The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Mario Giampietro: "Models with Meaning - Changing Social Practices"

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

On this episode, Nate is joined by biophysical analyst Mario Giampietro to unpack his decades of research on a wide-lens view of the challenges facing the human system. With current metrics that only optimize for one variable, increasingly reductionist academic fields, and scientific communication consistently falling short, researchers who look at how all the pieces of our predicament fit together and most effectively help others understand will become more essential. How does the scope with which we look at a problem affect the subsequent information we gather and decisions we make? In what way should we frame the narratives that we create to best inform our leaders and the public about the obstacles of the future? Will taking on these issues from a different lens help to create better, multi-dimensional responses that include biophysical, cultural, and social components as we move into the coming decades?   About Mario Giampietro: Mario Giampietro has recently retired from the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona. Until September 2023, he was ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. He has dedicated his academic career to the integrated assessment of (uncomfortable) sustainability issues using concepts from complex systems theory. He has developed a novel methodology, Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM), that integrates biophysical and socioeconomic variables across multiple scales, thus establishing a link between the metabolism of socio-economic systems and potential constraints of the natural environment. Recent research has focused on the nexus between land use, food, energy, and water in relation to SDGs. He has (co)authored over 150 publications, including six books.  For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/107-mario-giampietro   To watch this video episode on Youtube → https://youtu.be/HFZ3NPPPPS0   

You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagan's. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming Great Simplification. Today's guest is recently retired professor of environmental science and tech. technology, Mario G.M. Pietro from the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies in Barcelona, Spain. I knew of Mario's work back when I was getting my PhD on an acronym called MusiSem, which stands for multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism.

Mario has an academic background in chemistry, biology, and social sciences, and is authored or co-authored over 100 academic articles and written many books on sustainability, energy analysis, and agriculture, including the biofuel delusion and resource accounting for sustainability assessment. I have found that biophysical analyst, perhaps especially Spanish ones, are able to speak truth to power. And I think you will see what I mean by that in this conversation with Dr. Mario Gempietro. Saludos, Mario. Good to see you. Hi. Nice being here with you. Congratulations on your recent retirement.

This is a big event. So I am now blessed having this podcast that suddenly I get to have conversations with all the people that 15 years ago when I was getting my PhD were the rock stars in the fields of biophysical economics, including you. You were one of the icons in the field. So, and here we are. Yeah, we're not too many, let's put it this way. Yeah, there's not too many. That's true. But I have had quite a few of them on my podcast. So let me ask you, why is it there are so many Spanish people who are energy and collapse aware of systems versus the total global population? Or is that just my small sample size? No, it is true that, especially in Valladolid, they have a big group. they is called G.

Because it's a Spanish acronym. It's about energy and development of sustainability and something like that. They had the first one making accounting of the resource use. And this resonates with Barcelona, where I am located, where they had basically

the first big group of ecological economics, with Juan Martinez-Alié. Even though that Martinez-Salier and the group here, they didn't do much of accounting. They were making the economic part, the story, the importance of considering the... But they were not getting into the...

But this led to a sensibility in Spain. With the work on Naredo, Naredo was another important... person that works a lot. They had Margalef and ecologist. It was a sort of odum. So there was a sort of background that made possible to

have this school in Valladolida. As a matter of fact, they came three or four weeks ago in Barcelona because we were trying to check the common point of our approach. and their approach

and yeah but there are people really they are buying farms small farms they are waiting for the catastrophe of implosion you know it's kind of

like the billionaire in the United States they are waiting for the collapse it's a lot of people are now aware of this the world has caught up to the vile physical story that you've been saying for decades So let's get into your work.

Yeah. One of your main projects has been an acronym MooseySM. I'm not sure how to pronounce it, but it stands for multi-scale, integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism. Yeah. So I know you're just a retired professor and you're used to teaching PhD students, but can you briefly explain to our non-acadmic viewers for the most part? what this work really is about. I mean, I think that this is something different, not really different in the sense,

is an attempt to use complexity to do quantitative analysis. At the moment, it is embarrassing. People doing quantitative analysis use differential equation, like Newton, like 100 years ago. And what is the problem with differential equation? You have only one time scale, okay? So let's imagine you are comparing, or the evolution of China and Europe over 50 years.

Okay. If you are using DET of one year, the one using in economic models, whatever, you cannot get changes like population structure. No, in China now they have 60% of adults because of one child policy, and we have 40% of adults. They work 2,500 hours per worker per year. We work 1700.

So basically, that China has almost the double of our work per capita in the economy than us. Unbeatable, no? You cannot do anything against this. Of course, in 40 years, they will become all retired, and it would be a major problem. And probably they will not accept toward 2,500 hours per year. Then you cannot see these things if you are using one scale only. You cannot see. If I see with a microscope at your face, I cannot see your nose, no matter what.

You know, then we have to learn how to combine different scales and different narrative and different representation. Like done in medicine. In medicine, you have the x-ray, you have MRI, you have the blood tests, you have a lot of different tests. nobody would think about mixing all these numbers in a single mega equation of 1,000 variable to describe how you are. So what this mushyasm does is relational analysis. You have one lens in which you see something. Then with another lens, you see how the lever works. In another, you see the old body, how you're doing.

then you establish a relation between the characteristic of one view to another to another. And this is possible. You can say if this is in this way, on the border, there has be in another way for this other piece. So we have like four different lenses. One lens look at the affective interaction, the daily life of household. the household you may have with kids, retired of only adults, and they have to do things. So you can describe how much time, energy technology is allocated. So you have the total for the household, and now is allocated across the different things. Then you can redo the same at the whole household sector, and you will have a relation. Then we have another, and then you see the desirability of your state.

Then you have another level that we call macro scope. And then you have the whole economy. So the household sector is a part of the paid world sector in which you have agriculture. And for each of these, you can go smaller, smaller using the... And for each of those, you can see how much electricity fuel. But then you are building a Sudoku because the electricity of all the sector must be totaled within and across. Then we have another, it's called Mesoscope, that is how much you are importing. Because if we are not considered in the import, people are just wasting time.

When you say, you know, we are dematerializing the Europe, no, we are using embodied in what we import, 140 million workers equivalent. Okay? So, half of our workforce is embodied what we import. We import 70% of the feed. we import 85% of the energy. So they are talking about we are the materializing, but within the border of the country, not including.

And the last one is the microscope is the flow or primary flows outside inside, what we are getting from the nature and dumping in nature. And this can be done at the local level, So you can have the environmental pressure, there would be how much supply capacity, a much incapacity you need from nature, and compare it with the characteristic of the ecological fund

that you are affecting. And then you can see the impact. So what happened, you have all these four things. I mean, we did. I mean, we have been working now for 10 years. What is fantastic is that you have benchmarks. So I can say, give me a population. Okay.

how this urban rural, Armenia, retired, blah, blah, blah. And then he said, okay, you want healthcare. What type of healthcare you want? The type of healthcare of Sweden or Norway or Romania or... And then you start putting together the piece and you can say, okay, if you do this, at this level of analysis,

you will need this type of things. How you are producing in them? Are you importing or not? If you are not importing, how we are producing, what are the technological that we're, call the sequential pathway, you know, extraction and blah blah, blah, you do it, and then you can calculate.

And then how does it work this? This you can do one diagnostic to see how your country is different from another. So you can really see they are using more electricity because they have hydro, they are using more of these in Poland because they have coal. I mean, you can explain the differences. And then you can run scenarios. You know, what if? You know, we want to cut things.

70% of emissions. Yes, let me see how you do it. Because you have things to do. You know, you have a list of things to do. And let me see how you can cut 70% of emission. So it is very open in the sense we call it a deliberation support because it's not even a decision support. It bringing you up in the sense you start looking at the fact that there are a lot of

implication, a lot of concerns, and how to practice, I cannot do in English, prioritize concern, no? And this is... So in order to make good decisions, we have to understand the problem first. Yeah, that we don't. Yeah. Right. Yeah. At the moment, we are operating on policy legend, you know, the circular economy. Circular economy is against the law of thermodynamics. I mean, we are making fun of the people that were believing to the flat earth,

but believing the circular economy is the same level. This against the law of thermodynamic. We are metabolic system, deceivative system, we must take from our environment and dump into the environment. It is against anything known that we can close the loop inside. So can you expand on that? Why do you use the word metabolism in your core title of your work? Because, again, this will go to the heart of energetics.

Okay? Transformation of energy are really, really belong to the complexity issue. First of all, energy doesn't exist. is a semantic concept. Do you have plenty of forms of energy, but electricity is not energy for your car or for a person. We cannot eat electricity.

And the same way, ham is food for us, but not for an Islamic person. So there is no energy. Nor for a car. Not for a car, yeah. So first of all, there is no energy. And second, when you get to the issue of how to use a transform energy,

you have always to do a process of autocatalysis. It's not input-output, it's chicken egg. Let's give you an example. A cow goes to a pasture to get energy. First of all, you start with, you must have energy. The cow has to move, muscle, and see the things, know how, to eat grass. Okay, then you get grass.

Grass is not energy for a cow. It's the primary energy sources. It's only after you are digesting this, you get carbohydrate and other things and move the cows. So in this very simple example, you have three type of energy end-uses. The mix of energy carrier, information, and technology, the muscle, you know. Second, a primary energy, like for us, would be oil, cool, or wind, or sun.

Then you have energy carrier, electricity, fuel. These things are different. All people that do analyze you energy in, energy out, you do not have this number. This number do not exist. They make sense only if you are analyzing them inside an autocatalytic loop. How much you need to do that? Do you have enough capital of technology to do it?

how much, you know, this type of, it's totally missing. I mean, and I think this has been the big disaster of energy analysis in the 70s and the 80s. I'm old enough to remember I was in the States. And the dream was net energy analysis. This was the eroi part, no? In reality, it is not that simple because in the energy return on investment, you don't have a size, first of all. Then you have a flow flow, there is not fun. Then there is no distinction between primary resources and energy carrier.

Because if you have an output larger than an input, someone has to pay. That is the primary energy resources is not included in the ROE analysis. So what I'm saying, okay, I don't want to get technical because maybe people cannot understand. What I'm saying is that energetics is the ultimate complexity. problem and unfortunately this has been totally missed because when in the 80s the energy analyst you know but white flag you say we are not producing anything useful there are papers on science saying no it is net energy of any use then the economic energy analysts get in that they do not have any idea what they are talking about

and then these are those they are running the show now so On this question, then, your point is that comparing energy is not only apples and oranges, but it's apples and oranges and pears and plums and comp lots. Within a process of either selling it or either eating them. There is a larger context. Yeah. No, I understand and agree with that, which means that not only are you talking about complexity theory, but this is a complex thing to understand and explain to people.

And society doesn't like complex things because we just like to parse things into dollars or euros and we make decisions on that. And this is not easy to do with what you just said. It is something they should start in school. How would we do that? How would we do that? I think that they should change the way we teach things at school. Because all the energetics, metabolizing, these are all, and let alone the discussion of multiple scales. This idea that we have only one scale is absurd, no?

Depending on, again, if I'm using a microscope, if I use a telescope, if I use my eye, if I use x-ray, I see different things. And which one is the real one? Por favor, pardon. All are real. It depends on how I am looking at. So this is something that should be a reflection. That's what it is. I totally agree.

But before we do that, we have to even teach young people what energy is and why it's important to our lives. We're still not even doing that. Yeah. Yeah. But we are victim of the success of economics. This is the point. We are intoxicated. Because if you imagine we have a discipline, I work with Kozo Mayumi, which is a professor of economics, so I respect the category, what I'm saying.

But what I'm saying is that economics assume that absolute scarcity is impossible because works with price. If you have price, there is a moderate scarcity. So you can use technology, trade, the things. but if you have absolute scarcity, you don't longer have price. You don't have a market. You have either war or solidarity, but you don't have market. Okay? So we are using a science they assume the absolute scarcity is impossible to study absolute scarcity

how to avoid it. I mean, guys, it's no. Economics is not capable of comparing the size, of economic process to the size of ecological process. Would that ever change? I don't know. You know the normal science and post-normal science, no? When you have a big success, a discipline became normal.

Nobody questioned the assumption. So the physicists give us the atomic bomb. So whatever they say now, before the Big Bang, it was noting, that with the bosom, our life will change drama. Everyone believe it, even though maybe it is not that clear. And economics made possible for us to create money out of nothing, you know, the financial operation. So, and this is our life standard, depend on this.

So nobody now is questioning economics. This is delivered. You see, is the discipline that delivered to society. Well, the discipline of economics, was born on the backs of the carbon pulse, and ironically was unaware of the carbon pulse. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Maybe when the pulse will be over, we will have a different economic. I mean, I'm not saying that all the economics is useless. I mean, forget it. I mean, fantastic. And moreover, economists did a huge contribution to ecological economics. what I'm saying is that as long as we have the American dream as the myth that give us a group identity, there is nothing we can do. Unless we get into a rediscussion of the fact that the American dream, that 10 billion people on this planet will have the same living standard of the United States, and everyone believe it is what keep together, glue together people, If until we believe this, there is nothing we can do and we will be trapped, remain trapped into economic narratives.

Getting back to my question, what is the relevance and importance of the word metabolism in your acronym? Does society have a metabolism and why is that important? Of course. The metabolism is the society has a metabolism. And the metabolism implied that there is an autocatalysis, the system is capable of getting the energy and the resources that is consuming to express function, is made of different parts. So you have multi-scale things. You have the liver, is operating as a lever, but at the same time it is a part of the larger system. And moreover, in that case, you have a group of autocatalysis. is the different parts work for each other.

Look, in what we do, in the society, you have that the household is reproducing human activity. Then you have the agriculture is producing energy for the humans, the endosomatic energy. Energy and mining is producing energy and material for the exosomatic part, the machines, the infrastructure. Then you have the manufacturing

that is building the exosomatic device, and then you have the service sector that is generating institution and taking care of the human fund. So you have five organs.

I'm telling you, I mean, we don't have time. This is exactly like the structure of an ecosystem. So if you are using the standard, you know, the Latin talking of relational analysis, you can define that a society is expressing a metabolic pattern exactly

like an organism, even though people believe that this is absurd, is heterodox, but it is. So in my own life and behaviors, I have difficulty choosing things to override my own metabolism. How do societies choose when we have a metabolism or don't we choose? Look, the society has a list of things to do. And then you can have the list from statistics. Statistics is the state of the state is how a society learn how to describe itself. So what the society does? there is a part that they produce humans household and the part that stabilise the economic process.

Then, within the economic process, you have agriculture that has food. The agriculture is divided in animal production. Every time you go down, there are the final cause, if you are using relational analysis, why you have to do what you are doing. Then, of course, the society can decide to change the type of final cause, we became vegetarian, we don't produce animals anymore, or can decide to change the priority over the different things? Because unfortunately, people do not know how things works.

But in a society, 100% of the time, 90, 92, 83% goes in not working. So we are operating all the society with 8% of our time, 7,000. hours per capita per year. If you divide the hour of work by the population, it depends where you are. It could be 750, 800. That includes babies and old people. No, no, the babies are on the other. I'm telling the working time in the paid work. Okay. Okay. So then 70, 60% of this go in the service. You see? Then you don't have time to do real things. This is why we are importing making the the thing because for the energy, all the energy that we consume in one year, is generated by eight hours of work, repeat, eight hours of work.

Because of our subsidy from fossil hydrocarbon? Yeah, of course. I mean, the idea is that you divide the energy consumption of a country by the hours of work in the energy sector, eight hours, okay? If we had fossil energy like Saudi Arabia, We had to work more because we had to do the extraction, the refining and things. In Europe, we are just getting energy carriers and we print money to pay for it. And of course, we may, and the same for agriculture, this is why you have tractors, no, why we have industrial agriculture, because you are producing all the food that you are eating in a year with 40 hours in Europe. In the States, much less.

in the States, they are produced like one tons of crops per hour. I mean, this is unthinkable talking about a circular economy if you were serious about respecting the natural cycles, no? I'm telling you, the people do not know. We are intoxicated by money. We cannot appreciate the importance of biophysical constraints. which is why I invited you to be a guest on this show because you've been telling this story for 40 years and very few people are listening but now suddenly with Ukraine and Russia and now recently

Israel and people are worried about Iran and the Straits of Hormuz people are starting to understand that money and technology are not the primary drivers that it's ecosystems and energy and materials that underpin all this money and stuff. So your ideas still might germinate and bear fruit. Let's solve. Yeah. So you also work on complexity, emergence, and adaptive cycles, which is another topic that people don't know much about.

And I've not had anyone on the show talk about adaptive. cycles, can you briefly explain what an adaptive cycle is and why those are relevant to our current global situation? Yeah, I mean, the adaptive cycle, the idea comes from Bud's Olling, that is a theoretical ecologist. And I would say that this as theoretical ecology is by far the discipline that got into the evolution, because everyone talked about evolution. but and then this require a little bit to get into complexity okay a complex adaptive system is not only a material things there is only tangible part it is also a not tangible how do you say the semiotic let's put it this way part so this was the simon the father of complexity the first one were saying okay we are in a situation which have recipes they are making processes they are making recipes

Then prigogen are saying there are genetic information that are making organisms or phenotype that make genetic information. So basically you have, and then this has been extended to human society by Lumen, the famous sociologist German sociology. They said, what is a society? It's a bunch of communications. They are used to stabilize a bunch of interactions. They are used to stabilize communication. we can go into it just five seconds using biosemiotic is, in reality you have on the top the meaning of things, types, the communication,

and the bottom you have token instances of things. So basically you have the semiotic appears that you have represent, it would be the communication, act, there would be interaction, and then you have interpretation. So in the cycle, you are interpreting your action moving from instance to type to have better communication. Okay. And then having better communication, you interpret the better communication to have better interaction, you know, and then you move from type to instance. So you have that this cycle is a continuous resonance between type and instance, instance and type.

Margalev, that is a famous ecologist in Spain, call it like the ecosystem sent message to themselves into the future. In the sense, you are giving a genotype in a specific area. They do something. They organize an ecosystem. In this organization, some phenotype are eliminated

and some are amplified. This change the genotype and this going on on. And this could be for you, system the same you are defining social role and institution then you get into a social practice what we do and then the genius of lemon is that then you have a psychic structure that define whether or not you like it and then is the psychic structure that on the loop define what communication you like or not you know the cancel can culture or the political process

basically. So you can apply. It's exactly the same for ecosystem and genetic information and for societies. But again, Nate, these things in school, so basically if you start discussing this type of narrative, if people really look at you like if you are coming from another planet. But these things have been out for 50 years, what I'm saying, what I'm saying, what I'm I'm saying that this is not normal. We have a sort of filter of whatever is uncomfortable, you know, the famous uncomfortable knowledge, is kept out of our educational system,

is kept out of our discussion of sustainability. Because, I mean, I really, I cannot believe that I have to explain how the other legal loop or biosemiotic. This is 50-year-old. It's not that, you know, is a new theory that came out last year, but nobody knows. If you talk about Kuzner Kursner-Kurz, whatever other legend, that's completely ridiculous. Everyone knows, no?

Well, let's move to that. How has our modern society's preference for reductionism, especially in the academy and science, exacerbated the issue that you just outlined, the complexity of working with different scales on what's really important to our society. How is reductionism led us astray from what we really need to focus on?

Yeah, I mean, I believe that this came exactly from this adaptive cycle. In the sense, you need a society that has a very strong group identity, is very motivated. Okay. So what motivated the Western civilization? The American dream and the Cartesian dream. The Cartesian dream is whatever we want to do, we do it. It's just a matter of more technology, more innovation, and we do it. Okay.

So this gives a feeling to people that we are in the right society. We are in the right group identity. And that, of course, because of oil, this made possible to have a better standard of living. So basically, everyone perceived that the American dream and the Cartesian dream is where to go. What happened that at this point, this was so strong that whatever was going against, you remember, the limit to grow, something like that, whatever was going against, you remember the limit to grow, something like that, no, whatever was going. going against this was considered as dangerous for society. Let's step backward. Why we have science?

We have science to get new knowledge, but we have science to stabilize the establishment. Before the French Revolution, you say, you have to pay taxes. Why? Because the king says so. Why the king knows? Because God appointed the king. after the French Revolution, he said, you have to pay tax.

Why? Because the government said, and why the government? No, because he followed the scientific advice, you know? So we use science to stabilize the establishment. So at this point, it's very delicate that, I mean, I'm telling, I, I mean, we can, we can go. I'm retired. I got a big project from European Union, no? And then we were looking at the different narratives used in, the sustainability, you know? And you're looking, one by one, it's all bullshit.

I mean, they don't make any sense. They are not possible there. And then, of course, when we were discussing, because it was European Union was paying, no? So we were, they said, of course, I had people that told me that we cannot go on public. We know all these are bushes. We don't have the slightest idea what to do.

I mean, this is not acceptable in So what do we have? We have Greta that says, we should stop all fossil energy. Say, okay, guys, how do you feed the cities? We stop to use

fossil energy. I mean, there is a total divide among what people want to do and the idea that you have to have how, how this would be possible. And this cannot be discussed because as soon as whoever does,

not big models, back on the envelope calculation. You see that what they are talking about is not possible. I agree with that. I think you're pointing out two things, though. Science still does exist because you are a scientist and you're modeling or have modeled in your career the biophysical reality. It's just the political and economic filter of what science is accepted is limiting

science's positive contribution to our future. Could I say it that way? Yeah, yeah. But I mean, in a way, this is a tragedy because even my students that have been with me like years as PhD, if they want to get a job, they have to go on project on circular economy.

If they want to be published, you have to say yes, because I'm old enough. I remember that at the beginning when I was getting called for research, was we have a problem, do we have idea? Okay. Now, do we want to implement this solution? Can you provide how?

This 10 years later, 10 years later, we are implementing this. Can you prove that we are right? You know, now the science, the way get funded changed dramatically. Now, basically, we are just supporting the claim of the government or the establishment or what we are no longer have a rule. for maneuvering. I have a model proving that it's not possible. You will not get money, no matter what. Do you have a hope or a fear that once the European Union or the global governments of the world figure out the situation we're in that you will be called out of retirement to work with people at

Valladolid and other biophysical researchers who actually understand what's going on? Look, I believe that they more or less know that it's not working. This is what we got. We got 7.5 millions, and that probably was to try to check a plan B, to see where the weakness were. We were given money to check the credibility of the narrative use for their policy. So, I mean, it's obvious that they have a sort of inch that, how do you say in English, they feel that there is something that,

that is not good. Again, I believe that it is difficult for them. Not European Union, all the governments I have a fantastic piece of a comedian in the States, the old state of the Union, of the old president from the last one to Nixon

and before, about the fact that they will fix the energy problems in five years. It's John Stewart Daily Show clip. I show that to my students. It is not Europe.

The legitimacy of modern states is based on the fact that they know what they are doing. That they are doing policy-based, scientific-based policy. Scientific evidence policy

evidence policy. But my question is there are enough people in the world. It's not a lot, but it's still plenty, that are working on biophysically informed analysis, that although there are no solutions that are politically acceptable with our current situation, there are a lot of responses and good research

and good relevant questions that academic-minded people can be working on. So how do we build that bridge or do you think that's too far of a gap to ever bridge? Look, I believe that this is one of your paper that I really liked a lot, that ecological economics and all the end, we didn't manage to generate an alternative narratives to economics, to explain the interaction of humans, the environment.

As a matter of fact, this bioeconomics, narrative is very, very nice about the fact that you have both the institution, social practices, the constraints coming from the environment, and the constraints coming from the psychic structure, and this is how the system goes to an adaptive cycle. It is much better to frame a discussion of sustainability. But if you are within the economic narrative, you are expressing everything, and price and things. There is nothing you can do. You may have information coming from different place, but it doesn't fit in the larger narrative. We need a larger narrative in which everyone

is feeling comfortable, though, and otherwise you cannot communicate. This is a upper mass. In order to communicate, you must have the same identity or cultural identity or group identity on the person with whom you are talking. And then we, I mean, biophysical analysts are autistic. We are not capable of communicating because we do not share the same group identity with those they are talking within economic narratives. So it is very difficult. Nor the same language.

Yeah, it is not language. It's more. And there is more. So this is a problem. This is a problem because unless we remove the intoxication with economic talking or things, because when you are using a word, the world comes with a lot of baggage. Look, for example, in my institute, okay, it's no longer my institute until last week, I have the degrot people, no?

I have the headquarters of the degrade on this planet. But still, what they say, de-growth. So this is an economic narrative. Either you de-grow, de-grow, agro, post-grow is the same. You are using an economic narrative. No, we have to do something else. We want to have an economy of care. We have to care for each other.

As long as you mention the word growth, then it is very difficult to think about doing things in a different way. So like Giorgos Callis and them are in your institute? He used to be my neighbor. Ah, okay. Yeah, okay. I didn't connect.

You were in the same university. Obviously that makes sense. Same building. Same building. And Julia as well? Julia? What was the last name? Steinberger?

Yeah, it's not in the institute. Oh, she collaborates with Georgios. So does this get? at something in your work that you call quantitative storytelling? Yes, this is the things that we propose. Because when you are doing something very complex, there is no way that you can have the ultimate uncontested proof. Or, you know, they said that the smoking was not dangerous for the health for 40 years,

the merchant of doubts. In the sense, you can, if you go on a scientific base, evidence, you pay scientists to prove that the results are not accurate, it was not enough. It is impossible to win. So we say, okay, when we are talking about these things, we propose that we are having narratives. We have narratives and we put numbers to prove them. I give you an example. Now in Europe, we do recycle cooked oil.

Recycooked oil. If you go around, you go on a Stockholm. this bus goes on Recily, cooked oil, we save the planet, blah, blah, blah. It's okay, but how much cooked oil we are having, like five liters per capita per year, okay, we can collect two.

When collecting and transforming, it became one oil biodiesel per liter per person per year. We are consuming 1,000 between gasoline. So what we are talking about, you know? And we have

a lot of cooked oil. And Why is that? Because there is a fraud. They are importing palm oil, so they are actually cutting the forest in Indonesia to have the bus in Stockholm. They run. And what happened? We don't need models. We don't need no models.

It's a narrative. The narrative is, is this, there is not enough. Look, these numbers are these. That's it. Let's do something else. We don't need an accurate, no, with two decimal. So we use this

in the sense we tell a different story the quality of the story is whether you feel that this is convincing or then you can check on your own on your own the numbers because it's totally transparent it's not about doing these models

and that we call it quantitative storytelling and I think that is to me especially for having a deliberation with people is because if you would force all these people that have magic models, know,

that they are decarbonized Europe in 20 years, all the models, you see, nobody knows, no? You can imagine in 20 years you have to build thousands of millions of windmill to new factories, you know, all in 10 years, and the reduction goes down.

We should have a peak of emission incredibly high, no, but all the scenarios goes down. So rather than having mysterious models, we will force people to tell their story and they put numbers on the story. It will be easier to check the quality of the discussion. So then you would need focus groups of people to hear the stories. There are a lot of participatory process. You may have even sit as a jury.

It is even better, not like in the trial with people say in favor, people against. But then you get to the human behavior section and authority bias and all those other things because your quantitative storytelling may be absolutely true, but it's also threatening and a little scary and there's no easy answers. So people will reject hearing it, even if it's accurate. Yeah, but it's already happening, Nate. I mean, let's face it. People do not want to hear about, you know, it's much easier.

it is I don't know I don't know of course especially for kids I'm also kids are young people 25 it's difficult

because it's their future and they want to do but they are totally disempowered I mean if I am in a society in which technical innovation and market business models

define my future I do not play any role and it's why they are taking picture of themselves just to prove that they are alive they are part of the story because they are not part of the story. They are not building the common identity. Young people are completely out. And this is a tragedy.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. So it is my belief that one of the most underutilized resources in our world today is young people, smart, civic-minded graduate students at universities around the world who can contribute meaningful and relevant research to this, what I call the human predicament, except, as you said earlier, most universities are reductionist, energy blind under the thrall of economic theory. So as a recently retired, very recently last week, biophysically literate professor, can you suggest to any university

people listening to this program, what are some questions or core areas of research should these young humans who are in their early 20s or mid-20s and agree with what you're saying? What are some good areas of research that we need orders of magnitude, more people look at. That's for sure. Energetics, the thermodynamics, non-equilibrium, all the discussion of the sieveative system, complex system theory, high hierarchy theory, the implication of scale. Because we imagine that there is only one scale that is not. All the, what we are talking about, there are scales that go from molecules, chemical reaction to geological here, whatever. We don't have a slicing idea, or you have different disciplines and do not talk to each other because they

see different things. So they are living in parallel universes. We don't have, so what I'm saying, biosemiotic for this is unbelievable. How powerful is. Can you, I'm sorry to interrupt, can you define biosemiotics? Because I'm not even sure what that means. At the beginning, we had the semiotic, the use of sign, the interpretation of sign, in the language, blah, blah, blah. And then at a certain point, came this biosemiotic, what of it is 1907, I mean really very old, Van Uckel.

And then this was about how the living system managed to generate sign and use sign to reproduce

itself. And then this is a general process that is happening at all level. And then this goes, this is where you get into the adaptive cycle. No? As soon as you have a sign, you have a type that is not material.

Sign, S-I-G-N, sign? Sign. Something that means something. So in reality, you have an information carrier. It would be DNA, a word, whatever, which has a meaning. So the issue is how to generate a meaning. You can generate the meaning if you have what is called a functional cycle, something that depend on interpreting right, the science, in order to survive.

And basically this is the way life works and how human system works and so on is exactly the same. It is pretty much established, but again, in scientific terms they are on the border because they are not considered. I went now in Copenhagen to the latest gathering and it was like Harry Potter, you know, this kind of... They are not considered like serious scientists. Nobody knows why, because in my view, it's probably the most interesting field at the moment. And then what is very good about biosemiotic

is that basically you can see that you have values that came from passion, from feeling, and then you get norms came from the rational part. And then you cannot imagine to run a system only on rational behavior, model, norms. You have to include how the formation of values is influencing that. So in my view, this is much, much richer than what we have at the moment. At the moment, we have really something sad. Egonomics is sad that you don't have a room for a feeling.

you don't have a room for the environment, really is not getting anywhere. So in a perfect world, just speculate and imagine that universities around the world start thinking about scale, have a lot more questions in research on energetics and biosemiotics and thermodynamics,

and we start to create a better map of our reality what could universities look like in 10 or 20 or 30 years and what contribution could they make to a peak and descent of the carbon pulse? But I believe that what they could do is to involve the society in the formation of new group identity. Because again, this is not about, technology or business model is about forming a new group

identity. We have to move from producing and consuming good and services, taking care of ourselves and nature. People have to understand this, has to feel. This is the point. It's not about explaining. It's about explaining this

on issues. They are relevant for their life in a way that they start feeling it. So this is the issue because otherwise he remain on the top. It's like the old friends I mean I have a lot of

students. They are as I say vegetarian, no? Eating vegetable coming from Peru in refrigerated airplanes but then they have three mobile phone. They go they have a guest on skiing on Samoritz.

There are symbolic things that I don't think that being vegetarian at the moment is a threat from the banking system. Let's be the people do not make the connection. Because moreover, if you frame the discussion, we need more technical innovation, more business model, you are saying we need to give more money to the banks. I'm not sure that this is the right strategy to get out of the trouble where we are now.

But it seems that nobody makes these connections at this moment, no? So at the core of what you just said is we're not going to change until we feel the need to change. And hopefully that can be scientifically and biophysically informed, or maybe there are some break glass plans from universities like your own lying around. To have disciplines, they start including in the discussion that there is a, this aspect, the feeling and the role of emotions. Because otherwise, I don't think that nothing happened with just information. Moreover, you are telling them, there is no problem, we can do it, yes, we can, more technology.

And then you say, you have to radically change your behavior. Why I should? Because it is, but I mean, the story is so absurd at the moment. we are doing innovation to stabilize the social practice. It's ridiculous. Let's imagine. We have cars. No, we don't want to have cars anymore.

We have hundreds of millions of cars. Now what do we do? 100 millions of cars, electric. You know, Jesus, abolish the private property of cars. And then they must share. Otherwise, they're going to go. This is change of social practice. No, they change technology to keep the same social practice.

You know, this is a famous, Italian novel, The Gatto Fardo, no, after the revolution you say, but how did it? You change everything so everything remained the same. It's exactly the plan now. We are doing all these things to keep the status quo.

So you mentioned that Giorgos, who is a friend of mine, was in your same building. What do you think about, you mentioned it briefly before, but what do you think about the de-growth post-growth growth debate

beyond they're all using the terms of economics. You have an opinion? The growth, I believe it was a provocation basically. And of course

it was not very easy to communicate. As a matter of fact, since they moved from the growth to post-growth, they got money. They got 10 millions, no, and immediately as soon as they move from de-growth to post-grow. Because post-grow, at least, is more reasonable in the sense.

Because if you do de-growth, you say more or less of the same. We do not want the same. We want something else, no? So to me, post-grow is much better. As a matter of fact, I told them several times to go from to post-grow. again, I see that there is no an alternative in terms of grand narrative about how humans organize themselves and how they interact with the environment, let alone considering the fact that a different society are competing with each other to train, no? So there is not, the economic narrative is not good. to look for something else where to accommodate the discussion and it is crucial the role

of feeling because if you have a description of how a society works without explicitly having a place where human emotion feeling aspiration dreams taboo fears are acting that is basically where they affect policy, political processes. We do not have it. They are completely separated, no? So a friend of mine who's been on this program a few times, Nora Bateson lives in Sweden, she does these things called Warm Data Labs, which is to present a scientific overview of some problem, but then integrate it with the feelings and responses of the people in

the room and it's iterative and emergent and that's kind of what you're talking about in a way. Yeah, this is good. The important is that the data coming about the sustainability should be integrated on different aspects. You know, like, again, the medicine, how is your liver, how is your, you must have information about all your organs before making a discussion of what we do. because if you do this only one part of the story is much better than nothing, of course, but it would be important to have a narrative that can get all the aspects of the problem together.

And then on that, you are asking the reaction of the people. Could this happen at universities that you have representatives from different disciplines and departments meet once a week and have this, like, warm data discussion about how their discipline contributes to this larger backdrop. They should do that. They should do that.

The only problem, look, I try to do that in Naples about waste management. So we had a fantastic model, how to, the network of process. And then, of course, as soon as you do that, you show that what the politicians say is not possible, either one party or another. So what happened? When we arrived to the fact that we want to have an open meeting at a university with the activists, the citizens, concerned citizens

and the politician, and the people running the waste management system, and the politician didn't want to come. Because, of course, you have to have this is the problem. I mean, we are getting in a serious problem. Okay. The future doesn't exist. The future is created by us.

So when you have a problem, you cannot have the map, what to do, the target, things. Because you have to discuss with people what are viable, desirable, feasible things. In general, parties are defining themselves on solutions. So this makes difficult to have a deliberation because you should say, okay, in what the party A say there are good ideas, but this is rubbish, and what party B say there are good ideas, this is rubbish. And parties and maybe at least enables when we tried, were not willing to do that. We were really unlucky because they had the election in less than one year, so it was a delicate moment. But this is the point. In general, at the moment, we have roadmaps.

Everyone has roadmaps. Nobody checked whether these roadmaps are possible, what the mean for other people. So, Lattlans started with roadmaps. We should have some sort of platform in which people could deliberate about pros and cons of different solutions. And I believe that this should be done by university, yes. Or it could be done by government or whoever of the different. possible actors. I'm trying to do it in a small way with this podcast, I think, as you were speaking.

So let me ask you a hard question, but with an academic link. So you are, you use in your Moose CSM multi-scale integrated analysis, but it's very difficult for humans to optimize more than one very very very. variable at a time. And a lot of people now are concerned about keeping GDP growing, but we're also concerned about equality and we're also concerned about emissions and carbon. So is it possible to optimize more than one variable at one time? But the easy question is no. As a matter of fact, I am in Barcelona because I came here in 92 because they had a good center for multi-rideria analysis.

So I was trying to link multiteria analysis of my type of models because every time you change something in the lens, you change one indicator on the rather diagram. But then you get on the bottom line is, okay, you have this representation on the multigrideria space, and then how to weight the different factors. In reality, the criteria of performance, are mapping onto concerns.

So at the set of point, you have to map the concerns of people. This is impossible. You cannot do it with software. I am concerned for my daughter, another person doesn't have kids, is not as the same concern that I have, and so on.

So this idea that you can optimize multicriteria things is absurd, but even the people doing multiteria will tell you, because the real issue is when you get to the waiting facts. how to weight different factors for the different criteria. But that at its core is what society faces right now. We have been optimizing one variable, which is dollars and profits. And now we care about ecosystems and future generations and equality and other things.

So we're flying blind into that. Yeah, no, I mean, because we are continuing to try to solve the problem with optimization, find the best possible way. These things do not exist. You have to negotiate. You have to deliberate to understand the problem of the others and the others have

to understand your problems. At that point, you can find a solution. But the solution has to be created, co-produced. So what the scientists can do is helping the society in this process. Not tell the society what is the best thing

to do. This is ridiculous. So how do we bring governance on these issues, whether in Barcelona or in Spain or in the United States or even something broader like the European Union? How do we bring governance back towards a perspective that can actually look at the full scale of the issues we face? Is that possible? Can it be done with our current structures of government? Personally, I don't know. I think that it's not possible with the current structure of people that we have. People are used to not to get into this type of discussion. So they hope that there is someone else that knows better.

This is why the subject cannot say we don't know better. Like with the COVID, you remember the COVID? They didn't have an idea what to do. But of course, they cannot say it. I mean, this is a cultural. We have to learn as a society to take decision under uncertainty. And our culture is not based on this. Our culture is based on NASA, the things they know, they have a computer.

And then this makes difficult to have a healthy or quality governance because people want someone else that know better, tell them what to do. in my opinion and this opinion was shaped or began to be shaped 15 years ago when I was getting my PhD you are one of those people that knows what's going on and so I will put you on the spot on what to do what types of policies given what you know about energetics and thermodynamics and complex adaptive systems might you recommend that governments start adopting whether on a local regional or national scale, not to put you on the spot in your fresh retirement. Look, I mean, I really, I don't know.

I mean, what I believe is completely irrelevant. I cannot decide for other people, you know. There are people that can say, I prefer to do this and die rather than do that, and that maybe for me would be more reasonable. What I would say first, to stop wasting money on this technical innovation, that this is a, I don't know, gravy train, maybe, that all are getting money. Look what happened with the energy vendor in Germany. This was very interesting.

They want to do alternative energy. They spent 300 billion. After 300 billion, they are producing electricity exactly like work to do before. Picker, loader, and the intermittent, since there are no storage, cannot cover much. So basically, they have been building an enormous amount of, intermittent power capacity that is not used. So the idea is, rather than putting 300 billion given to the usual multinational,

it's okay, I give to all the towns, you know, 100 million to one. If they came out with some plan to do something, maybe something good here and there will come out. In the sense, stop to do mega plan, especially since they are not particularly good at making the plans or at making the

analysis. Try rather to have trying to have emerging solution from the bottom that can be readjust because the more you go to regulation, big plan, big money. First of all, the more the lobbies get in

and then we get the money. And second, at the moment, we do not have good understanding, good analysis, a good plan, let alone roadmaps. I would save money and try to use it in a different way. So that's what we need first and foremost is a better understanding of the problem and then inform people at the local levels and give a portion of the money that would have went to some

multinational to try. You want to change social practices. You don't want to change technology to keep the social practices we are doing now. This is exactly the opposite of what we have to do. Yeah, I understand that. But then this has to be done at the lab because when you do a social practice, not practice with an S only, you are affecting your neighbor. You don't do it as an individual. It's not a behavior, a social practice. It's something which is within a household, it is a functional type.

So if you are a mother of two, you are not having a behavior. if you are single or a matter or two, it's not about behavior. It's about you are forced to do different social practices. You see, then this is another legacy of economics. We don't have behavior to change. We have to think what are the social practices they are acceptable, not acceptable, the people like or not like.

And this implies interaction with the others. It's a social construct. Yep, our relationships with others with the natural world are just totally not part of our economic system right now. Dare I ask you your opinion on Europe's plans to scale hydrogen and green hydrogen. Is that another waste of resources? Look, compare with electric cars. I believe hydrogen is much better. It's much better because you can store it.

You can use wind, whatever. You eliminate the problem of intermittency. For Europe would be the salvation, because if they go with electric car, China will produce them. They are dead. This will be the last industry in Europe. It is also easier to transport. It is very difficult to handle.

So maybe the idea would be to do hydrogen and with hydrogen do other synthetic fuels and then use that. I really don't know how is the state of the technology. I know that especially in Germany, they are investing a lot of money because it's about surviving in terms of automotive industry. But if I would suggest, I would suggest more to do that rather than the electrification of the economy.

the electrification is very, very complicated. Look, half of the labor in the energy sector is in the energy grid. Even though it's giving only 30% of the energy, use half of the work. Because it's complicated in maintenance. And especially we start going through low-density area. I believe that liquid fuels or things are easier to handle. But again, I don't know the state of advancement of the technology in hydrogen production.

I have some final questions that I ask all my guests, Dr. Jim Pietro. You have thought about and are working on these issues as a career. You understand what we face with the carbon pulse and energetics, etc. Do you have any personal advice to the watchers and listeners of this program, given this time of what's happening in the planet, what some would call a pilot crisis? Yeah, I would say to be curious, to be trying to be informed as much as possible,

trying to look for alternative resistance, to be, to check also what is happening in the, outside the mainstream. But I agree that it's very, very, very difficult. Very, very difficult because the establishment doesn't make, it's not a conspiracy, of course, but I mean, it is not easy to try to get alternative information in this situation. And what about your students and young people generally?

What do you recommend your students or 20-something-year-olds listening to this program. Do you have advice for young humans? Yeah, my advice has been to avoid the like Mozart, because they do not have to do things because the other do. It's on fashion or because it's the only way that I have to get a job is maybe you will get a job in the next four or five years, but probably in 20 years you will not be on the edge of what is needed. I mean, we are experiencing a major change in our situation.

And of course, if you start doing things that at the moment are not on fashion, maybe they will be the one needed in 10 years when you will be on the top of your career. I understand that it's difficult for young people to go against the wind. but I'm not sure that going with the wind at the moment is guaranteeing you a good job in 20 years. So when I taught my class at the University of Minnesota, I told my students that in the future, they would simultaneously be thanking me and cursing me.

Is that the same story with your former students? Yeah, yeah. I had a very, very nice, the last PhD student, said, they was asked to do a drop in a different place, he said, when you experience the musism, you never get back. He doesn't want to go to conventional analysis now. It is difficult. It is difficult.

You will have to go against the wind. On the other hand, I believe that as scientists, we are really privileged, no? We are paid for doing what we like doing. So it is like a priest, like a vocational career, you have to do what you think has to be done. I mean, really. And at the moment, I'm telling you, it's really embarrassing. If you see the things from the big picture, the sustainability science is really, really sloppy. Yeah.

No, I'm aware of that. Mario, what do you care most about in the world? This is one million questions. I would say affective interaction. To be able to have interaction that we can have a feeling on. Stop to marketize everything that we have to have price. Whatever you do, you have to pay for or whatever. To have more personal relation, no, that we manage to in the family,

outside the family, in the community, whatever we go, even across different countries, to always have some sort of affection in type of interaction and the one do. This is something that is jeopardized at the moment, no? Agency. Would you call that agency for people to have agency? Effective agency.

Yeah, effective agency. It must be some effect some sort of you in it. Yeah, yeah. That this would help a lot. If you had a magic wand and there was no personal recourse to your decision and you're also retired, what is one thing you would do to improve the future? Again, this is like what I would do really doesn't matter because I am, is my personal opinion. It's not, I don't feel so arrogant to decide for the life of all.

people. I would like to have people they are more reflexive. I would have a wave of reflexivity to people to reflect them what they are doing. Because at the moment this is something that is we are losing pretty much. I mean, that people do things without having this idea what they do that. So we should be more proactive and reflective instead of reactive. Yeah. And and and respect the others also, know, that. And since I'm Buddhist, in the others, I include also animals and the rest of, we should respect more. I knew there was a reason I always liked you. Respect for animals is something I like.

We have to respect. We don't respect anything. I don't want to be now in public, but all these tattoos, no. I mean, you have to respect your body. The body is not yours. You got it. you got it, and then you have to leave it as in the best possible condition. I mean, you would not write on animals or why you should write on yourself.

I mean, I don't know. We don't respect, not even ourselves. This is the moment. So let me, if this has been a great introduction to you and your work, sometimes I have my guests come back for a second podcast, six months down the road, where they take a deep dive in some topic that they're an expert in, but it's a little bit esoteric, but it's also relevant to human futures. Is there any topic that you are just passionate about

that if you were to come back, you could take a deep dive and explain it to the viewers? Oh, yeah, for sure. The extinction of farmers. This is amazing. I've been in Japan for one month. the average age Japanese farmers is 70

listen to this 70 they do not have agriculture anymore in Europe is 60 if you go wherever you go the farmers are gone they are going you know I spoke in Argentina the meeting of the

basically there they no longer have farmers they have people that make exploitation from the city they rent 3,000 hectares they go they we track those things, but I mean, the rural communities and farmers are disappearing all over the planet. And nobody cares.

I mean, this is fascinating. If they were, I don't know, lesbian, Judeo, whatever, will protest about the fact that this community is going, but that the farmers are going is completely irrelevant for the urban civilization that we are living in. This would be really something, huh? at this deserve not one hour but because i mean urbans believe that the food comes from the supermarket and whatever else happened before doesn't matter

and the farmers are not economically viable period in the international market with the pressure that they have they they need subsidies otherwise they cannot they don't even do it well with the subsidies. One percent of Americans in the United States are farmers and only one percent of them are growing food they can actually eat as opposed to soybeans and things like that. I may take you up on that and come back. So let me ask you final question. It's around dinner time in Barcelona. Can I ask you what I love coming to Spain? What are you going to have for dinner tonight? Do you have an idea? No. I think eggplants for sure.

maybe chicken and rice. I don't know. I didn't check that. Okay. Will you have some olives, Acetuna? Olives to start, yes. It's very popular here.

Yeah. It's great to talk to you. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much for having me. Congratulations on your retirement. And I think the world is still going to need your expertise. I'm not sure. Professor.

The autistic scientist. Okay, thank you very much. It's been fun. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of The Great Simplification, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform and visit The Great Simplification.com for more information on future releases. This show is hosted by Nate Hagen's,

edited by No Troublemakers Media, and curated by Leslie Batlutz and Lizzie Siriani. Thank you.