The epidemic in the US: a comment by the virologist Guido Silvestri

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 Silvestri wrote a comment in Italian on Facebook about the situation and I thought it was interesting to translate it in its entirety and post it here. This translation is made by smoothing a Google-translated text and it remains rough, but I verified that it maintains the meaning of the original. This text was written a few days ago and, so far, we saw no large changes in the trends of cases and deaths in the US. But, as Dr. Silvestri himself says, we need to wait a few more days in order to see if the spike will continue and result in an increase in the number of victims. On this subject, see also this post by Chuck Pezeshky.

Update of July 2nd, 2020. The trends are still the same: the number of new cases keeps growing, but the number of deaths goes down. It seems to disprove Silvestri's hypothesis 1, the other three remain possible
 

COVID-19: SITUATION IN AMERICA

By Guido Silvestri

June 28 at 7:51 AM

Many ask me to talk about the situation of the COVID-19 epidemic in the US. I try in these lines to start from the data, without making political considerations. Science, always science, and very strongly science, as you and I like it :)

First of all, I would start from the curve that you see in the graph, above. Today (28 June), it was the second-highest day in terms of number of cases (yesterday was the highest ever). So it is clear that we are in full pandemic with many new cases diagnosed, especially in the large southern states (CA, TX, AR, FL, GA etc). Not that it is a subject not discussed at length, but it is good to start from these data.

It is equally clear that we are not experiencing the Apocalypse. In fact, if you look at the graph of daily deaths (above, lower graph) you can see that today was the 85th worst day since the beginning of the epidemic - which is not so bad since everything started here early March 2020. As far as I know, there is also no sign of the hospital overload seen in the past in Wuhan, Lombardy, New York / New Jersey, and other places.

The question asked by those who try to understand the facts (and do not have pre-packaged and/or ideology-driven answers) is the following: since we are facing this massive increase in cases that has lasted for ~ 3 weeks, why there is no corresponding increase in deaths or seriously ill people?

Of course, I don't have the absolute answer (and in fact nobody has it), but let me try to make some hypotheses and comments.

Hypothesis # 1. There will be a surge of deaths in the coming days. It is possible, of course, and we will see that in the next few days (so I already anticipate that in a week we will return to this discussion). I would point out, softly, that, looking at the graphs of last March, the time gap between increase in cases and increase in deaths is ~ 1 week. I repeat: we'll see.

Hypothesis # 2. Many diagnoses (i.e., positive swabs) are being made in asymptomatic and/or young subjects and therefore less at risk of developing severe forms of COVID-19. It is difficult to find precise data in this regard, but the feeling of many is that this is an important point, especially if the feared surge of deaths does not occur. If confirmed, this aspect would open up interesting implications in terms of natural immunity.

Hypothesis # 3. Positive swabs have a lower viral load, as it was already demonstrated in Italy first by the group of Massimo Clementi and Nicasio Mancini at the San Raffaele hospital and then by others (Pavia, Treviso, etc). This in turn could be linked to environmental factors (many infections in the South) and/or seasonality, which favor infections caused by lower viral inoculation. I would like to remind readers that lower inoculation infections = less serious infections, as known from the animal model of CoVs

Hypothesis # 4. Patients have a better prognosis because we treat them better. This point, in my opinion, is important and, if confirmed, goes in the direction of putting COVID-19 among the diseases with which the health services are concerned, without asking the general population to upset its existence - which, then, to think about it well, they are all other diseases. It seems clear to me that between dexametazone, tocilizumab, baricitinib, remdesivir, convalescent plasma, anticoagulant therapy, better ventilation protocols, etc. we are much more effective in treating the infection today than 3-4 months ago. This is important and a harbinger of optimism.

I add: note that I have not even mentioned the possibility of a virus-host adaptation, which is very plausible for me, because I do not want the scandalized chorus of some "purists" to say that it is too early to make this hypothesis ((but not other hypotheses) :-)

For now, therefore, I leave you with a key question, some preliminary hypotheses for an answer, and an appointment next week, to see if at that point we will have clearer ideas of what is going on.

HAPPY SUNDAY TO ALL!

Dr. Guido Silvestri received his MD in Ancona, Italy, and completed Residency training in Internal Medicine & Clinical Immunology (Florence 1990) and Pathology (U. Penn 2001). He is currently a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Comparative Pathology, and Professor and Vice-Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, where is also serves as Chair of the Division of Microbiology & Immunology at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. 

"The Limits to Growth" continues to make waves

The Club of Rome is holding its annual meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. In the image, you see the co-president, Sandrine Dixon-Decleve, speaking

Now heading toward its 50th anniversary, "The Limits to Growth," the 1972 study sponsored by the Club of Rome, continues to generate interest. Past is the time of the "Limits-Bashing" fashion, when no one would dream to cite the study except to say that it was wrong. But there are still plenty of people who blindly repeat the legend that the study had predicted shortages that never occurred. As Daniel Dennett said, we are apes infested with memes and the Limits to Growth is an especially virulent one. 

Here, Marc Cirigliano writes a balanced review of the story, citing my book on the subject and giving some credit to one of the main critics of the study, Julian Simon, who in my opinion would deserve some more bashing but I admit that he may have been, at least, well-intentioned. 


 

The Best People: Ignoring the American Need for Environmental Deliverance for Over 50 Years

By Marc A. Cirigliano

Popular journalism seems to have finally caught up with what the scientists have been telling us for well over five decades about the environment. You really can’t read anything in mainstream news or commentary without coming across articles about such ecological matters as overpopulation, pollution, resource use and climate change. The main topics related to these stresses include human excesses, noticeable changes that affect the day-to-day well-functioning of a society somewhere on the planet or the long-term viability of human life as we now know it.

It has not been an easy matter for science to get to the point where environmental problems are part of the grist of everyday reporting and opinion pieces. The opposition has been fierce, well funded and plays upon people’s primal fears.

Science discovers new ways of thinking about the world. Often, this is unsettling because with a new way of thinking, there comes change, and, with change, comes the possibility of loss. Sometimes the threat of loss may seem monumental, overwhelming, and, perhaps, even apocalyptic.

Change may portend personal dislocation, social change and economic upheaval. No wonder, then, that some people may see some aspects of scientific advancement as a threat. Further, people in authority may feel that a new scientific discovery threatens their very position of power within society.

One historic centuries old example is religion’s well-known and consistent opposition to a scientific explanation for the universe that upended the Christian one. Science told us the Earth was no longer the center of a God-designed universe. To threaten religion’s primacy even more, evolution upended the hexplanation that humans descended from Adam and Eve. In place of that, science said we descended from other life forms.

Religion freaked out even as the evidence mounted that science was correct.

Still today some clerics defend their authority over parishioners by still insisting the Bible is the undeniable authority in understanding the functioning of the universe, the origin of humans and the motive of humans in living on the planet. Some use it as a reason to oppose environmental reforms all together. Looking at the idea that informs the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Genesis 1:26 (NIV) gives use the dominion argument:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Yes, the dominion argument is that God sanctioned humanity with using the earth as we see fit. Enironmental science puts forth a different view.We will come back to science as a threat to the authority of the status quo later.

A Major Environmental Warning from 1972


By the 1960s, science had established, or more precisely, environmental science had developed a proven explanation for the complex way ecosystem earth functioned. This explanation used the idea of population dynamics. Here, population growth, carrying capacity, overpopulation and population collapse—also referred to as a die-off or crash—were part of a pattern of life both in a segment of the environment or even on the planet as a whole. Bear in mind that as science developed its ideas on population dynamics, earth was in the midst of a population explosion never before seen.

In 1972, the Club of Rome received a report they had commissioned from four MIT researchers— Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers and William W. Behrens III—to study what they called the predicament of mankind. This team published The Limits to Growth (LTG), subtitled A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind.

The researchers described their goal and the predicament they were proposing we fix:

The intent of the project is to examine the complex of problems troubling men of all nations: poverty in the midst of plenty; degradation of the environment; loss of faith in institutions; uncontrolled urban spread; insecurity of employment; alienation of youth; rejection of traditional values; and inflation and other monetary and economic disruptions. (10)

The LTG supplied a new way of looking at these problems, problems they labeled as the world problematique:

It is the predicament of mankind that man can perceive the problematique, yet, despite his considerable knowledge and skills, he does not understand the origins, significance, and interrelationships of its many components and thus is unable to devise effective responses. This failure occurs in large part because we continue to examine single items in the problematique without understanding that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, that change in one element means change in the others. (11)

In other words, each of these elements—poverty, environmental loss, social mistrust, overpopulation, job loss, alienated youth, etc.—is part of a system, with system defined as “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole.”

Consequently, instead of studying each of these problems separately from the system, the LTG proposed to study them as part of an environmental system. The way they examined this as a system was to develop a model, which they clarified as “simply an ordered set of assumptions about a complex system.” (20)

This was a new approach at that time in 1972.

Let us look at some of the specifics. TLG clarifies:

Our world model was built specifically to investigate five major trends of global concern-accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment. (21

The TLG draws a distinction between their approach and more traditional ones:

The model we have constructed is, like every other model, imperfect, oversimplified, and unfinished. We are well aware of its shortcomings, but we believe that it is the most useful model now available for dealing with problems far out on the space-time graph. To our knowledge it is the only formal model in existence that is truly global in scope, that has a time horizon longer than thirty years, and that includes important variables such as population, food production, and pollution, not as independent entities, but as dynamically interacting elements, as they are in the real world. (21-22)

TLG gives us three observations on how we may address these problems:

The present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline inf both population and industrial capacity.  t is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success. (23-24) TLG also acknowledges:

These conclusions are so far-reaching and raise so many questions for further study that we are quite frankly overwhelmed by the enormity of the job that must be done. (24)Addressing population growth, TLG zeroes in one of the reasons for the exponential population explosion in the 20th century:

With the spread of modern medicine, public health techniques, and new methods of growing and distributing foods, death rates have fallen around the world. World average life expectancy is currently about 53 years and still rising. On a world average the gain around the positive feedback loop (fertility) has decreased only slightly while the gain around the negative feedback. loop (mortality) is decreasing. The result is an increasing dominance of the positive feedback loop … (37)

In other words, several elements of the world system have enabled the population to grow exponentially. LTG explains further:

The exponential growth of demand for food results directly from the positive feedback loop that is now determining the growth of human population. The supply of food to be expected in the future is dependent on land and fresh water and also on agricultural capital, which depends in turn on the other dominant positive feedback loop in the system-the capital investment loop. Opening new land, farming the sea, or expanding use of fertilizers and pesticides will require an increase of the capital stock devoted to food production. The resources that permit growth of that capital stock tend not to be renewable resources, like land or water, but nonrenewable resources, like fuels or metals. Thus the expansion of food production in the future is very much dependent on the availability of nonrenewable resources. Are there limits to the earth's supply of these resources? (54)

One of the results of population growth caused by resource us is pollution. LTG points out:

Man's concern for the effect of his activities on the natural environment is only very recent. Scientific attempts to measure this effect are even more recent and still very incomplete. We are certainly not able, at this time, to come to any final conclusion about the earth's capacity to absorb pollution. We can, however, make four basic points in this section, which illustrate, from a dynamic, global perspective, how difficult it will be to understand and control the future state of our ecological systems. These points are: 1. The few kinds of pollution that actually have been measured over time seem to be increasing exponentially. 2. We have almost no knowledge about where the upper limits to these pollution growth curves might be. 3. The presence of natural delays in ecological processes increases the probability of underestimating the control measures necessary, and therefore of inadvertently reaching those upper limits. 4. Many pollutants are globally distributed; their harmful effects appear long distances from their points of generation. (69)

There is no doubt today that the deleterious effects of pollution are everywhere: the air, the water and the soil, all in the form of billions of tons of solid waste. All this not only affects people, but also animals, plants and, on a microscopic level, bacteria and viruses. In a simple overview of the systemic nature of the problematique, TLG links these issues together:

Of course, none of the five factors we are examining here is independent. Each interacts constantly with all the others. We have already mentioned some of these interactions. Population cannot grow without food, food production is increased by growth of capital, more capital requires more resources, discarded resources become pollution, pollution interferes with the growth of both population and food. (89)

The Crux of the Matter: “A Choice of Limits”

The heart of the problem has to do with the way that we solve social problems:

But the relationship between the earth's limits and man's activities is changing. The exponential growth curves are adding millions of people and billions of tons of pollutants to the ecosystem each year. Even the ocean, which once appeared virtually inexhaustible, is losing species after species of its commercially useful animals. (151)

After demonstrating the crisis facing the whaling industry around 1972, TLG points out that there were agreed upon limits to whaling to preserve the whale population. By extension, then, the report argues:

The basic choice that faces the whaling industry is the same one that faces any society trying to overcome a natural limit with a new technology. Is it better to try to live within that limit by accepting a self-imposed restriction on growth? Or is it preferable to go on growing until some other natural limit arises, in the hope that at that time another technological leap will allow growth to continue still longer? For the last several hundred years human society has followed the second course so consistently and successfully that the first choice has been all but forgotten. (151-153)

TLG make a point that they:

… are searching for a model output that represents a world system that is: 1. sustainable without sudden and uncontrollable collapse; and 2. capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people. (158)

To achieve a stable population, the number of births would more or less have to equal the number of deaths. TLG states:

Such a requirement, which is as mathematically simple as it is socially complicated, is for our purposes an experimental device, not necessarily a political recommendation. (159-160)

At the same that TLG discusses socially complicated limits, they acknowledge that:

Technological advance would be both necessary and welcome in the equilibrium state. A few obvious examples of the kinds of practical discoveries that would enhance the workings of a steady state society include:

• new methods of waste collection, to decrease pollution and make discarded material available for recycling;

• more efficient techniques of recycling, to reduce rates of resource depletion;

• better product design to increase product lifetime and promote easy repair, so that the capital depreciation rate would be minimized;

• harnessing of incident solar energy, the most pollution-free power source;

• methods of natural pest control, based on more complete understanding of ecological interrelationships;

• medical advances that would decrease the death rate;

• contraceptive advances that would facilitate the equalization of the birth rate with the decreasing death rate.

TLG continues:

As for the incentive that would encourage men to produce such technological advances, what better incentive could there be than the knowledge that a new idea would be translated into a visible improvement in the quality of life?

They clarify the social reality of new inventions through history:

Historically mankind's long record of new inventions has resulted in crowding, deterioration of the environment, and greater social inequality because greater productivity has been absorbed by population and capital growth. There is no reason why higher productivity could not be translated into a higher standard of living or more leisure or more pleasant surroundings for everyone, if these goals replace growth as the primary value of society. (177-178)

TLG concludes:

If there is cause for deep concern, there is also cause for hope. Deliberately limiting growth would be difficult, but not impossible. The way to proceed is clear, and the necessary steps, although they are new ones for human society, are well within human capabilities. Man possesses, for a small moment in his history, the most powerful combination of knowledge, tools, and resources the world has ever known. He has all that is physically necessary to create a totally new form of human society-one that would be built to last for generations. The two missing ingredients are a realistic, long-term goal that can guide mankind to the equilibrium society and the human will to achieve that goal. Without such a goal and a commitment to it, short-term concerns will generate the exponential growth that drives the world system toward the limits of the earth and ultimate collapse. With that goal and that commitment, mankind would be ready now to begin a controlled, orderly transition from growth to global equilibrium. (183-184)

Why the Attacks on Limits in Particular and Environmentalism in General?


The Limits to Growth received strong criticism after its publication. It came in many forms. The Limits to Growth threatened specific groups. As Ugo Bardi explains:

In 1997, the Italian economist Giorgio Nebbia, noted that the reaction against the LTG study had arrived from at least four different fronts. One was from those who saw the book as a threat to the growth of their businesses and industries. A second set was that of professional economists, who saw LTG as a threat to their dominance in advising on economic matters. The Catholic world provided further ammunition for the critics, being piqued at the suggestion that overpopulation was one of the major causes of the problems. Then, the political left in the Western World saw the LTG study as a scam of the ruling class, designed to trick workers into believing that the proletarian paradise was not a practical goal. And this by Nebbia is a clearly incomplete list; forgetting religious fundamentalists, the political right, the believers in infinite growth, politicians seeking for easy solutions to all problems and many others.

So, when Limits came out, no doubt that business, industry, economists, religion, politicians, true believers in capitalism, and even workers thought that limiting growth would diminish their respective claims to authority and, most certainly, their lifestyle. This certainly fits, as asserted earlier in this article, that science is a threat to the authority of the status quo.


One Persistent Critic


Although there were many critics and criticisms, one of the most cogent and insistent came from economist Julian Simon. For example, Simon, in his 1995 Cato Policy Report “The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving,” continued his by then multi-decade rejection of the idea of limits to growth by asserting that [Italics added]:

We have seen extraordinary progress for the human enterprise, especially in the past two centuries. Yet many people believe that conditions of life are generally worse than in the past, rather than better.

I must say that nowhere in any environmental studies have I found that assertion, that “conditions of life are generally worse than in the past, rather than better.” Simon is setting this up as a straw man argument, which he easily demolishes with evidence on the improved living conditions of millions, if not billions, of people in our modern age.


In point of fact, these are ideas that TLG agrees with:

With the spread of modern medicine, public health techniques, and new methods of growing and distributing foods, death rates have fallen around the world. World average life expectancy is currently about 53 years and still rising. (37)

Hence, no sensible person, scientist or not, would assert what Simon claims they are asserting. In point of fact, the LTG was quite clear in stating that problems from overpopulation and pollution, plus potential shortfalls of resources, would become paramount well into the future:

…the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. (23)

So, LTG is talking about 100 years from 1972, not as Simon claims. And, LTG does not assert, as Simon says they do, that that life is worse now than in the past. However, this is not to entirely dismiss what Simon says. He does develop a provocative thesis when he writes:

The most extraordinary part of the resource-creation process is that temporary or expected shortages -- whether due to population growth, income growth, or other causes -- tend to leave us even better off than if the shortages had never arisen, because of the continuing benefit of the intellectual and physical capital created to meet the shortage. It has been true in the past, and therefore it is likely to be true in the future, that we not only need to solve our problems, but we need the problems imposed upon us by the growth of population and income.

Simon clarifies why he thinks increased population is a benefit to mankind:

The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge. Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths. Progress is limited largely by the availability of trained workers. The main fuel to speed the world's progress is the stock of human knowledge. And the ultimate resource is skilled, spirited, hopeful people, exerting their wills and imaginations to provide for themselves and their families, thereby inevitably contributing to the benefit of everyone.

Simon argues that over the long haul things would continue to get better just as they had been doing for the past two centuries:

The process operates as follows: More people and increased income cause problems in the short run--shortages and pollutions. Short-run scarcity raises prices and pollution causes outcries. Those problems present opportunity and prompt the search for solutions. In a free society solutions are eventually found, though many people seek and fail to find solutions at cost to themselves. In the long run the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. This theory fits the facts of history.

This is actually fascinating, because when Simon writes that when things go bad, “those problems present opportunity and prompt the search for solutions,” he actually sounds like an environmentalist. And, he would seem to agree with LTG which says “technological advance would be both necessary and welcome...”


On another point, Simon misses the mark when he claims “there is little scientific literature on the relation of population to war.” Actually, according to Steven A. LeBlanc, there is sound evidence that “ecology and warfare intertwined today, just as they have been for millions of years.” LeBlanc explains:

The consequences of environmental stress will be scarce resources, and the consequences of scarce resources will be warfare. (Constant Battles, 12)

Simon, though, seems to go off his rocker in further explaining the need for and the capacity to invent solutions:

We have in our hands now--actually, in our libraries--the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years.

No doubt we do have the technology through knowledge in our libraries, but, 7 billion years? A bit of an exaggeration, perhaps.


Simon presents his argument as a universal for the ages, that we could apply his assertions to when he was writing, to 7 billion years in the future and to our now of 2019. As such, he would, at least up to now, be wrong. There is no indication that we have policy solutions to our current woes of overpopulation, seemingly insidious pollution (such as Roundup causing cancer, CO2 driving global warming or plastic refuse overwhelming both land and sea), and stresses over resource shortages, such as a lack of arable land and lack of water from droughts.


In fact, the very business and technical community that is creating the progress supporting our modern lifestyle is actually doing the opposite of Simon’s prediction that environmental problems would “prompt the search for solutions.” Business, in general, consistently lobbies against environmental action that effectively stops our politicians from taking any meaningful action. As we see today, President Trump is actually repealing environmental regulations.


Conclusion


The Limits to Growth raised key environmental concerns about population growth, pollution, depletion of resources and a deteriorating environment. These were ideas new to the public and new to policy makers in 1972. Today in 2019 they are foundational concepts in biology, ecology and environmental studies. The MIT researchers who wrote TLG studied these problems as part of an ecological system, not, in the then traditional way as isolated events. To top it off, we were given sound policy advice fifty years ago. Instead of listening, we tried to kill the messenger. To this day, it is advice ignored by policy makers.

The First Recorded Ecological Collapse in History and How it Was Misunderstood.

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 lady. She was known to tame lions, use weapons, fight her enemies, and, sometimes, devour their corpses. Among her several feats, one is to have smashed an entire mountain with her mighty mace. It may be the first historical record of an ecological collapse

Pushing the world's temperatures over 2°C could well lead to the greatest ecological collapse ever seen in human history, but it wouldn't be the first. There is a long series of human-caused ecological collapses at various scales, often the result of deforestation and erosion of the fertile soil. Perhaps the oldest recorded collapse is one that took place at some moment during the 3rd millennium BCE and that is recorded in a mythologized form by the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna, the first author of texts in history whose name is known to us.

The story of how the mountain Ebih "melted into a vat of sheepfat" is interesting in itself but it is most interesting for what it teaches to us. The Sumerians, apparently, never understood the problem of erosion of the fertile soil and their land -- that we call "Iraq" today -- was gradually turned into the desert that it is today.

It seems that the Sumerians couldn't think of any better idea than faulting supernatural powers for the disaster that was befalling them. On the other hand, it may also be that the punishment that the Goddess meted to the mountain was seen as a curse that humans deserved for having mismanaged the fertile soil. In the second case, the Sumerians had at least a partial understanding of what they were doing but, in the end, they were unable to stop the overexploitation of their land.

In our case, with climate change, we don't seem to be able to do any better than the Sumerians did with erosion and we may be subjected to a much harsher punishment. But we are unable to stop what we are doing and we continue to destroy the things that make us live.

______________________________________________

 From "Chimeras", Aug 23, 2015

Inanna and Ebih: a report of an ancient ecological catastrophe?

Ugo Bardi

Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra – Università di Firenze

Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino,

Sesto Fiorentino (Fi) via della Lastruccia 3, 50019, Italy

ugo.bardi@unifi.it

Abstract

“Inanna and Ebih” is the modern title of a text written by the Sumerian poet Enheduanna around the second half of the third millennium BCE. It describes the conflict between the Goddess Inanna and the mountain called Ebih which ends with the destruction of the latter. I suggest that the poem may be interpreted as the result of the way the ancient perceived what we call today an “ecological catastrophe,” that is the result of overgrazing and deforestation of a fragile mountain environment.

1. Introduction

The “Inanna and Ebih” poem was composed around 2300 BCE by the Sumerian poetess Enheduanna and it was rediscovered in the 20^th Century (1)⁠. The story told in the poem can be summarized in a few lines. We read first that the Goddess Inanna is preparing to do battle against the mountain "Ebih," because the mountain “showed her no respect”. Before attacking, Inanna goes to see the God An, whom she calls “father,” apparently to ask for his help. An, however, is perplexed and Inanna decides to fight alone; eventually managing to triumph over the mountain. This story must have been well known in Sumerian times; so much that several copies of it have arrived to us, written in cuneiform on clay tablets. So, its meaning must have been clear enough for the people of ancient times and they must have found the story interesting enough that they kept copying it many times, apparently also as a standard exercise for young scribes (2)⁠. 

However, for us, "Inanna and Ebih" is hard to classify as a poem, even baffling. The characters, their conflict, and the very fact of a God battling a mountain appear totally alien to our modern feelings. As a story, it is far away from all the modern canons of what we define as “literature” or “poetry.”

The present paper adds some considerations to the understanding of the story of Inanna and Ebih. It is based on the concept that the ancient faced the same physical problems as we do, for instance, soil erosion, deforestation, and the like. However, their way to see and describe these problems was much different. So, it may be that the story we are considering describes an ancient ecological catastrophe, the destruction of a forest ecosystem, told in a form that is not easy for us to recognize but that appears clear, once understood. The story also may be an echo of a conflict still existing in modern times: the need to preserve natural environments against the attempt of overexploiting them.

The author does not claim to be able to read Sumerian and the present discussion is based on the versions of the story available in modern languages; that is on the one by Betty De Shong Meador (3)⁠, the one available in the electronic corpus of Sumerian Literature (4)⁠, the version in French by Attinger (5)⁠, and the Italian one by Pettinato (6)⁠. These translations were found to differ in some details, but the overall content was the same.

2. Inanna and Ebih: interpreting the myth

There are several ways to interpret ancient myths. Perhaps the best-known one is the “comparative” method, pioneered, among others, by Claude Levi-Strauss (7)⁠. It consists in finding common elements among different myths; as they can be found in different cultures and different ages. These common elements evidence the basic structure of the myth and help understand its general meaning, framing it in its specific context.

In the case of "Inanna and Ebih", we could first look for stories involving Gods engaged in fighting mountains, but such a plot appears to be very rare. A similar plot can be found in the Sumerian text referred to as “Lugal-e,” from the first term it begins with (8)⁠. It goes back to times close to those of Enheduanna, but it is probably later. In Lugal-e, we are told of the divine hero, Ninurta, fighting a demon called “Asag” that turns out to be a “pile of stones”, perhaps to be identified as a mountain with that name. Karahashi has discussed this myth explicitly in comparison with that of Inanna and Ebih, finding several points in common, especially in the terminology used. (8)⁠

Another myth showing some structural similarities is the Greek myth of the Chimera. In this case, the hero is Bellerophon, semi-divine as the son of the God Poseidon and, as a monster, the Chimera has some Chthonic elements, especially in its fiery breath that may lead to identifying it with a mountain. Both Pliny the Elder in his “Natural History” and Maurus Servius Honoratus in his commentary to Virgil's Aeneid state that the Chimera has to be intended as a representation of a volcano. We also find a similar interpretation in Plutarch's “Moralia” (3.16.9) where we are told of how Bellerophon cut away a section of a mountain called “Chimera” which was producing a nasty reflection on the plain; which, in turn, dried up the crops. In an earlier work (9)⁠, the author of the present paper proposed that the source of the myth of the Chimera is to be found in ancient East Asian mythology. It is not impossible that one source could be the story of Inanna and Ebih.

Apart from these stories, mountainous monsters are rare in the world's lore. Some mountains were certainly important in religious terms, such as Mount Olympus for the ancient Greek and Mount Fuji in Japan, up to relatively recent times. Neither, however, were deified in the role given to Ebih in the story we are discussing here. We can find occasional stone monsters in modern fiction; for instance in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937), we can read the description of stone monsters hurling gigantic boulders against each other. Other fantasy chthonic monsters appear in environments such as role-playing games. On the whole, however, we can say that a plot describable as “God fights mountain” is very rare both in ancient and in modern lore. Hence, it is nearly impossible to use it as a basis for the comparative method of interpretation of the myth of Inanna and Ebih.

At this point, we could attempt to classify the myth of Inanna and Ebih as an example of the generic theme of a shining hero fighting an ugly monster. There are plenty of ancient and modern myths based on this idea; however, such an interpretation misses some of the elements that make the slaying of Ebih so puzzling. Why is the monster a mountain? Why does it enrage Inanna so much? What are the reasons for Inanna's quarrel with the other Gods? Clearly, there is something more in this story than the traditional hero/monster conflict.

A different line of interpretations of the myth is reported by Delnero (2)⁠. It is based on the idea that the story is, actually, a representation of the conflict existing at the time of the author, Enheduanna, between the Akkadic and the Sumerian elements of the Mesopotamian civilization. It is known that such a conflict existed and other poems by Enheduanna may refer to it. For instance, in “nin-me-sarra” (Lady of bright virtues) Enheduanna appears to describe an insurrection that leads to her being chased away from her temple. The interpretation reported by Meador (p. 181) is that the insurgents were led by a man named Lugalanne, or Lugalanna, possibly of Sumerian ethnical origin, against the Akkadian ruler of the time, Naram-Sin, Enheduanna's nephew (3)⁠. 

There is clearly something in these interpretations and the violence that pervades Enheduanna's texts may well be a reflection of the violence that characterized her times. However, there remains the problem that “Inanna and Ebih” is so abstract in the characterization of its protagonists that, if it really describes a local conflict of Enheduanna's times, it is not clear which side should be identified with which element of the myth. Maybe this interpretation was clear to the ancient Sumerians, but that may be reasonably doubted.

Meador (3) provides a deeper interpretation of the story, seeing the poem as an early version of the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden; with Inanna as the Sumerian equivalent of Eve/Lilith. Whereas, in the Bible, Eve is punished for her action, in the Sumerian myth Inanna takes the initiative and refuses to submit to the father-God; destroying Eden in the process. Meador also sees the story as a reflection of an ancient conflict between a female-dominated pantheon, with Inanna in the role of the Mother Goddess, and an emerging male-dominated pantheon, with An as a fatherly figure, ruling the other gods. This conflict is evident in several other Sumerian and Akkadian mythological stories where, for instance, Inanna is pitted against her brother Gilgamesh. This is a very interesting interpretation as it implies that “Inanna and Ebih” is related to even more ancient myths, perhaps going back to pre-literate times. This seems to be hinted in the text when Inanna is said (in Meador's translation) to “wear the robes of the old, old Gods” (3)⁠. Attinger (5)⁠ and Pettinato (6)⁠ explicitly name these "old Gods" as “Enul and Enŝar” who may be, indeed, Gods of a more ancient age (10)⁠ (p. 53). 

However, even this way of seeing the myth does not explain the meaning of some elements; for instance, if this is the story of a conflict between a mother Goddess and a father God, what is exactly the role of the mountain Ebih?

A different way to look at this myth is the “Euhemeristic” or “rationalistic” way, consisting of explaining the myth in terms of natural phenomena. This way of interpreting ancient myths was more popular in the past than it is today, but it never went out of fashion. However, modern scholars tend to be much more cautious in explaining (some could say, “explaining away”) the elements of complex stories into banal physical phenomena. When Servius said that the Chimera was a volcano, he may have meant that the ancient were so naïve to mistake a volcano for a lion, but that, of course, is unlikely, to say the least. Rather, the ancient were facing the same physical phenomena as we do and, for them, describing a thunderstorm in terms of actions performed by a God named Zeus was a way to make it consistent with their cultural and mental tools. We do the same in modern times when we ascribe certain events to abstract and perhaps supernatural entities whose existence can be reasonably doubted (e.g. “the free market”).

Regarding Sumerian/Akkadian myths, naturalistic explanations have been proposed by Jacobsen (11)⁠, but not specifically for the story of Inanna and Ebih. However, if we examine the story in light of a possible rationalistic interpretation, we immediately see how the destruction of the mountain hints to an ecological catastrophe caused by deforestation and overgrazing.

In the myth, the Ebih mountain is described as a luxuriant place: fruits hang in its flourishing gardens. It has magnificent trees, lions, wild bulls and deer are abundant, just as wild bulls and grass. Then, we see Inanna attacking the mountain with fire and with a rain of rocks. In another of Enheduanna's poems, translated by Meador as “Lady of Largest Heart” (3)⁠ we read some lines that may refer to Inanna's fight against Ebih:

She crushes the mountain to garbage,

scattering the trash from dawn to dark,

with mighty stones she pelts,

and the mountain,

like a clay pot

crumbles

with her might

she melts the mountain

into a vat of sheepfat.

It takes little imagination to see that the poem could well be referring here to the degradation of the soil on the slopes of a mountain, turned into mud slipping downhill. Mountain terrains are especially sensitive to soil erosion and the problem is especially severe in hot climates subjected to episodes of heavy rain interspersed with dry periods, as it is the case of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern climate.

Mesopotamia is a flat land, but its inhabitants briskly traded wood and other forest commodities. Today, most of the mountain ranges of Northern Africa and the Middle East are degraded and eroded in various degrees. But that was not the case in ancient times and it will suffice to note how the mountains of Lebanon were a source of timber for ancient Sumerians (as recorded in the myth of Gilgamesh and Enkidu), whereas in modern times these regions are nearly completely deforested and eroded (12)⁠. From the available data (13)⁠, it appears clear that the mountains of the Zagros region, which are probably where the “Inanna and Ebih” refers to, were still largely forested in Sumerian times, but it is also clear that they were already being deforested; a slow process that has led to the present condition of serious environmental degradation (14)⁠.

The ancient knew about the problem of soil degradation. McNeill and Viniwarter (15) summarized several elements of the question, reporting that already in 2000 BCE, that is at a time not far from that of Enheduanna, farmers in the Middle East had already developed ways to fight soil erosion. They also report how Roman writers, such as Varro, had a keen interest in soil quality and on the need of avoiding erosion. It is also well known how Plato, in his "Critias" (4th century BCE) describes the erosion and the degradation of the mountains of Greece. An interesting pre-industrial document on this issue was written by Matteo Biffi Tolomei around the end of the 18^th Century (16)⁠. It tells of the attempt to maintain the forest cover of the Appennini mountains in Tuscany, Italy, and of how the attempt failed after much debate among those who defined themselves the “modern” party (favoring the cutting of the trees) and the “old” party (favoring, instead, to keep the forest cover). This conflict of a few centuries ago is not framed in religious terms, but, in it, we may perhaps see a reflection of the much older conflict of Sumerian time that may be reflected in the story of Inanna and Ebih.

3. Conclusion: religion as a way to interpret the world

Religion in Sumerian times was certainly something very different than the way we intend it nowadays. However, certain elements of the concept of religion are common to all its forms (see e.g. Thorkild Jacobsen (11)⁠ for an exhaustive account of the characteristics and of the historical development of the Sumerian religious view of the world). A religious view of the world may see beyond the simple, short term advantage of an action (cutting trees), to note the long terms disadvantages (soil erosion). Today, we may see this kind of approach in the recent papal encyclical on climate change (17)⁠ and the Islamic declaration on global climate change (18)⁠. That may have been the point also of the history of Inanna “punishing” the mountain named Ebih, something that may be interpreted as destroying the humans who weren't been careful enough to maintain and sustain its ecosystem.

References

1. Kramer SN. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of the Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the 3rd Millennium B.C. Memoirs of. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society; 1944.

2. Delnero P. Inana and Ebih and the Scribal Tradition. A Common Cultural Heritage: Studies on Mesopotamia and the Biblical World in Honor of Barry L Eichler [Internet]. CDL Press; 2011 [cited 2015 Aug 8]. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/1908001/Inana_and_Ebih_and_the_Scribal_Tradition

3. Meador B. Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna [Internet]. Austin (Tx): University of Austin Press; 2000 [cited 2015 Aug 3]. Available from: https://books.google.it/books?hl=en&lr=&id=B45PvLlj3ogC&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=inanna+and+ebih&ots=PCrv4Pptzm&sig=2nUOlV-Ef5ewoPe-dNMa-pzfv_A

4. Black JA, Cunningham G, Fluckiger-Hawker E, Robson E, Zólyomi G. Inana and Ebih: translation [Internet]. The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. [cited 2015 Aug 3]. Available from: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr132.htm

5. Attinger P. Inana and Ebih. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vor Archäologie [Internet]. 1998;88:164–95. Available from: http://www.degruyter.com/dg/viewarticle/j$002fzava.1998.88.issue-2$002fzava.1998.88.2.164$002fzava.1998.88.2.164.xml

6. Pettinato G. Mitologia sumerica [Internet]. Torino: UTET; 2001 [cited 2015 Aug 9]. Available from: https://books.google.it/books/about/Mitologia_sumerica.html?id=JoMRAQAAIAAJ&pgis=1

7. Levi-Strauss C. Myth and Meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, U.K; 1978.

8. Karahashi F. Fighting the Mountain: Some Observations on the Sumerian Myths of Inanna and Ninurta*. J Near East Stud [Internet]. 2004 [cited 2015 Aug 3];63(2):111–8. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/422302

9. Bardi U. Il Libro della Chimera. Firenze, Italy: Polistampa; 2008.

10. Espak P. Some Early Developments in Sumerian God-Lists and Pantheon. In: Kanmerer T, editor. Identities and Societiesin the Ancient East-Mediterranean Regions [Internet]. Munster: Ugarit-Verlag; 2011 [cited 2015 Aug 23]. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/1466135/Some_Early_Developments_in_Sumerian_God-Lists_and_Pantheon

11. Jacobsen T. The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion [Internet]. 1978 [cited 2015 Aug 9]. Available from: https://books.google.it/books/about/The_Treasures_of_Darkness.html?id=bZT57A8ioCkC&pgis=1

12. Mikesell MW. The Deforestation of Mount Lebanon. Geogr Rev [Internet]. 1969;59(1):1–28. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/213080

13. Rowton MB. The Woodlands of Ancient Western Asia. J Near East Stud [Internet]. 1967;26(4):261–177. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/543595

14. Pswarayi-Riddihough I. Forestry in the Middle East and North Africa: An Implementation Review, Volumes 23-521 [Internet]. World Bank Publications; 2002 [cited 2015 Aug 9]. 56 p. Available from: https://books.google.com/books?id=TqTJdyForfkC&pgis=1

15. McNeill JR, Winiwarter V. Breaking the sod: humankind, history, and soil. Science [Internet]. 2004 Jun 11 [cited 2015 Aug 18];304(5677):1627–9. Available from: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/304/5677/1627.full

16. Biffi Tolomei M, Clauser F. Una tragedia ecologica del ’700. Firenze, Italy: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina; 2004. 64 p.

17. Laudato si’ [Internet]. [cited 2015 Aug 11]. Available from: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

18. Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change [Internet]. [cited 2015 Aug 23]. Available from: http://islamicclimatedeclaration.org/islamic-declaration-on-global-climate-change/

"The Seneca Strategy" -- Asking for Suggestions from my Readers

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 and she won't do that to you if you are nice to her.

My second book on the concept of "Seneca Collapse" (or Cliff, or Ruin, or the like) is nearly completed and it should be available from Springer before the end of the year. It is a sequel to my first book, "The Seneca Effect", but this second one is thought as more easily readable "trade" book. It will be sold at a reasonable price, unlike the first one that was supposed to be a specialized, scientific book.

You see above a first attempt at a title and a cover for this book. Of course, the publisher will devise a better cover illustration, but the real issue is the title, still provisional. I used "The Seneca Strategy" as a title because the book focuses on how to deal with collapses rather than on the physics of collapses. It proposes a strategy that's based on the Stoic view of the world revisited under the lens of system dynamics. It is the idea that you don't try to force systems to do what you want them to do, a concept that Jay Forrester termed "pushing the levers in the wrong direction."

But, as it stands, the title is no good. My editor told me that, "“collapse” is not a friendly, or familiar, word to most readers. It seems to apply only to extreme events that don’t affect most people. " That is, people won't understand what the book is about. I think he is correct and that I need a better title -- a title that explains what's inside the book.

So, dear readers, could you focus your creative skills on this task and suggest a few titles for me? I think the title should contain the words "collapse" and "Seneca," but then there are many possibilities, for instance, I am toying with "Paths to Ruin" but creativity often consists in trying many different ideas and I am sure many of you could suggest something good. Hoping that not all of my readers are bots, I'll sure appreciate your efforts! (Amelia will also be grateful)

Here is the index of the book, to give you some idea of what it is about.

1. Table of Contents

1. Preface 4

1.1 A quick glossary of the terms you’ll find in this book. 5

2. Summary: Six Things You Should Know About Collapse 6

3. Plan of the Book (not necessarily to be published) 8

4. Collapse: An Introduction 9

5. Models of Collapse 14

5.1 Models of the Future: The Russian Roulette 14

5.2 The Limits of Models. Nightfall on Lagash 23

5.3 Why Models are not Believed: The Croesus Syndrome 29

6. The Science of Collapse 36

6.1 Complex Systems: The Goddess’ Wrath 36

6.2 The Power of Networks: The Ghost in the Shell 42

6.3 Living and Dying in a Complex Universe. The Story of Amelia the Amoeba. 52

7. The Practice of Collapse 76

7.1 The Collapse of Engineered Structures: For Dust you are and to Dust you Will Return 76

7.2 Financial Collapses: Blockbuster goes bust. 84

7.3 Natural Disasters: Florence’s Great Flood 94

7.4 Mineral Collapses: The Coming Oil Crisis? 103

7.5 The Seneca Cliff and Human Violence: Fatal Quarrels. 111

7.6 Famines, Epidemics, and Depopulation: The Zombie Apocalypse 117

7.7 The Big One: Societal Collapse 125

7.8 Apocalypse: the collapse of the Earth’s ecosystem 132

8. Strategies for Managing Collapse 138

8.1 Technological Progress against Collapse. The Cold Fusion Miracle that Wasn’t. 138

8.2 Avoiding Overexploitation. Drill, Baby, Drill! 148

8.3 Leadership Against Collapse: The Last Roman Empress. 155

8.4 Collapse as a Weapon: The Iago Strategy 164

8.5 Deception as a Strategy: the Camper’s Dilemma 174

8.6 Life After Collapse: The Seneca Rebound 181

9. Conclusion: The Seneca Strategy 189

10. Appendix: a personal note on Lucius Annaeus Seneca 192

11. Acknowledgment 195

12. REFERENCES 196

The Seneca Glass: Half Full or Half Empty?

Optimist: the glass is half full.

Pessimist: the glass is half empty.

Catastrophist. It will not be half full for long.

Cornucopian: We are running into water rather than out of it.

Oil executive: The more we drink, the more the water level grows.

Conspiracy Theorist: Water? What water? THEY want us to believe that there is water in the glass.

Chemtrail believer: Don't look at the water! Look up at the sky! Don't you see THEY are poisoning us?

Climate Science Denier: Scientists cannot predict the weather one week in advance, how can they say if the glass is full or empty?

Bad Pun Lover: A fish was swimming in the glass. It swam into the wall and said, "Damn!"

Thomas Malthus: You can only fill the glass at a linear rate, but people will drink from it at exponentially rising rates.

Harold Hotelling: When there will be no more water in it, we'll use beer as a backstop resource.

Robert Solow: the amount of water in the glass will keep growing exponentially.

Neoclassical Economist: when the water level will be low enough, market forces will create more.

Julian Simon: there is enough water in the glass to last for six billion years.

Colin Campbell: After you drink the water in the glass, there will be none left.

Charles Hall: the water return on energy invested (WROEI) declines as you drink it.

Gail Tverberg: Water is not really a renewable resource: you will always need fossil fuels to pump it into the glass.

Guy McPherson: All the water will have disappeared from planet Earth by 2030.

Donald Trump: We need to build a wall to keep the Mexicans from drinking our water.

Matsuo Basho: The old glass. A frog jumps into it. The noise of water.

William Shakespeare: The empty part of the glass is filled with the stuff dreams are made of.

Erwin Schroedinger: The glass is neither half full nor half empty - until you drink from it.

Jesus Christ: Have faith and walk on the stones, just like I do.

Lao Zi: A glass of a thousand gallons is filled starting with just one drop.

Buddha: The water is an illusion, just like the glass. And the drinker, too.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca: It takes a long time to fill the glass, but emptying it is rapid.





  

Climate Change as a Game of Russian Roulette

Ugo Bardi speaks at an event on climate change in Florence, on May 25th, 2018. Obviously, what I am holding is a toy, not a real gun. I was discussing guns as a metaphor for our penchant for doing dangerous things without exactly knowing what we are doing - for instance injecting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. With climate, we are playing a dangerous Russian Roulette game involving the whole of humankind (photo courtesy, Ilaria Perissi). 

In a science fiction story I read years ago, the protagonists live in the future and have forgotten what guns are. Then, someone finds a still working handgun and starts playing with it. As you may imagine, the results are tragic.

Now, let's make a small exercise in epistemology. Suppose that you are one of the characters of that sci-fi story. You have never seen a gun before and you would like to understand what it is and what it does. Basically, there are two ways of approaching the question: the scientific/reductionist way and the Bayesian/evolutionary way. Let me explain these concepts.

The scientific/reductionist way. You dismantle the unknown object and try to build a model of its inner workings. You note the mechanical system that makes a metal hammer hit on the chambers of a spinning drum. One of these chambers contains a brass cylinder partly filled with a mixture of chemicals that you can analyze. You find that the mechanical stress generated by the hammer may ignite the chemicals, producing high-pressure gases which might push an ogival chunk of some 100 g of lead through the front barrel at a speed of the order of 300 m/s. If you align the barrel with a human head, the effects of the chunk of lead passing through the brain would be hard to simulate, but they might involve serious damage. You conclude that it is, most likely, a weapon.

The Bayesian/evolutionary way. You examine the gun and try to build a probability estimate based on empirical tests. You note a small lever at the bottom and proceed to pull it, noting that it generates a clicking sound. You pull it a few more times: nothing happens as long as the hammer doesn't hit the loaded drum chamber (which you don't know about since you didn't dismantle the gun). Then, you conclude that it is probably a musical instrument.

The difference in this approach shows mostly if you use the gun to play the Russian Roulette (*) with one bullet in a six-chambers drum. Then, after five "clicks" the frequentist would tell you, "pull the trigger one more time and you are dead." But the Bayesian would say (**), "since you tried five times and nothing happened, then you are reasonably safe if you try once more."

Of course, these two viewpoints are extreme, there are plenty of intermediate ways to approach a problem, but they indicate how difficult it may be to deal with something unknown. And that's the big, big trouble with climate change. It is gigantic, enormous, complicated, and most likely dangerous. But we are like the characters of the science fiction story of the unknown gun: we have no direct past experience to rely upon. Without disparaging the Bayesian method, surely helpful in many cases, it may be a suicidal approach to use when dealing with something dangerous for which you have insufficient statistical data. That's the case of the Russian Roulette and also of climate change.

There follows the question: do people think Bayesian of Frequentist? It is a controversial subject but, personally, I'd say that it makes sense to say that most people think Bayesian. That may be the reason why humankind has such a cavalier attitude toward the danger of climate change. The statistics we have on climate for the recent past don't tell us anything about the possibility of a true catastrophe. So, we might be tempted use a Bayesian approach to conclude that we have no reason to be worried - and the more time goes by without catastrophes occurring, the more this conclusion seems to be reinforced. After all, haven't we pulled the trigger of this thing you call "gun" already five times? It has to be harmless.

Of course, the scientific/reductionist approach tells us otherwise when the climate system is analyzed and modelized. It tells us that the change may be extremely destructive - actually catastrophic. But that approach seems to be reserved for a small fraction of the population trained in the scientific method. There follows that humankind is playing the Russian roulette with the Earth's climate. And that might well end the way a Russian Roulette game must eventually end.



(*) During the past two decades, the number of suicides in the US has increased by some 25% and the most common method was using firearms. A peculiar form of suicide consists in playing the game of the Russian Roulette. There are no worldwide statistics but 10 years of records in Kentucky alone reveal 24 cases of people who killed themselves in this way. Clearly, it is not a form of mass entertainment, but it does happen. It is hard to say what goes on in the mind of the people who engage in this kind of game, but likely it has to do with the fascination we feel for guns. Nobody knows exactly how many small firearms exist in the world, but the number could be more than half a billion. In the US, there is about one gun per person although, of course, they are not evenly distributed. Some people take guns as true objects of worship and some seem to believe in the existence of a Gun God requiring human sacrifices - that may be the ultimate reason why some people play the Russian Roulette.

From the paper by Lisa Shields. "In one situation, a 22-year-old African American man used a 0.22 caliber revolver in a game with a friend. Each participant pulled the trigger on 2 occasions; the victim discharged the fatal bullet on his third attempt. The decedent was a university student, a member of the varsity football team, and was studying electrical engineering with a 3.0 GPA. Blood and urine toxicology screens yielded no ethanol or other drugs. In another circumstance, a 46-year-old divorced white man employed as a custodian engaged in Russian roulette with his “drinking buddy,” a male friend suffering from cancer. After placing 2 shells in a .38 special, the victim died with the first pull of the trigger. Four of the victims had pulled the trigger at least 3 times before their fatality. A 19-year-old white man significantly increased the likelihood of a Russian roulette fatality. He had a history of depression with a previous commitment at a mental hospital and several previous suicide attempts. Playing a variation of traditional Russian roulette with his brother and 2 friends, the victim placed 5 live rounds in the cylinder, leaving one empty chamber, of a .357 Traus revolver. He spun the cylinder, put the gun to his right temple, and pulled the trigger. <..> The decedent had played Russian roulette on 2 occasions in the previous several weeks, each time placing only one live round in the cylinder." 


(**) A formal statement of Bayes' theorem is:

In the problem of the Russian Roulette, X= you pull the trigger and A= you die

P(A|X) is what we want to estimate: what is the probability that you die when pulling the trigger? P(X|A) is the probability that when you die it is because you pulled the trigger. We may take it as equal to one, neglecting the occasional heart attacks that might strike the player when they pull the trigger on an empty chamber. For the P(A)/P(X) term, we need statistical data but it is obvious that, in a limited number of attempts, as long as the player is alive, the more times they pull the trigger, the larger P(X) becomes and hence P(A|X) becomes smaller. So, you wold be led to conclude that the more times you pull the trigger, the safer you are. Then, of course, for a large number of players (and a large number of deaths), the Bayesian analysis will converge to the reductionist results: n*3.5 attempts are needed in order to kill n people, assuming that the drum contains six chambers and one bullet. The problem is that the Russian Roulette doesn't allow a large number of attempts when played by a single person (or by a single planet in the form of a climate catastrophe).

See also this article on freakonometrics

 

"The Seneca Effect" Published

Springer: The Frontiers Collection

© 2018

The Seneca Effect

Why Growth is Slow but Collapse is Rapid

Authors: Bardi, Ugo

Presents wisdom from an ancient Roman Philosopher that you can use today. Explains why technological progress may not prevent societal collapse. Provides a true systems perspective on the widespread phenomenon of collapse. Highlights principles to help us manage, rather than be managed by, the greatest challenges of our times.

My new book, "The Seneca Effect" is now available, you can find it on the Springer site, or on Amazon and other on-line sellers. Excuse me if I define it as "monumental" but, really, it has been a lot of work and the book contains a lot of things, mainly explained on the basis of system dynamics. It goes from the crumbling of pyramids, the breakdown of everyday things, all the way to social and economic collapses, including famines, wars, and assorted catastrophes. Yet, it is not a catastrophistic book. It is just that catastrophes exist and we have to deal with them. And, if nothing old ever disappeared, nothing new could appear.

One thing I have to explain about this book is the relatively high price. This is part of Springer's policies; they are not mainstream publishers and they have different pricing policies. And, as you probably know, authors have little to say on this subject, although I think I managed to convince Springer to price this book at relatively low levels for their standards. Don't think I hadn't tried mainstream publishers but, apparently, books about collapse are a no-no with publishers, right now. Nobody wants to mention the subject and maybe there are good reasons. In ancient times, they said, "name the devil and the devil is here."

Also, I can send you a flyer for a 20% discount; just write me at ugo.bardi(thing-a-magig)unifi.it (valid until Oct 7, 2017). If it is still too expensive for you, if you follow the Cassandra blog or the Seneca blog, there are many things you can learn about system dynamics and collapses. It is truly a fascinating subject!

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Here is a description of the book that you can find on the Springer site


The essence of this book can be found in a line written by the ancient Roman Stoic Philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca: "Fortune is of sluggish growth, but ruin is rapid". This sentence summarizes the features of the phenomenon that we call "collapse," which is typically sudden and often unexpected, like the proverbial "house of cards." But why are such collapses so common, and what generates them? Several books have been published on the subject, including the well known "Collapse" by Jared Diamond (2005), "The collapse of complex societies" by Joseph Tainter (1998) and "The Tipping Point," by Malcom Gladwell (2000). Why The Seneca Effect?

This book is an ambitious attempt to pull these various strands together by describing collapse from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint. The reader will discover how collapse is a collective phenomenon that occurs in what we call today "complex systems," with a special emphasis on system dynamics and the concept of "feedback." From this foundation, Bardi applies the theory to real-world systems, from the mechanics of fracture and the collapse of large structures to financial collapses, famines and population collapses, the fall of entire civilizations, and the most dreadful collapse we can imagine: that of the planetary ecosystem generated by overexploitation and climate change. The final objective of the book is to describe a conclusion that the ancient stoic philosophers had already discovered long ago, but that modern system science has rediscovered today. If you want to avoid collapse you need to embrace change, not fight it. Neither a book about doom and gloom nor a cornucopianist's dream, The Seneca Effect goes to the heart of the challenges that we are facing today, helping us to manage our future rather than be managed by it.