Seven shocking events of 2014

The killing of the female bear known as Daniza, in Italy, has been the paradigmatic event of a disastrous year of senseless violence against humans and non-humans alike (image above by Helga Marsala).

Being involved with peak oil studies should make one somewhat prepared for the future. Indeed, for years, we have been claiming that the arrival of peak oil would bring turmoil and big changes in the world and we are seeing them, this year. However, the way in which these changes manifest themselves turns out to be shocking and unexpected. This 2014 has been an especially shocking year; so many things have happened. Let me list my personal shocks in no particular order


1. The collapse of oil prices. Price oscillations were expected to occur near the oil production peak, but I expected a repetition of the events of 2008, when the price crash was preceded by a financial crash. But in 2014 the price collapse came out of the blue, all by itself. Likely, a major financial crisis is in the making, but that we will see that next year.

2. The ungreening of Europe. My trip to Brussels for a hearing of the European parliament was a shocking experience for me. The Europe I knew was peaceful and dedicated to sustainability and harmonic development. What I found was that the European Parliament had become a den of warmongers hell bent on fighting Russia and on drilling for oil and gas in Europe. Not my Europe any more. Whose Europe is this?

3. The year propaganda came of age. I take this expression from Ilargi on "The Automatic Earth". Propaganda is actually much older than 2014, but surely in this year it became much more shrill and invasive than it had usually been. It is shocking to see how fast and how easily propaganda plunged us into a new cold war against Russia. Also shocking it was to see how propaganda could convince so many people (including European MPs) that drilling more and "fracking" was the solution for all our problems.

4. The Ukraine disaster. It was a shock to see how easily it was for a European country to plunge from relative normalcy into a civil war of militias fighting each other and where citizens were routinely shelled and forced to take refuge in basements. It shows how really fragile are those entities we call "states". For whom is the Ukraine bell tolling?

5. The economic collapse of Italy. What is most shocking, even frightening, is how it is taking place in absolute quiet and silence. It is like a slow motion nightmare. The government seems to be unable to act in any other way than inventing ever more creative ways to raise taxes to squeeze out as much as possible from already exhausted and impoverished citizens. People seem to be unable to react, even to understand what is going on - at most they engage in a little blame game, faulting politicians, immigrants, communists, gypsies, the Euro, and the great world conspiracy for everything that is befalling on them. A similar situation exists in other Southern European countries. How long the quiet can last is all to be seen.

6. The loss of hope of stopping climate change. 2014 was the year in which the publication of the IPCC 5th assessment report was completed. It left absolutely no ripple in the debate. People seem to think that the best weapon we have against climate change is to declare that it doesn't exist. They repeat over and over the comforting mantra that "temperatures have not increased during the past 15 years", and that despite 2014 turning out to be the hottest year on record.

7. The killing of a bear, in Italy, was a small manifestation of wanton cruelty in a year that has seen much worse. But it was a paradigmatic event that shows how difficult - even impossible - for humans to live in peace with what surrounds them - be it human or beast.


And this is just a partial list of the many shocking things of this year (maybe we can discuss that more in the comments). Then, what shocks will we see in 2015?

Killing the bear - killing hope

"The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily" is a story for children written by the Italian poet and novelist Dino Buzzati. It tells of how the bears came down from their mountains, defeated humans, and took over the government to create a society in which humans and bears live together in harmony. It is, of course, a fairy tale and some recent events in the Trentino region, in Italy, show how difficult it is for humans and bears to live together in harmony. And this is bad both for bears and for humans.

There have been many shocking events in this eventful 2014, but the one that shocked me most took place in the Northern Italian region of Trentino, where a wild female bear named "Daniza" was hunted and killed in the name of security for the tourists of the region. A minor story, for sure, but one that explains a lot about the behavior of humans and the problems we have when we try to manage our wold.

The story started this August in Trentino, when someone named Daniele Maturi stumbled into a wild female bear (known to humans as "Daniza") and her two cubs while searching for mushrooms in the woods. According to Mr. Maturi's own narration, he remained there to "observe the bears" instead of retreating as quickly and quietly as possible. The bear reacted attacking him, wounding him slightly, before retreating into the deep forest with her cubs. This generated a widespread public outcry, with calls for the elimination of the "dangerous animal," until Daniza was hunted down and killed by an overdose of anesthetic. Officially, it was a mistake, but more likely it was the result of the age-old attitude that says that "the only good X is dead X", where X can be Indian, bear, or anything deemed to be not human, or not human enough. In the end, Daniza's cubs may not be able to survive after the killing of their mother, but human cubs will be able to walk in a sanitized and safe forest where they won't risk to be attacked by anything larger and more dangerous than a squirrel. 

This sad story casts much light on the attitude of people in Italy about bears and about wilderness in general. It appears that in Trentino there exists a lively "anti-bear" movement - mainly organized by the Northern League -  which, among other actions, had organized a dinner based on bear meat in 2011 intended to demonstrate what, in their opinion, was to be done with the wild bears of the forest. After that the story told by Mr. Maturi appeared on newspapers, hotel owners reported that many of their customers had canceled their reservations, out of fear of the wild bears. From the debate on the press and on the web, it appears that quite a number of people were genuinely concerned that their children could be devoured by wild bears if  they were to take a walk in the parks of the Trentino region.

On the other side of the debate, Daniza was praised for her restraint in not having killed the human intruder, when she could have easily done so. Mr. Maturi, instead, was insulted and vilified in all possible ways because of his idiocy in not leaving in peace a female bear with her cubs. He was also accused of being part of a conspiracy designed to cast bears in a bad light and favor their elimination from the forests of Trentino (the latter accusation automatically implies the former).


Most of the debate seems to have missed the fundamental point of this story, which is that both humans and bears simply acted according to their genetic set-up and, probably, couldn't have behaved otherwise. We cannot exclude that Daniza the bear was intelligent enough to choose not to kill Mr. Maturi to avoid angering humans too much. But, most likely, she simply behaved according to the way female bears have always behaved: aggressively defending their cubs against all perceived. On the other side, Mr. Maturi, politicians, and most people, simply behaved according to the way human beings have always behaved; exploiting everything they perceive as a "resource" and aggressively eliminating anything they see as an obstacle. Countries other than Italy may have a less nasty attitude toward wild bears but, everywhere, if wilderness is an obstacle to profit, wilderness always loses. 


To an IQ test, most human beings (possibly including also Mr. Maturi) will score better than most bears. But, if human beings are individually smarter than bears (at least in their ability to manipulate abstract symbols), that doesn't mean that they are smarter than bears as a species. They way they behave, actually, shows no signs of intelligence as they are simply marching straight on, ruthlessly stomping over everything they see as stopping them in their path. It is our destiny as human beings to destroy what keeps us alive; but, in the end, it is unavoidable: it is what we are. Could we change for the better in the future? Probably not: killing the bear has killed the hope for that. The bell for Daniza is ringing for us.


BTW - one result of the Daniza story was a nation-wide call on boycotting the Trentino region. You might consider that: perhaps not all hope is lost.. 

Italy: overshooting the bear

A poster in favor of the bear named Daniza, under threat of capture or suppression in Italy. It says "Leave alone Daniza and her cubs, otherwise I'll never come back to Trentino" (Trentino is the Northern region of Italy where the story is unfolding). Killing and destroying everything which is not under direct human control is the origin of the disaster called "overshoot". As long as people will not realize that there are limits to the human appropriation of resources on this planet, nothing will change.

If you like to show your support for Daniza and her cubs put your "like" on the Facebook page titled "Io sto con Daniza" (I am with Daniza)



The recent story of the bear called "Daniza" is typical of many stories of this kind. A few days ago, someone went looking for mushrooms in the woods of the Trentino region in Italy and stumbled onto this female bear and her two cubs. He wasn't smart enough to leave the place at the fastest possible speed, as he himself reported later. The alarmed bear decided to teach him a little lesson which, fortunately, left him almost unscathed, rather than consigning him to the records of the Darwin awards. Mother Daniza, apparently, limited herself to chasing the intruder away rather than using all her force against him, as she could have decided to do.

The result: cries of "shoot the bear!". Immediately after the incident, local politicians and local newspapers all seemed to agree on the need of killing Daniza. After a considerable reaction against this idea on the Web, the local government limited the proposed action to capturing the bear; which would probably condemn to death her two cubs. As I am writing, they are still trying to capture Daniza but, so far, she has managed to remain free with her cubs.

Despite the number of people expressing themselves in favor of Daniza and her two cubs, there remains the fact of this immediate and commonplace reaction: wilderness is a problem, wild animals are dangerous. Let's eliminate them and everything will be fine. Which is, after all, the way we tend to try to solve most problems: shoot or bomb the source of the trouble until (hopefully) the problem will disappear.

This attitude is widespread and it is, after all, the main reason for the phenomenon we call overshoot. Recognizing no limits to their action, humans want to appropriate every possible resource of the planetary ecosystem. Whatever opposes this action is ruthlessly eliminated. They don't realize that they are dependent on the ecosystem, rather than the reverse. So, the over-appropriation of the natural resources depletes them to the point that they can't reform fast enough to replace the losses. The result has a name: collapse. Killing Daniza the bear and her cub won't cause the world's economy to collapse, but it is an indication of an attitude which is leading us exactly there.

Here is a telling graph by xkcd showing how little wilderness has remained in the world. And we keep destroying it.