Can we Predict Collapses Before they Happen? What we Learned from the Pandemic

 

My 2019 book "Before the Collapse." In it, I examined several scenarios of the future of humankind. Was I able to predict the current pandemic? Of course not in the details, but I think that I did note an important facet of the story: epidemics are never very deadly when they come alone. They become true killers only when they are associated famines.  In the case of the current coronavirus pandemic, the human population is not so badly debilitated by famines that we should have expected disasters comparable to those caused by ancient epidemics. So, we could have been better prepared if we had paid more attention to history. But the main thing we learn from history is that people never learn from history. And so it goes. This post includes a review of the book written by Daniel Ruiz.

  

After nearly one year from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, we can say that, at the very least, we learned a lot from it. One lesson was that we should be much more careful about "model hubris", to think that because a model is complex and detailed, it can predict the future. This problem is well described in a recent paper by Saltelli et al. in a recent paper in "Nature." 

But perhaps the most important lesson we learned was how easy the future can surprise us and how our perception of it can be remote from reality. We tend to judge on the basis of our past experience, but our mental models are often poorly calibrated. When the COVID-19 started diffusing in the West, many people panicked, some seemed to think that it really was the end of the world. Maybe they had in mind as a model the great plague of the Middle Ages, an image that has been with us for centuries. 

As things stand, we can see that the coronavirus pandemic will be very far from being as deadly as ancient epidemics were. It is said that the "black plague" killed maybe 50% of the population of Europe during the 14th century, perhaps even more than that. For the current "plague" caused by the coronavirus, we may estimate that, if the current trends continue, the world may see perhaps 2 million deaths (we are now at about one million). For a world population of nearly 8 billion people, it is such a small number (about 0.025%) that it is even difficult to visualize it. Just to frame the number in context, consider that every year, there die in the world some 60 million people (and 140 million are born!). For a virus that has caused so much concern, it is surely an anticlimactic result.

But why such a big difference? Why the little SARS-COV 2 fared so poorly (from the viewpoint of the pathogen) in comparison with the Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the bubonic plague during the Middle Ages? And why doesn't the deadly Yersinia return? It has not disappeared, it is reported to have caused more than 500 victims during the past few years. But it does not spread. 

It is said that it was Paul Samuelson who said "When events change, I change my models. What do you do?  (I changed one word). This is what we should do, too.

On this point, I can tell you that I examined the question of epidemics in my 2019 book "Before the Collapse" when I described how the world's population could be partly wiped out by various kinds of disasters. I correctly noted that epidemics are always associated with famines, typically following them. Disastrous pandemics never come alone.

Rethinking this matter more in-depth, it seems more and more clear to me that an epidemic can hardly affect populations of people who are well-nourished and in good physical conditions. That's especially after I started looking into the concept of "holobiont" and noting that we are true walking bags of bacteria and viruses, most of them harmless, many beneficial, but some potentially harmful -- even deadly -- but normally they remain dormant. 

But all that is needed to set these little critters in motion is that your body is weakened by something. A whole population can be debilitated by hunger and then it becomes an easy target for normally harmless creatures. That was the case of the Medieval plague that followed a period of extensive famines in Europe. Today, evidently, the 8 billion human beings living on this planet are still well-fed enough that they can fend off the attacks by most viruses and bacteria. For how long, it is all to be seen.

And here is a review by Daniel Ruiz of "Before the Collapse." It deals not just with famines and epidemics, but with a lot more things!

Book review: Before the Collapse. A Guide to the Other Side of Growth, Ugo Bardi (2019)[1]

by Daniel Ruiz [2]

http://magazine.cisp.unipi.it/

The overshoot of human activity is driving the planet from the stability of the Holocene to the instability of the Anthropocene. This includes physical changes like global warming, extinction of species, pollution, pandemics, rising oceans, wildfires, as well as other more directly human-driven catastrophes like the risk of nuclear war, mass migration, economic crises, resource depletion, or inequality. This perspective has encouraged the Academia to develop the new science of Collapsology, among whom Ugo Bardi is a pioneer.

Bardi presents Before the Collapse as a mainstream version of his previous book, The Seneca Effect (2017). He refers to the Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who first theorized on collapse as a natural phenomenon rather than supranatural. Bardi clarifies that this fast and unexpected degradation is a feature of any complex system: health, careers, marriages, enterprises, banks, armies, economies, civilizations, resources, ecosystems, solid objects, etc., and regrets that our culture has not yet developed a “science of collapse” due to our blind belief in infinite growth. The purpose of the book is to analyse the phenomenon of collapse as well as to prepare for the aftermath. He proposes a “Seneca Strategy” to confront collapse: Attention, Avoidance (be prepared), Mitigation, Exploitation (get rid of the obsolete structures).

In the first Chapter Bardi insists on the necessity of models to help understand complex reality. These models should not be based on a heuristic/statistic method of projecting the past into the future, but on the scientific method which consists of splitting a system into subsystems, analyze them separately, and then build a model of how the whole system works. The climate change models, starting with the Limits to Growth (1972), is a good example of the success of this method. The statistical approach cannot predict tipping points or “black swans” like the economic crisis of 2008 or an eventual runaway greenhouse effect. The scientific approach is particularly important to study systems that cannot be reproduced in a laboratory, like climate. The models are then used to build future scenarios. Bardi points out that some politicians tend to ignore models for emotional reasons, or to hide their own mistakes, or because they are badly advised, or for “groupthink” or for “doom fatigue”.

Chapter 2 describes Sciences behind Complex Systems and Collapses. The science of complex systems only developed in the second half of the 20th century, as soon as adequate tools like computers were available. In the past, physical science could only describe systems with single equations. A system is considered complex if it contains energy and shows strong feedback effects, which can be enhancing or damping. Bardi defines the most important jargon of the complex systems field, like forcing, feedback, attractor, tipping point, carrying capacity, overshoot. Complex systems have the basic characteristics of living beings because they dissipate energy potentials through the trophic chain. EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) gives a measure of the efficiency of the system. The MEP (Maximum Entropy Production) principle says that energy potentials dissipate fast. Only Networks can be complex systems. Bardi also explains some of the jargon of the network science like node, link, size, density, degree, clustering coefficient, topology, etc. Networks can have many arrangements, like: connected, lattice, random, fully-connected or cellular. Bardi introduces Amelia the Amoeba, which reproduces slowly in the Petri dish and then collapses of starvation and suffocation in its own excreta, as a metaphor for the way complex systems behave. Some of the possible growth modes of complex systems are: exponential, logistical, bell shaped or collapsing:

Chapter 3 is about the practice of collapse. It starts with the collapse of the Genoa cable-stayed Morandi bridge in 2018 as an example of the collapse of Engineered Structures. Bardi then describes how Financial Collapses happen: the very nature of money, through the stresses of the “market”, leads to debt and eventually to insolvency and bankruptcy. Bardi illustrates the process of Natural Disasters with the example of the Florence flood of 1966, and points out that large disasters are not frequent but cause massive damage. Regarding Mineral Collapses, Bardi elaborates on oil, which is scarce, has increasing extraction costs and is being outcompeted by renewable energies. Bardi also concludes, based on historical records, that Human Violence it is an inherent feature of the present human culture. Concerning Famines, Starvation and Depopulation, Bardi thinks that humans have been able to dramatically increase their population in recent centuries thanks to fossil fuels, but that this should change with the end of cheap energy and the depletion of fertile soil. Civilizations have arisen from the availability of abundant and cheap natural resources and they should collapse due to the “diminishing returns of complexity” and the rising costs of resources and pollution. According to Dmitri Orlov, the Soviet Union followed the pattern of financial, commercial, political, social and cultural collapses. However the ultimate collapse is that of the Ecosystem, with the best science available warning that we are on track for a temperature rise of 3-4ºC over the next decades, and that tipping points could push the planet into the condition of “hothouse earth”.

Chapter 4 deals with the Strategies for Managing the Collapse. Bardi starts by clarifying that production cannot be driven by technological progress only, but by the input of energy and resources. He advocates for fossil fuels to be used to develop renewable energies.

The Iago (from Shakespeare´s Othello) Strategy analyses how some evil individuals have imposed their interests to the rest of humanity through a mix of deception and force. Climate change denial by the elites is a good example of it. The present economic system, founded on greed, is also critiqued: it reduces the functioning of the world to the mechanics of the market, advocating for the overexploitation of finite resources while relying on hypothetical “backstop resources”, and endeavours to isolate the individuals in order to prevent collective action to protect the planet.

The next section deals with how to control the collapse of complex systems, and introduces the last Roman Empress Galla Placidia who, instead of trying to avoid the inevitable end of the Empire, helped to transition European society to the medieval system. The Edo period of Japan is another example of how a society can be prosperous without growth.

The last section develops the concept of the Seneca Rebound as the recovery after collapse. European society, after the four recorded historical collapses managed to rebound because the reduction of the population facilitated the restoration of energy sources in the shape of fertile soil and forests. Hopefully the next rebound, after the end of the fossil fuel era, will be energized by renewable sources.

Through a balanced mix of physical science and cultural references, Bardi announces in a clear and amenable manner the collapse that looms our civilization. With stoicism and ironic humour, he advises us not to resist the inevitable at all cost, but rather to get prepared for the next rebound. A second edition of this extremely interesting book, with additional editing and translation to other languages, would be highly welcome.



[1]Ugo Bardi is professor of physical chemistry at Florence University, focusing on natural resources and sustainable economy. He is a full member of the Club of Rome and has published extensively on resource depletion, including “The Limits to Growth Revisited”, “Extracted” and “The Seneca Effect”. He is a scientific advisor to several international and Italian institutions dealing with sustainable economy and contributes to scientific outreach through his blog “Cassandra’s Legacy” (www.cassandralegacy.blogspot.com).


[2]Daniel Ruiz, PHD, is a researcher in Peace Studies at Scuola Sant’Anna di Pisa (DIRPOLIS), focusing on the nexus between political and environmental crises. He is a former Director at the United Nations, and deployed for more than 20 years in conflict and disaster situations.

The Return of the Black Death? The Coronavirus as an Agent of Population Collapse

Always plan for the worst-case hypothesis!  

 

The four horsemen of the apocalypse by Albrecht Durer (1498): famine, plague, war, and death itself. For sure, the ancients understood that collapses come from a combination of several different factors. It is the essence of what I call the "Seneca Effect." Today, if the coronavirus remains isolated as a threat to human life, it won't cause a population decline. But if the other horsemen intervene, then things could change for the worse.

The data about the coronavirus epidemic are starting to look scary. Yes, the Chinese government has taken draconian measures. And it is also true that the spreading of the infection in China is slowing down. So, if nothing unexpected happens, it is likely that the epidemy will be contained. But, as we all know, the real world always has ways to surprise us. So, let's drop for a while the "likely" adjective and ask the uncomfortable question: what is the worst that can happen? Could we see a serious collapse of the world's population?  

As usual, if we want to understand the future, we need first to understand the past. So, let's look at some data for the greatest pandemics of the past, those that swept Europe during the Middle Ages and afterward:

European Population in history (from Langer, W. L. The Black Death. Sci. Am. 210, 114–121 (1964))

These data are somewhat uncertain, but there is a general agreement that the great plague of the 14th century (correctly termed "Black Death") wiped out about 40% of the European population, some say more than that. As worst cases go, this is surely one.

Could a new plague do the same to us? Why not? If it happened in the past, it could happen again. But, of course, it can happen only if similar conditions will occur. If we examine the case of the European plagues in detail, we see that they never struck at random times, they struck already troubled populations. Viruses and bacteria are opportunistic creatures that tend to expand when they find a weak target.

In the case of the 14th century Black Death, it hit Europe after the failure of the attempt to expand to the East with the crusades. Europe found itself overpopulated, in the midst of a social and cultural crisis, and with no way out. The result was a series of famines, internecine wars, and social and political turmoil that opened the door for the plague to strike. Something similar happened with the second main plague burst of the 17th century. It arrived after the 30-years war had destroyed the very fabric of European society, creating poverty, famines, and the displacement of entire populations.

The rule that pandemics come with famines holds also for the last (so far) great world pandemic: the Spanish flu of 1918-1920. It was associated with the extensive famines generated by the first world war. Unlike the case of the Black Death, though, the Spanish flu struck against a background of economic expansion and population growth. By all means, it was a disaster: it may have killed about 1-2% of the world population of the time (that is 20-50 million victims out of a population of about 2 billion). But it barely caused a dent in the population growth curves of the 20th century. Other modern epidemics, AIDS, Ebola, SARS, etc., either do not exist in the West or, as in the case of AIDS, are expanding only in poor countries suffering from lack of food and poor health care systems (again, so far).

Conversely, famines can cause extensive depopulation even when not associated with plagues. A good example is the Irish famine of 1848. It wiped out about half of the Irish population in a few years, but it was not associated with a specific human disease. Sometimes, you don't even need famines to cause depopulation: social and economic stress is enough. A good example in modern times is that of Ukraine, where the population started declining in the early 1990s and it is still declining after the loss of some 20% of the total. There were no epidemics nor famines involved: the Ukrainians died as the result of a combination of poor quality food, lack of health care facilities, bad government, depression, heavy drugs, alcohol, and more.

  Ukrainian population – data from the World Bank


There is a general rule, here: disasters never come alone (when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions). It is because when a complex system is in overshoot, it is fragile: it is sensible to even minor perturbations from the outside. These perturbations tend to generate a cascade of failures that brings the whole system down. It is the essence of what I call the "Seneca Effect" stating that growth is slow, but decline is rapid.  

Coming back to the coronavirus of today, we can conclude that it won't cause great disasters as long as it remains alone in attacking humankind. The world is not seeing large wars and it is not suffering from major famines. So, even if the virus were to spread outside China, maybe it could kill 1% of the current population. That would be a terrible disaster, of course, but it wouldn't change the growth trajectory of the world population, just like the Spanish flu didn't.

Yes, but, as I said at the beginning, reality has plenty of ways to surprise you. Maybe you don't need major famines or wars for a population to be weakened enough to be a good target for a viral attack. 

Think of pollution: in large part, it is a modern phenomenon. At the time of the Spanish flu, people were hungry, but not carrying in their bodies the amounts of heavy metals, pesticides, chemicals, microplastics, and other weird stuff we all have nowadays. And they didn't live in a hot world with 410 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as we do. To say nothing about the rapid decline of the health care services, the poor quality of the average diet, the spread of alcohol and heavy drugs, the health effects of depression, the damage done by bad governments, and don't forget the risk of being shot. 

As a result, the population of many Western countries seems to have started to move along the same trajectory that the Ukrainian population started to follow 30 years ago. Life expectancy has been declining in the West starting with 2014.

Life expectancy in selected Western countries. Data from World Bank

In addition to the already weakened population, there is another factor that may favor the plague horseman: the economic crisis that's being created by the fear of the virus. Don't forget that if nearly 8 billion people can survive in the world today, it is because they can purchase food and have it delivered to them by means of that stupendous commercial system that we call "globalization" and its container ships crisscrossing the oceans. But if people stop moving and goods stop being transported, then food will stop being shipped to the places where it is needed. As a result, one more of the four horsemen, famine, will start galloping. And the third horseman, war, may decide to start galloping too, taking with him the last one, death. Then, yes, we could see a new Black Death.

Don't forget that this is a scenario: a story that we are telling to each other. It is up to us to make sure that it remains a story and it doesn't become reality. The future is never predictable, we can only be prepared for it.




A comment by Ugo Bardi's personal troll, Mr. Kunning-Druger

"And here you are, Mr. Bardi. I knew you would have arrived to this: I figure that you and your friends of the Club of Rome must be very happy, now. Isn't the coronavirus exactly what you always wanted? From the very beginning, the Club of Rome has been working at planning the extermination of most of humankind. And now the flag of the enemies of humankind has been taken by the little monster called Greta Thunberg. But we know who you are and we know what you are doing. If your plan ever becomes reality, we'll know who are the criminals behind it."