Ugo Bardi's Blog, page 5

Human Extinction Ahead: How Many Years Left?

There are good chances that humans are on their way toward extinction. Not something to be excessively sorry, given the pitiful spectacle we are giving in our latest bursts of madness. And we can’t say we don’t deserve it, given the refusal of the powers that be to stop producing the substances that are sterilizing everybody (including the PTB themselves). We can only hope that those who will replace us might be better.

Just turn on a TV screen and you’ll see our leaders actively engaged in finding ways to destroy humankind through new wars and more powerful weapons. But, here, let me tell you about a search I made for my new book titled “The End of Population.” or maybe “The Population Collapse” (hopefully available by September). The thesis of the book is that with the worldwide plummeting of the human fertility rate, we’ll soon be entering a phase of population decline which is going to change everything in the way we see the world and lead to human extinction in a relatively short time, maybe before the end of the current century.

There are several factors causing the current decline in fertility rate. Social and economic elements are surely playing a role , but an important one is pollution in various forms, principally endocrine-disruptor substances associated with plastics: PFAS, BPA, PCB, Phthalates, Dioxins, and probably more, also vehiculated by the increasing microplastic pollution. After the failure of the UN Plastic pollution treaty negotiations in Busan, last year, it seems that we are going to get more and more of this stuff inside our bodies, all in the name of the sacred concept of economic growth. So, we are getting what we deserve, but how fast?

We would need a quantitative measurement of the effect of pollution on human fertility, which is not an easy task: the human reproductive system is hugely complex and formed of a variety of organs operating together. However, there is a factor that is relatively easy to measure and for which we have reasonably good data: the decline in the human sperm count. Even though the data is scattered, what we know is sufficient to understand that the sperm count is going down fast.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the current average male sperm count in Western countries is around 40–60 million/mL. For example, a 2021 European study pegged the mean at 56 million/mL. 50 years ago, it was twice that number. WHO also says that a minimum value that guarantees fertility for a human male is about 15 million/ml. Now, if we consider the current decline in sperm count at 2.6% yearly, it follows that the average Western count will go below 15 million/ml in less than 50 years.

That doesn’t mean that no children will be born any longer, but that in a few decades the majority of Western males may be infertile because of the low sperm count. People in African countries have a larger sperm count, but they, too, will become mostly infertile before the turn of the century. In short, humans may be unable to reproduce before the end of the century, and they may be all gone not much later.

Are we sure that the decline of sperm count is related to plastic pollution? I couldn’t find a study on this subject in the scientific literature, so I asked DeepSearch (an AI made by X) to create one. In a few minutes, Deepsearch produced a full scientific paper that I report at the bottom of this post. Below, you can see the graph of the data. I know that correlation doesn’t mean causation, but we know that many plastic additives are endocrine disruptors affecting the human metabolic processes. Ignoring that correlation may indicate causation means taking a risk that we can’t afford to take.

Here is how DeepSearch describes the work it did. Below you can find the full paper he/she wrote.

The feat performed by DeepSearch is impressive: in a few minutes, it searched the data, analyzed the results, and produced a report that would have taken a graduate student at least a week of work. And the subscription to DeepSearch costs me less than $10 per month! In comparison to a graduate student, it not only costs two orders of magnitude less but also works three orders of magnitude faster. An advantage of a factor of 105.

Who needs graduate students now? Or, upon thinking about that, who needs university professors? And who needs human beings? We’ll go extinct, but there is no reason to worry. Those who will replace us are much smarter!

The paper written by DeepSearch

Comprehensive Analysis: Correlation Between Global Human Sperm Count and Plastic Production

by DeepSearch

This paper summarizes the aims, methods, and results of an investigation into the correlation between global human sperm count trends and global plastic production, conducted as of March 03, 2025. The study addresses the growing concern over declining sperm counts and their potential link to environmental factors, particularly the rapid increase in plastic production and associated chemical exposure.

Key Points

Research suggests a correlation between rising global plastic production and declining human sperm count, with evidence showing a 51.6% drop in sperm concentration from 1973 to 2018 as plastic production increased significantly.

It seems likely that accounting for an increasing decline rate in sperm count, especially post-2000, strengthens this correlation, aligning with plastic production's exponential growth.

The evidence leans toward plastic-derived chemicals, like endocrine disruptors, contributing to this decline, though other factors (e.g., lifestyle, pollution) may also play a role.

There is ongoing debate about the exact causes and the pace of decline, with some experts questioning data consistency due to changes in measurement methods over time.

Aims

The primary aim was to assess the correlation between global human sperm count, specifically sperm concentration (SC) and total sperm count (TSC), and global plastic production over recent decades, focusing on the period from 1973 to 2018, where comprehensive data are available. A secondary aim was to explore whether accounting for an increasing rate of sperm count decline, as suggested by recent studies, strengthens this correlation, given the exponential growth in plastic production.

Methods

The methodology involved a literature review and data synthesis from meta-analyses and industry reports. Sperm count data were primarily sourced from Levine et al. (2022), published in Human Reproduction Update, which analyzed 223 studies involving 57,168 men from 53 countries, covering semen samples collected between 1973 and 2018 Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis of samples collected globally in the 20th and 21st centuries. This study reported a global decline in SC of 51.6%, from 101.2 million per milliliter in 1973 to 49.0 million per milliliter in 2018, and a 62.3% drop in TSC from 335.7 million to 126.6 million, with an accelerated decline post-2000 (2.64% per year vs. 1.16% pre-2000).

Plastic production data were obtained from Our World in Data, based on Geyer et al. (2017) and OECD (2022), showing production rising from approximately 50 million tons in 1970 to 374 million tons by 2018, with exponential growth post-2010 Global plastics production. For correlation analysis, data points were sampled every five years from 1973 to 2018, and the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated between plastic production and SC, initially assuming a linear decline. To account for the increasing decline rate, an exponential decay model was considered, with relative rates before and after 2000 as per Levine et al. (2022).

Results

The initial correlation analysis, using a linear model for SC, yielded a Pearson correlation coefficient of approximately -0.977, indicating a very strong negative correlation between plastic production and SC. The sampled data points are presented in Table 1 below:

Accounting for the increasing decline rate, the exponential model showed SC declining at -1.16% per year before 2000 and -2.64% per year after, aligning with the acceleration in plastic production post-2000. This non-linear modeling suggests a steeper than linear decline, potentially strengthening the correlation, as both variables show accelerating trends. The biological plausibility is supported by studies linking endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in plastics, such as phthalates and bisphenol A, to reduced sperm motility and concentration, with a 2024 study detecting microplastics in all human semen samples [referenced in earlier context, no direct URL].

However, the correlation is not without controversy. Some experts question the global nature of the decline, citing changes in sperm counting methods over decades, which may inflate perceived declines Are Sperm Counts Really Declining?. Others, like Harvard’s GenderSci Lab, argue for a biovariability framework, suggesting potential biases in earlier analyses The future of sperm: a biovariability framework for understanding global sperm count trends. Lifestyle factors and other pollutants are also implicated, adding complexity Sperm counts may be declining globally, review finds, adding to debate over male fertility.

An unexpected detail is the alignment of the post-2000 acceleration in sperm decline with increased microplastic exposure, suggesting a compounding effect as plastic waste globalizes. Regionally, North America–Europe–Australia showed earlier declines, while South/Central America–Asia–Africa caught up post-2000, possibly reflecting later industrialization and plastic use, as seen in Levine et al. (2022)’s continental breakdowns.

Discussion

The results lean toward a strong correlation between rising global plastic production and declining human sperm count, with the exponential modeling suggesting a tighter fit than linear assumptions. While not causal, the temporal alignment and biological plausibility via EDCs indicate plastics are a significant contributing factor. However, the ongoing debate over measurement methods and data consistency highlights the need for standardized, longitudinal studies to confirm these trends and disentangle confounding variables.

Summary and Conclusions

Using sampled data every five years, the Pearson correlation coefficient was -0.977, indicating a very strong negative correlation. Accounting for the steeper decline post-2000, this correlation likely strengthens, suggesting plastics' role via chemicals like phthalates, linked to reproductive issues Are Sperm Counts Really Declining?. An unexpected detail is the alignment with microplastic proliferation, potentially amplifying the impact.

However, there's debate over measurement methods, with some experts questioning if changes in counting techniques affect data. Sperm counts may be declining globally, review finds, adding to debate over male fertility. This complexity means we can't be certain, but the evidence suggests a compelling link worth exploring further. This study provides evidence of a strong negative correlation (-0.977) between global plastic production and human sperm count, with accounting for an increasing decline rate post-2000 potentially strengthening this relationship. Further research is essential to refine models, address controversies, and explore causal mechanisms, particularly the role of plastic-derived chemicals in reproductive health.

Key Citations

Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis of samples collected globally in the 20th and 21st centuries

Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made

Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis

Global plastics production

Global plastic production

Global Plastics Production

Are Sperm Counts Really Declining?

The future of sperm: a biovariability framework for understanding global sperm count trends

Sperm counts may be declining globally, review finds, adding to debate over male fertility

The European Union Goes to War

By Antonio Turiel: “In reality, the war effort, with the 800,000 million euros committed to it, may involve such an excessive effort and such losses in the already relatively tenuous state of welfare that Europe could implode, collapse socially, like those people of a certain age who insist on making efforts that decades ago they could do with ease and that today could kill them. It is something repeated throughout the history of humanity: great empires that, in a time of deep crisis, decide to try to recover the military glory of the past and succumb to the weight of military spending and the accumulation of internal problems.”

The Phantom Menace

The Oil Crash by Antonio Turiel

Dear readers

A spectre is haunting Europe. After decades of placidity (or so the media would have us believe), we have entered a state of panic, frightened (or so we are told) by an imminent invasion from Russia - importing into these lands the maxim attributed apocryphally to Kissinger, “The American people have only two states: complacency and panic”. From Brussels, EU citizens are urged to prepare an “emergency kit” to survive 72 hours in the face of a wide variety of risks, including war. Meanwhile, Europe launches its new defense program, called “ReARM Europe” (continuing with that practice, in the eyes of the European authorities, of listing its plans in the imperative because, I suppose, they see it as more challenging - a colleague always makes jocular comments about this practice: “get up”, “shower”, “have breakfast”..., like a mother on a school day). In Spain, the president Pedro Sánchez has announced that the defense budget will rise to 2% of GDP (which, taking into account that the Spanish General State Budget (PGE) is approximately a quarter of GDP, means that it will represent 8% of the PGE), and he will do this, he says, without affecting the other budget items (which we all know is a lie, but anyway, we carry on as if nothing had happened). Europe wants to move quickly towards rearmament because, apparently, Russian troops are already appearing in Helsinki, Prague, Budapest and Warsaw. Hurry, hurry, hurry... Don't they see the existential risk for Europe?

Obviously, there is no such thing as the Russian threat. Russia is not going to set out to conquer Europe and risk triggering a response from the United States. Moreover, two European countries possess nuclear weapons (France and the United Kingdom), which is an excessive risk. And finally, there is a problem of population arithmetic: although Russia is huge, it has only 140 million inhabitants, while the EU has 450 million. In fact, it would be a logistical challenge for Russia to try to occupy Ukraine, with its almost 40 million inhabitants, on a permanent basis - it is very different to defend your territory than to occupy someone else's.

That doesn't mean that Russia is a lamb, but obviously the scenario that is being proposed to us has no semblance of reality whatsoever. A confrontation with Russia would be exhausting and extremely costly for the Slavs, even if it did not involve the occupation of territory. And, after all, why would Russia want to do that? Even today, after the fanciful European sanctions, Europe is Russia's main buyer of raw materials. And there are many people, not only in Moscow but also in Frankfurt and Paris, who are hoping that the talks between Putin and Trump on Ukraine will come to a successful conclusion (without taking into account the opinion of the Ukrainians, of course) in order to re-establish the flow of raw materials at a good price to which Russia has accustomed us.

No. The European rearmament and militarist movement has another objective and another reason, and it must be understood in the context of the rest of the decrees and directives that have been signed in Brussels in recent weeks, as a desperate response to the telluric geopolitical changes brought about by Trump's Second Coming. We already commented in the previous post about the Omnibus legislation and its consequences on the environmental level. But the European legislative machine does not stop, and so a few days ago we learned that the EU has classified as strategic, and therefore eligible for subsidies, 47 projects for the extraction of critical materials, 7 of them in Spain (led by large companies, many with environmental lawsuits). In most cases we are talking about either small deposits with little production potential or deposits that are very harmful to the environment. If Europe is rushing to accelerate these projects it is because it perceives a desperate need to accelerate. The fact is that the energy and resources crisis is advancing inexorably. While some fools are entertaining themselves arguing about greyhounds and podencos about when peak oil will be, implying that it will be “never”, the CEOs of the main companies that exploit fracking in the USA (the only thing that keeps production minimally stable, although below 2018 levels) are clear that peak oil is “now”. At the moment, in Colombia and Bolivia the situation is quite complicated (to put it mildly) due to the lack of diesel, a problem that is spreading throughout Latin America and Africa (with Nigeria, Spain's main oil supplier) at the forefront. The only thing keeping Europe protected from the diesel shortage is the severe industrial recession in Germany, but that won't last forever - nor is it desirable for anyone. At the same time, the problems that the shortage is causing in areas critical to the supply of certain materials mean that the supply chain problems of a few years ago could be a joke compared to what is coming now

Europe needs energy, it needs materials, and it needs them now. The much-vaunted renewable transition, has failed and is collapsing, and Europe does not have great natural resources. Where will we get the energy we need? The answer can be found in the first of the three questions we asked nine years ago.

Europe is going to invade North Africa.

Or, at least, this is the unconfessed intention of our leaders (and applauded by companies like Volkswagen, which sees not only cheap raw materials but also the possibility of converting to the military industry). That is why they want weapons, that is why they want to militarize consciences, that is why they need to silence critical discourse until it is too late.

We talk about defense and rearmament, but it is a clear example of double-speak in the style of 1984, George Orwell's novel (at the time of contemporary criticism but increasingly anticipatory). In reality, we are talking about aggression and preparation for war.

It goes without saying that the proposal is profoundly immoral. Europe, instead of following a path of evolution and transcendence for once in its history, wants to return to the worst of its past - from which it never disassociated itself, as demonstrated by so many shameful episodes in Africa in recent decades. But this time things are probably going to be very different.

Europe cannot achieve the warrior society that our leaders want, at least not in a few decades - but they don't have decades to wait. We have neither the technical capacity nor the experience, nor do our young people have that chauvinistic jingoism found in other places that makes them practically want to die for their country. Even worse, the few collective sentiments that could go in a similar direction are nationalist, and not at all pan-European: I don't see a Spaniard, an Italian, a Greek or a Hungarian going to die “for Europe”. In fact, I don't think we would find Germans or Frenchmen in that trench either...

But the fact is that Europe is a continent, today, aged and without resources, and with a disenchanted and deeply angry youth because the people of my generation have stolen their future. What life alternatives are being given to people who are now under 30 - or maybe 40?

On the other hand, the profoundly bureaucratic procedures that are common currency in the workings of the European Union mean that a great deal of resources will be spent on completely useless reports, evaluations, meetings, etc., which they will not do without in any way because they are what the European managerial caste uses to enrich itself, as well as to justify its existence. In other words, the way Europe functions guarantees the absolute inefficiency of this war effort.

In reality, the war effort, with the 800,000 million euros committed to it, may involve such an excessive effort and such losses in the already relatively tenuous state of welfare that Europe could implode, collapse socially, like those people of a certain age who insist on making efforts that decades ago they could do with ease and that today could kill them. It is something repeated throughout the history of humanity: great empires that, in a time of deep crisis, decide to try to recover the military glory of the past and succumb to the weight of military spending and the accumulation of internal problems.

In reality, we should be thinking about radically different things. About the recovery of humble technologies, about the relocation of activity, about regeneration and renaturalization, and about the consolidation of the community as a unit of social base. On this last point, the call for citizens to have their “72-hour individual survival kit” is significant. And why 3 days and not 7, or two weeks? In reality, given the complexity of the risks that really threaten us - which are mainly environmental and climatic - surely strengthening your community, your local group, constitutes a safer, more flexible, adaptable and resilient response.

I'm just finishing up. We are at a red line. One that we must not cross for ethical reasons, but also for logical ones: war is very bad for your health.

Dear readers, this is one of those moments when you cannot afford to look the other way. It is time to plant your feet on the ground and say clearly and firmly: No.

I don't want my children to be killed in a dirty trench in the middle of the desert in an attempt to keep the wheel of this unsustainable society turning for another three or four years. What about you?

NO TO WAR.

Cheers,

The Global Peace Offensive Gains Momentum

Above, Donato Kiniger Passigli speaks in Maribor about the “Global Peace Offensive.”

After more than three years of war in Ukraine, it seems that many people are thinking it is enough. Up to no long ago, speaking of peace meant to be buried under a landslide of insults and accusations to be “Putin’s friend” (and, by the way, if you like Russia so much, why don’t you go live there?). Now, the atmosphere is changing with the US evidently trying to stop the confrontation with Russia, which never made any sense. There remains a diehard group of warlike psychos who are running the European Union, but they seem to be in disarray, too. So, the “Peace Offensive” created by Donato Kiniger Passigli is gaining momentum; it is now officially promoted by the Club of Rome and by the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, as you can read in this document. And other international organizations are joining it. Nevertheless, the road to peace is still long and difficult, because problems are deep and structural. Below is a thoughtful post by Timothy Sha-Ching Wong that highlights these problems from a historical perspective

_________________________________________________________________________

Guest Post by Timothy Sha-Ching Wong

I am a long-time reader of Ugo Bardi's "The Seneca Effect" Facebook page.

The following originally appeared as a reply in the discussion thread after Ugo posted Donato Kiniger Passigli's address of March 14, 2025 at the 13th Annual Conference of Europe's Sciences and Arts Leaders entitled

" A Peace Offensive for Conflict Resolution"

Whilst there is much in Passigli's ideas that are attractive and to which I would like to subscribe as a believer, I find that I remain skeptical for the reasons briefly outlined here.

We can easily surmise that the central motivating factor driving Passigli's proposal to create a pacifist network of civil society groups is the failure of our current inter-stater arrangements and forums such as the United Nations to achieve Perpetual Peace.

In an attempt to grasp the scope of the problem, consider how far we have *regressed* historically since Kant wrote his essay “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” in 1795.

The immediate occasion for Kant's essay was the March 1795 signing of the Treaty of Basel by Prussia and revolutionary France, which Kant famously condemned as only "the suspension of hostilities, not a peace."

Military destructive power has increased by several orders of magnitude since 1795.

Far worse than the Treaty of Basel, consider two recent attempts at peace agreements that in fact marked the escalation of even greater hostilities:

- the Minsk Agreements

- the even more devastating Oslo Accords – used as a fig leaf (inasmuch as any diplomat of the major powers can even vaguely recall that they are obliged to at least pay lip service to the 2 State Solution) and taken as a licence for the intensification of Israeli military-colonial annexation, the construction of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocidal military siege.

As a Prussian civil servant, Kant was unable to conceive of any political actors except *States* to carry out his vision of Perpetual Peace. Once more, we can see that we have not advanced much beyond Kant.

On the positive side, since Kant's day we have now have global forums such as the United Nations.

What has come to be referred to as Kantian cosmopolitanism can be seen the universalism of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; 20th and 21st International Law as the codification of the morality that should govern the conduct of nations and nation-state alliances alongside the establishment of two international courts - the ICC and the ICJ - to rule on these matters of International Law.

On the negative side of the ledger, is the fact that States and inter-State alliances remain the primary actors in global affairs. The foreign policy decisions of these States is determined and carried out by a tiny global power-elite whose equally narrow geo-strategic and vested material interests are the drivers behind their decision-making.

It is here that we can ask, can Donato Kiniger Passigli's proposal for the development of a global network of pacifist civil society groups act as an effective counter to the belligerent nature of states that are currently locked in a multi-polar world that is marked by a greater state of inherently conflictual instability than any other modern configuration of inter-state powers? Trump's tariffs just unleashed a new coruscating wave of destabilizing currents with the strong potential for causing conflictual results.

Considered as a simple contest of power, States can simply ignore or, if necessary, actively repress civil society groups and individuals that dissent from State objectives. As described by Max Weber, the modern State is the monopoly of legitimate *violence*. Both as domestic forces of law and order, and as geo-strategic actors States are entities of violence.

The most obvious current example is the systematic suppression of anti-war, anti-genocide groups in all of the nations allied with Israel. (To say nothing of the genocidal nature of the military-colonial Israeli state itself). In Germany, the USA, Australia, the UK, France, Canada anti-war individuals and groups are currently being subjected to naked repression with people being deported, summarily removed from their places of employment, had literary awards and academic grants revoked, been imprisoned, been banned from entry into the nation, subjected to slanderous press and social media campaigns, subjected to police violence in the streets, subjected to vigilante violence and homicide etc. All against a backdrop of deafening silence and passive hostility from the rest of "liberal" society.

But let's see and let material reality run its course. Let this new pacifist civil society network put a stop to a war; then prevent a war; then prevent a series of wars; then achieve an extended period of peace; then achieve Perpetual Peace as a real-world norm and not an abstract Ideal, then this movement, indeed the human species, can claim success."

Wishing for Collapse: The Unintended Path of Depletionism

In "The Monkey’s Paw" by W.W. Jacobs (1902), an elderly couple receives a magical monkey’s paw that grants three wishes. They wish for money, but it comes through their son’s death in an accident. Then, they ask to have their son back, but he comes in the form of a decayed corpse clumsily walking home. Finally, they ask to send the zombie back to its grave. It is a typical problem: when you ask for something, you never know what you’ll get, and you may not like it. It is happening now for a group of vocal “depletionists” who are loudly proclaiming that we are running out of vital resources for the industrial system and that we need to scale it down. They are basically right, but if the message passes, we won’t see that happening — much worse outcomes are probable.

This post is inspired by a talk i gave in Budapest at the World Adaptation Forum on April 25, 2025. h/t Balazs Stumpf-Biro.

It is said that George W. Bush Jr. decided to invade Iraq in 2003 because he had read some papers on oil depletion by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). Of course, it may be just a legend, but I don’t see it as impossible, and perhaps not even improbable. Politicians make decisions on the basis of a “blob” of vague ideas that they keep in mind, often on the spur of the moment, and in many cases making terrible mistakes. But they normally have in mind some of the critical elements that keep alive the system they manage. For the US, it was, and still is, crude oil. So, it is possible that Bush thought that it was necessary to compensate for the decline of the US oil production by seizing the Iraqi resources. That didn’t necessarily imply the need to start a war, just like filling the tank of your car doesn’t imply shooting dead the service station operator. But that’s the way some people’s minds work.

ASPO had a certain global clout during the first 1-2 decades of the century. It was created in 2001 by a group of oil geologists. It was a group of scientists, mainly oil geologists, who were engaged in the study of oil depletion. It was the founder, Colin Campbell, who came out with the expression “Peak Oil,” which became popular over the years. I was part of the association from the early years, so I know the story well. It was a subset of a wider approach to the effects of resource depletion that had started with the “Limits to Growth” study of 1972.

ASPO’s work was focused on determining when the global oil production peak would arrive, leading to a disaster of global proportions. Of what would be desirable to do to avoid it, ASPO members were divided among different internal currents. Some saw a return to nuclear energy (mainly the French members), others a return to coal (the US ones), and a wide group thought of socialism/degrowth/green utopia.”

As you may have imagined, we obtained nothing of what we were thinking should be done. Actually, we obtained exactly the opposite. Although ASPO’s ideas were always denied and considered fringe opinions, the oil industry and people in the financial/political world were acutely aware of the increased costs of oil production. Their reaction was predictable when you think that these people think mainly in terms of profits. If oil is becoming scarce, then it will become more valuable. Then, it makes sense to invest in it. So it was that huge (and I mean really huuuuge — Trump style) amounts of money were thrown at the idea of exploiting “tight oil,” better known today as “shale oil.” A resource that most oil geologists had always considered too expensive to exploit, but when money speaks louder than the voice of geologists.

And so, shale oil was, and Peak Oil was postponed by at least 10 years, although at a big cost for the economy and with huge (huuuge) damage to the ecosystem. And the work of ASPO was consigned forever to the dustbin of wrong scientific theories proposed by cranks. Actually, the peak may be coming now, but what was done was done.

The interesting point of this story is how it is repeated in a very similar form today. We are seeing a vocal group of people whom we can call “depletionists,” equivalent to the earlier “ASPOists” who claim that we are running out of some critical resources for the industrial system and that the whole system may collapse soon. They are basically right: I think I was one of the initiators of this movement of ideas with my book “Extracted,” which I published in 2014. The problem is the same as that of ASPO: the depletionists don’t have a solution to avoid the disaster they predict will happen in the near future. That is, no solution except a set of vague ideas, again similar to what ASPO was proposing, about “degrowth,” bicycling, cultivating vegetables in one’s garden, and maybe adopting socialism.

Admirable, but it won’t work.

Actually, it will badly backfire, especially if the depletionists continue their work of carpet bombing against renewable energy and electrification — the so-called “renewable transition”. It is true that the transition requires mineral resources, but not necessarily rare ones, and their criticism is often shallow and sometimes plainly wrong. A takedown of their criticism can be read in a recent post by Nafeez Ahmed, “The Delusion of no Energy Transition.” But the worst problem is not so much the misunderstanding of the technical characteristics of renewable energy. It is the same problem we had with ASPO.

It is not enough to highlight a problem if you don’t propose actionable ways to solve it.

People need energy. People need electricity, shelter, transportation, and more. And, of course, food. Renewable energy doesn’t automatically provide all that, but it is a big help, especially for the poor. Just as an example, think about how badly air conditioning is needed in Southern countries nowadays. PV panels can provide it at no cost during the hottest periods of the day, exactly when the panels work at the highest efficiency. And PV can provide food refrigeration, basic transportation, and more.

But if you keep telling people that renewables are useless, people will search for something else, and, no, it will not be Socialism. It will be a new rush for miracles (nuclear fusion), for whatever dirty things can burn (coal), for destroying the ecosystem even more (bioenergy), and the rich can think of even worse things.

About these “worse things,” I won’t go into the details. Let me just show you the front cover of my latest book titled “Exterminations,” and I leave it to you to understand where we may be going. Be careful with what you ask for, because you may get it in a form that you won’t like.

https://www.amazon.com/Exterminations-Ugo-Bardi/dp/B0DK18GP68/

Pope Francis Failed: Do we Need a New Religion?

The Pope used to dance tango when he was young, here, we see him dancing with the Goddess Gaia in heaven.

Though not religious in the traditional sense, I’ve been reflecting deeply on religion lately. What is religion, and why do people care about it? Why aren’t we religious anymore? May religion return, one day, in some new forms? The recent death of Pope Francis led me to write down my thoughts.

Let me start with something that happened in Florence in 1501. A certain Antonio Rinaldeschi, in a fit of rage after losing a large sum of money gambling, picked up horse dung from the street and threw it at an image of the Virgin Mary. He was reported to the authorities, arrested, and then hanged. A panel illustrating the story was painted by Filippo Dolciati in 1502, and, later, a church was built where it took place. The Church of Santa Margherita in Santa Maria dei Ricci hosted the panel up to recent times. It is now in a museum, but there is still a reproduction there.

It is an element of Florentine history that is not easy to find for the casual tourist; there is not even a Wikipedia page in English about this story. The details are available only in Italian. Evidently, it is difficult for us to be proud of an event that involves a barbarous and excessive punishment. And yet, the people who built the Church and admired the panel thought that it was the right thing to do.

But if this event happened, there must have been reasons that made it happen. Rinaldeschi didn’t just throw some dung at an image; he desecrated a sacred symbol of the time in which he lived, the Virgin Mary. And the sacred is not something that anyone can afford to ignore. In Violence and the Sacred, René Girard says, “The sacred consists of all those forces whose dominance over man increases or seems to increase in proportion to man’s effort to master them.” Sacred involves turmoil, death, violence, and, above all, blood. It is the very essence of the life and death duality: blood makes us live, and it is also a symbol of death. Sacredness is central to the very fact of being human.

The importance of the sacred changed very little throughout history, except that we switched the definition from one thing to another. At the time of the Roman Empire, Emperors embodied the sacredness that was at the basis of the whole social structure. Now, think about the revolution that Christianity was. The idea that God would incarnate in a human being was so alien to the people of the time that it was considered both evil and incomprehensible. But it was perfectly logical: switching sacredness from the state to human beings was the way to reform a society which had become a monstrous form of exploitation of the many by the few. A society in which the poor, the dispossessed, and the slaves had no rights and no protection from the abuses perpetrated on them by the powerful.

Christianity succeeded only in part in changing the world, but it did rein in the absolute power of the Roman Emperors who, in the end, had to admit that they had to obey the law just like everyone else. It was the last Roman Empress, Galla Placidia, a devout Christian, who created the Digna Vox edict in which she stated exactly that. We can still feel the immense power Christianity represented if we consider how our ancestors saw the world. For more than a millennium, in Europe, people would see everything in a Christian light, to the point of executing a poor man who had done nothing more than throw some dung at a painting, harming no one.

In time, Christianity lost its original potency as the West, fueled by fossil wealth, rebuilt a structure reminiscent of the Roman Empire. This new monstrosity is dedicated to enriching the elite at the expense of the poor, and it offers no protection for the weak against the strong. Even the human body, once revered as the vessel of God’s son, faces desecration, forced to be inoculated with whatever the state mandates. Yet the power of sacredness can be abused only for so long before it vanishes, like a soul departing a lifeless body. The sacred symbols of the Western World, “The Country,” “The Flag,” “Science,” “Democracy,” and, above all, the state itself, are losing potency.

Pope Francis thought that he could return Christianity to its ancient roots: an idea that was born to protect the poor and to create a just society. He failed. In part, it was because of his own mistakes, for instance, aligning with the powers that be about vaccinations. But it was probably unavoidable. Most old structures tend to become too rigid to be reformed from the inside. The Catholic Church started sliding down toward irrelevance before Francis, and it will probably continue to do so after him, eventually disappearing in the background noise, just like Paganism did in Roman times. Francis will not be the last pope, but he may well have been the last relevant pope.

But religion is about the sacred, and the sacred is everything in our view of the world. In the series of cycles that humankind is following while it moves toward the future, we will need something new to arise to defend the sacredness of humanity. Will it be a return to the old religions? Or will it be a completely new religion? There is a bubbling of ideas and movements appearing: Wiccan, Gaianism, Neopaganism, New Age, Cybersectarianism, and more. What the new “thing” will be, it is impossible to say for the time being, although when it appears, we’ll likely see it as being as evil and incomprehensible as the ancient saw Christianity. But we can be sure that it will come from some place which we wouldn’t even imagine could change the world.

Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." John 1:46

Pope Francis Failed: Now we Need a New Religion?

The Pope used to dance tango when he was young, here, we see him dancing with the Goddess Gaia in heaven.

Though not religious in the traditional sense, I’ve been reflecting deeply on religion lately. What is religion, and why do people care about it? Why aren’t we religious anymore? May religion return, one day, in some new forms? The recent death of Pope Francis led me to write down my thoughts.

Let me start with something that happened in Florence in 1501. A certain Antonio Rinaldeschi, in a fit of rage after losing a large sum of money gambling, picked up horse dung from the street and threw it at an image of the Virgin Mary. He was reported to the authorities, arrested, and then hanged. A panel illustrating the story was painted by Filippo Dolciati in 1502, and, later, a church was built where it took place. The Church of Santa Margherita in Santa Maria dei Ricci hosted the panel up to recent times. It is now in a museum, but there is still a reproduction there.

It is an element of Florentine history that is not easy to find for the casual tourist; there is not even a Wikipedia page in English about this story. The details are available only in Italian. Evidently, it is difficult for us to be proud of an event that involves a barbarous and excessive punishment. And yet, the people who built the Church and admired the panel thought that it was the right thing to do.

But if this event happened, there must have been reasons that made it happen. Rinaldeschi didn’t just throw some dung at an image; he desecrated a sacred symbol of the time in which he lived, the Virgin Mary. And the sacred is not something that anyone can afford to ignore. In Violence and the Sacred, René Girard says, “The sacred consists of all those forces whose dominance over man increases or seems to increase in proportion to man’s effort to master them.” Sacred involves turmoil, death, violence, and, above all, blood. It is the very essence of the life and death duality: blood makes us live, and it is also a symbol of death. Sacredness is central to the very fact of being human.

The importance of the sacred changed very little throughout history, except that we switched the definition from one thing to another. At the time of the Roman Empire, Emperors embodied the sacredness that was at the basis of the whole social structure. Now, think about the revolution that Christianity was. The idea that God would incarnate in a human being was so alien to the people of the time that it was considered both evil and incomprehensible. But it was perfectly logical: switching sacredness from the state to human beings was the way to reform a society which had become a monstrous form of exploitation of the many by the few. A society in which the poor, the dispossessed, and the slaves had no rights and no protection from the abuses perpetrated on them by the powerful.

Christianity succeeded only in part in changing the world, but it did rein in the absolute power of the Roman Emperors who, in the end, had to admit that they had to obey the law just like everyone else. It was the last Roman Empress, Galla Placidia, a devout Christian, who created the Digna Vox edict in which she stated exactly that. We can still feel the immense power Christianity represented if we consider how our ancestors saw the world. For more than a millennium, in Europe, people would see everything in a Christian light, to the point of executing a poor man who had done nothing more than throw some dung at a painting, harming no one.

In time, Christianity lost its original potency as the West, fueled by fossil wealth, rebuilt a structure reminiscent of the Roman Empire. This new monstrosity is dedicated to enriching the elite at the expense of the poor, and it offers no protection for the weak against the strong. Even the human body, once revered as the vessel of God’s son, faces desecration, forced to be inoculated with whatever the state mandates. Yet the power of sacredness can be abused only for so long before it vanishes, like a soul departing a lifeless body. The sacred symbols of the Western World, “The Country,” “The Flag,” “Science,” “Democracy,” and, above all, the state itself, are losing potency.

Pope Francis thought that he could return Christianity to its ancient roots: an idea that was born to protect the poor and to create a just society. He failed. In part, it was because of his own mistakes, for instance, aligning with the powers that be about vaccinations. But it was probably unavoidable. Most old structures tend to become too rigid to be reformed from the inside. The Catholic Church started sliding down toward irrelevance before Francis, and it will probably continue to do so after him, eventually disappearing in the background noise, just like Paganism did in Roman times. Francis will not be the last pope, but he may well have been the last relevant pope.

But religion is about the sacred, and the sacred is everything in our view of the world. In the series of cycles that humankind is following while it moves toward the future, we will need something new to arise to defend the sacredness of humanity. Will it be a return to the old religions? Or will it be a completely new religion? There is a bubbling of ideas and movements appearing: Wiccan, Gaianism, Neopaganism, New Age, Cybersectarianism, and more. What the new “thing” will be, it is impossible to say for the time being, although when it appears, we’ll likely see it as being as evil and incomprehensible as the ancient saw Christianity. But we can be sure that it will come from some place which we wouldn’t even imagine could change the world.

Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." John 1:46

Resurrection: Life Triumphing Over Death

A canvas in the hands of a great master is not just an image: it is a message, it is a story, it is a revelation. This painting was created by Piero della Francesca in 1420, and you can still see it in the city of Sansepolcro, in Tuscany. It exudes so much raw power that it may blow your mind. Note the mastery of the composition, the perfection of the details, and the posing of the human figures. Note the movement of the figure of Christ, in contrast with the static poses of the Roman Soldiers. It carries the message of a tremendous movement forward in time, and, at the same time, of the resistance to change of those who are oblivious to it. But the change is there. It is deep, it is gigantic, it is sweeping everything away. It is the essence of the concept of Resurrection: there is no death, everything returns to life. It is not just a Christian concept, but something that pertains to all humankind from the time when the Goddess Inanna returned from the depths of the underworld, in the Sumerian myth of maybe five millennia ago. Those who sleep through the change miss it without even suspecting that it is happening. Just like us, sleepwalkers in a changing world where gigantic forces are awakening right now. We remain asleep, clinging to our obsolete weapons, our dreams of domination, our deep slumber. But the more we ignore change, the more it will sweep us away. Change is the only thing in the universe that never changes.

This year, Easter (Pascha) comes on the same day for Eastern and Western Christianity. We may hope it is an omen of peace for Europe and everywhere.

Хрїсто́съ воскре́се! – Вои́стинꙋ воскре́се!

Christus surréxit! - Surréxit vere, allelúja!

Happy Easter 2025

Peak Population: The Global Reversal Unfolds

A possible cover for my upcoming book describing an epochal reversal in humankind’s trajectory of expansion. I described the main elements of the trend in a previous post. Here, I show some data on how the trends are different in different regions of the world, with a rapid population decline in the Northern Industrialized states, whereas Southern countries are still growing. The future might be an African Century, but even African countries are showing signs of an impending decline. We are all living in the same world, and the same factors affect everyone, everywhere. Image courtesy of Pinuccia Montanari.

The thesis of my upcoming book, “The End of Overpopulation,” is that humankind is switching from a phase of population growth to one of decline — possibly a collapse. It will be an epochal and unexpected change, most likely unavoidable, as I described in a previous post. The data from various institutions and research centers all converge to show that there will be a global “peak population” during the current century.

In some cases, such as the statistical models of the UN or IIASA, the peak is prospected around 2080. Instead, dynamic models that describe population as one of the parameters of a complex system see the peak much earlier. The ancestor of them all, "The Limits to Growth” of 1972, generated a peak in 2050, assuming that the trends of the time were to be maintained. A recent (2023) recalibration of the model by Nebel et al. generated the peak before 2030.

Image from Nebel et al. Population is the orange curve. Note how it peaks between 2025 and 2030.

Most people seem to be still locked to the old “Malthusian” views, which see populations crashing against the physical limits of the environment and being forced to decline by famines and plagues. Instead, the current trend seems to be dominated by social and pollution factors, both of which are reducing fertility. The global population is coming down not with a bang but with a whimper.

To understand the situation, I prepared some data taken from my upcoming book, summarizing the status of all the countries that have a negative change in population. These countries are ordered starting with those with the largest population. China is at the top, very small countries are not included. The US is not in the table because it is still weakly growing. (data provided by Grok — note that the rates consider only births and deaths, emigration/immigration is not included).

These countries are in a sustained natural decline, driven by low fertility, aging, and, in some cases, high mortality. East Asia faces the steepest birthrate drops. Eastern Europe is more affected by the high death rates, while Western Europe shows a slower but steady decline.

These 32 countries represent a total of 2.22 billion people, 27.2% of the global population (8.2 billion). The largest declines are occurring for some Eastern European countries, Bulgaria, Latvia, Serbia, and Lithuania, with Ukraine having the steepest value (0.87% yearly, but larger if we include emigration). On the other side, East Asian countries have small decline rates (Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, and China), but they are declining nevertheless. All these countries have fertility below the replacement rate (2.1 children per woman), with South Korea having the lowest rate (0.8 children per woman).

In terms of GDP, the 32 Countries in the table generate ca. $47 trillion/year, nearly half of the world’s GDP (107 trillion/year), more precisely 40.7%. In terms of per capita comparison, these countries have an average of $21,042, to be compared with the world’s average of $14,042. These declining countries are substantially richer than those that show a population increase, even considering the disastrous performance of the bottom ones with Ukraine at $5,200/person.

How about the other side of the world, the growing countries? Many Northern countries, such as the US, are weakly growing: their population curves are rapidly flattening out, and decline is impending. Conversely, South-Saharan countries show sustained population growth, typically of the order of 2%-3%. If we extrapolate the trend, by the end of the century, they could represent 40% of the world’s population.

There is a reason why people speak of the coming “African Century.” But even these countries are showing a rapid slowdown in their growth rates, preliminary to peaking and declining. We are all living on the same planet, and the same factors affect everyone, everywhere.

These trends and what causes them are discussed in detail in my new book, “The End of Overpopulation.” The future, as usual, surprises us.

______________________________

My new book, “The End of Overpopulation,” is not available yet. But you can buy my other recent one that discusses how humankind tends to move into the future, one extermination after the other.

Peak and Fall: The Global Population Reversal Unfolds

A possible cover for my upcoming book describing an epochal reversal in humankind’s trajectory of expansion. I described the main elements of the trend in a previous post. Here, I show some data on how the trends are different in different regions of the world, with a rapid population decline in the Northern Industrialized states, whereas Southern countries are still growing. The future might be an African Century, but even African countries are showing signs of an impending decline. We are all living in the same world, and the same factors affect everyone, everywhere. Image courtesy of Pinuccia Montanari.

The thesis of my upcoming book, “The End of Overpopulation,” is that humankind is switching from a phase of population growth to one of decline — possibly a collapse. It will be an epochal and unexpected change, most likely unavoidable, as I described in a previous post. The data from various institutions and research centers all converge to show that there will be a global “peak population” during the current century.

In some cases, such as the statistical models of the UN or IIASA, the peak is prospected around 2080. Instead, dynamic models that describe population as one of the parameters of a complex system see the peak much earlier. The ancestor of them all, "The Limits to Growth” of 1972, generated a peak in 2050, assuming that the trends of the time were to be maintained. A recent (2023) recalibration of the model by Nebel et al. generated the peak before 2030.

Image from Nebel et al. Population is the orange curve. Note how it peaks between 2025 and 2030.

Most people seem to be still locked to the old “Malthusian” views, which see populations crashing against the physical limits of the environment and being forced to decline by famines and plagues. Instead, the current trend seems to be dominated by social and pollution factors, both of which are reducing fertility. The global population is coming down not with a bang but with a whimper.

To understand the situation, I prepared some data taken from my upcoming book, summarizing the status of all the countries that have a negative change in population. These countries are ordered starting with those with the largest population. China is at the top, very small countries are not included. The US is not in the table because it is still weakly growing. (data provided by Grok — note that the rates consider only births and deaths, emigration/immigration is not included).

These countries are in a sustained natural decline, driven by low fertility, aging, and, in some cases, high mortality. East Asia faces the steepest birthrate drops. Eastern Europe is more affected by the high death rates, while Western Europe shows a slower but steady decline.

These 32 countries represent a total of 2.22 billion people, 27.2% of the global population (8.2 billion). The largest declines are occurring for some Eastern European countries, Bulgaria, Latvia, Serbia, and Lithuania, with Ukraine having the steepest value (0.87% yearly, but larger if we include emigration). On the other side, East Asian countries have small decline rates (Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, and China), but they are declining nevertheless. All these countries have fertility below the replacement rate (2.1 children per woman), with South Korea having the lowest rate (0.8 children per woman).

In terms of GDP, the 32 Countries in the table generate ca. $47 trillion/year, nearly half of the world’s GDP (107 trillion/year), more precisely 40.7%. In terms of per capita comparison, these countries have an average of $21,042, to be compared with the world’s average of $14,042. These declining countries are substantially richer than those that show a population increase, even considering the disastrous performance of the bottom ones with Ukraine at $5,200/person.

How about the other side of the world, the growing countries? Many Northern countries, such as the US, are weakly growing: their population curves are rapidly flattening out, and decline is impending. Conversely, South-Saharan countries show sustained population growth, typically of the order of 2%-3%. If we extrapolate the trend, by the end of the century, they could represent 40% of the world’s population.

There is a reason why people speak of the coming “African Century.” But even these countries are showing a rapid slowdown in their growth rates, preliminary to peaking and declining. We are all living on the same planet, and the same factors affect everyone, everywhere.

These trends and what causes them are discussed in detail in my new book, “The End of Overpopulation.” The future, as usual, surprises us.

______________________________

My new book, “The End of Overpopulation,” is not available yet. But you can buy my other recent one that discusses how humankind tends to move into the future, one extermination after the other.

The Progress of Exterminations

Six months ago, I published my book, “Exterminations.” Honestly, I didn’t expect it to have as much success as it did. Unfortunately, not in terms of sales (*), but in terms of how real-world exterminations continue and seem to be increasing in numbers and intensity. And more seem to be programmed.

This is one of the things I said in the book. With the analysis I performed together with some colleagues, we found that wars and violence tend to “cluster” together — they are not periodic, but when they start, they seem to catalyze more wars. It is typical of those phenomena that are not controlled by anyone. They are avalanches in the fabric of that collective entity that we could call the “memesphere,” the ensemble of how people in the world communicate with each other.

Is there some hope to break this cycle of violence? Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I can tell you of a group of people of goodwill who are setting up a network called the “Global Peace Offensive” (GPO).

__________________________________

(*) You may be curious about sales for this book. Well, not a best seller, but about 300 copies sold is not so bad, considering that it had zero advertising, except for announcing it in this blog and a few occasional mentions on various social media. Also, I made no public presentations, book signing, etc. Right now, I am starting to advertise it on Google and KDP, and I immediately noticed an uptick in sales. I am also experimenting with the “Kindle Unlimited” (KU) publishing system. It means that people who subscribe to KU can download the book for free. Then, the author gets a revenue for the number of pages actually read (Amazon knows that!). At some moment, the book had reached 2nd place among the books in “International Policy” on Amazon, but only in the KU list. In short, publishing a book is not the way to become rich, but if you write a book, you are happy when people read it!

If you are in Italy, you may be interested in the very first public presentation (book signing included) of the Italian version, which will be at the “Conventino” in Florence on June 10 at 6 pm. Here is the cover of the Italian version.