was told that in the halls of the European parliament people were saying that I was paid by Gazprom. 

So, you see? It is not just the Britons. There has to be reason for this:

 (image from the Guardian)

Chuck Norris and the Brexit

Maybe we can take the Brexit with a grain of humor.

Chuck Norris does not vote at referendums. He is voted. And the result is always "yes" for him.

Chuck Norris is the only one who is allowed to vote "maybe" at a referendum. And when he does that, the "maybe" always wins.

Chuck Norris voted for the Brexit from Brisbane. He made a paper plane with the ballot, he launched it with a roundhouse kick, and it flew all the way to London, casting itself into the ballot box.

If Chuck Norris had held the Brexit referendum, it would have been called Breakit and it would have been decided by a roundhouse kick.

If France decides to leave the EU, Chuck Norris will dig a Channel between France and Germany with a single roundhouse kick.

If Italy decides to leave the EU, Chuck Norris will go there and say, "you think that's a boot? Now THIS is a boot." And, after a roundhouse kick, the Mediterranean sea will be much larger.

If Greece decides to leave the EU, Chuck Norris will go there, install himself on Mount Olympus, and from then on lightning bolts will appear in the shape of roundhouse kicks.

If Spain decides to leave the EU, a roundhouse kick by Chuck Norris will make Portugal much larger.

If Angela Merkel decides to keep the EU together at all costs, Chuck Norris will go to Berlin and remind her that the Berlin Wall fell because of a roundhouse kick by him, and she will think the matter over.

Putin had decided to invade Western Europe. But he found that it had already been invaded by Chuck Norris. And Russia, too.

Once, Chuck Norris voted in the Republican Primaries. As a joke, he put a carrot in the ballot box. Now this carrot is called Donald Trump.

Why does the EU have such a silly flag? Because Chuck Norris arranged the stars in that way by a roundhouse kick.

......

Brexit: requiem for a dream

For many years, I had thought that a united Europe was a great idea. An institution created by wise men who had wanted to avoid repeating the horrible mistakes that had led Europeans to massacre each other in two terrible wars. Europe was supposed to be a Europe of the people, a force for peace, for  justice, for equality, for the defense of both humankind and nature.

Two years ago, I was in Brussels for a hearing at the European Parliament; it was a shock. The Europe I knew, the Europe I thought I knew, wasn't anywhere to be found. What I found was a bunch of ill-advised, pompous bureaucrats wandering in a gigantic and useless palace. The ghosts of the founders had been thoroughly exorcised and now what was left was an empty shell; a structure that just perpetuated itself without any clear purpose, except drilling more fossil fuels out of the ground, and - maybe - make war to Russia. The dream of a Europe of the peoples acting for peace and justice was gone. Requiem for a dream.

And now what? It seems clear that Europe, as it is now, cannot survive this blow and maybe this is not a bad thing. Can we reform this Europe? Or can we restart from scratch? Impossible to say. In any case, here is the post that I wrote two years ago after my trip to Brussels. If you can read Spanish, you may be also interested in these considerations by Antono Turiel.

___________________________________

Bringing the message about resource depletion to the European Parliament

With 24 languages deemed as "official," the European Union shares some characteristics with the ancient Babel Tower (above, the parliament building in Strasbourg). The Babel of languages is one of the problems associated with trying to pass messages to politicians, but not the most important one. Rather, the main problem seems to be a decisional mechanism which favors groupthink.  Here are some notes of a recent experience of mine at a hearing on energy security of the European Parliament in Brussels.

As I walk to the hearing on energy security in Europe, I am struck first of all by the size of the hall. The "Alcide De Gasperi" room in the palace of the European Parliament in Brussels was clearly built for impressing people, in addition to its function as a meeting room. One of its most remarkable features is the long row of windows of the interpreters' rooms. Since there are 24 official languages of the European Union, there have to be some 50 interpreters working in there. Then, I also notice how the screens for projecting one's slides are small and located high up, near the ceiling. This is not a place where you are supposed to support your statements with data and graphs. It is a place built for political debate.

As people collect in the hall, I can see that the atmosphere is rather formal, with several members of the European Parliament sitting in the audience. Most people are dressed in suits and many wear ties. On the podium, there are six invited speakers. And there we go; I immediately sense the mood of the conference: this is not a scientific meeting. None of the speakers seem to be an expert about fossil fuels, intended as markets, production, resources, reserves, and the like. Rather, they seem to be mainly concerned with strategic and political issues. The line that emerges from the presentations and from the reactions of the audience is clear: it is a highly confrontational attitude (to put it mildly) toward Russia, accused to be engaging in an economic war against Western Europe. The gist of what I hear is that the European Union must unite in defense; we must follow the example of the United States and get rid of our silly regulations and of the local resistance against drilling and nuclear plants. Europe can exploit its shale gas and oil resources (and also nuclear energy) and attain energy independence, as the United States did. It is "drill, drill, drill" all over.

This line, in various shades, is the position of four speakers out of six. The bias in favor of fossil fuels is shown also by the fact that the lady charged with defending renewables is given the last time slot of the hearing. The fossil oriented attitude seems to be shared by the majority of the audience. Not that it is not challenged by some of the MEPs in the room. One of them (I know him well, he has been a long time ASPO supporter) stands up and tells to one of the speakers: "it is not true that the United States has attained energy independence. You have to stop getting your data from newspapers!". He is right, (you can look at the data yourself). But it is an isolated reaction, and the overall debate remains based on the idea that the US has become energy independent or that, at least, it will soon become independent.

When it is my turn to speak, I tell a different story. I try to explain that the ultimate origin of the energy security problems in Europe is due to depletion, and that drilling more is not the solution. I keep the message as simple as possible; tailored for people who are not specialists in oil and gas. I show the price trends, I tell them something about energy return, and I make the point that renewable energy is not subjected to depletion. I sense that my talk is well received: the people in the audience listen to what I say, and they look up at my slides (but those screens are too high and too small, dammit!). I also get several questions and comments - mostly favorable ones. After the hearing is over, several people stop me to discuss further about what I said. As a talk, it was a reasonably successful one.

But, on the whole, I think I had a very modest impact, if any. As I noticed many times, it is extremely difficult to pass to decision makers messages which are perceived as out of the ordinary, as the message on resource depletion is. The problem has many facets and it has to do, mainly, with the way politicians think. According to my experience, politicians - especially high level ones - are very smart people. The problem is that they are swamped with information; just as most of us. So, in the great mass of data arriving, how do you decide what is the truth? If you are a scientist - or you are scientifically trained - you have ways to evaluate the data and filter out the bad ones. But politicians are not scientists, they are not scientifically trained, so they use a different method. They maintain a healthy dose of skepticism about everything they hear; they don't pay too much attention on data, and they tend to side with the interpretation that they perceive as the most compatible with the general opinion of the group they belong to.

There are reasons for this "groupthink" syndrome that, probably, affects politicians more than most of us. It is because then main tool in the political struggle, today, is the demonization of adversaries. So, a politician is very careful to avoid to be singled out from the crowd of colleagues and subjected to the standard demonizing treatment. For a politician, there is safety in crowds; a traditional strategy well known also by sheep and fish. In practice, you may see a politician as having a built in opinion detector in his head. He/she will sense the position of the majority and try to avoid straying too far away from it. In general, the way for a politician to obtain power is to occupy the center; to be seen as a moderate. That this is the way to success has been known for a long time; even rigorously modeled (in economics, it is known as the "Hotelling's law"). Scientists are sometimes contrarians, politicians almost never are.

So, I think I can figure out the reaction of most of the MEPs to the hearing on energy security in Brussels. It was something like, "Well, that Italian guy who spoke about resource depletion might have a point about what the real problem is. I couldn't his slides so well, so high up near the ceiling, but he seemed to have some good data. But, on the other hand, the other speakers saw the problem differently. If most people in the parliament think that Russia is waging an economic war against us and that drilling more is a good idea, then there has to be something in it. For sure, I shouldn't take the risk of siding with a minority option."



Ugo Bardi teaches at the University of Florence, Italy. He is a member of the Club of Rome and the author of "Extracted, how the quest for mineral wealth is plundering the planet" (Chelsea Green 2014)