Who Believes in Ecological Damage?

This June brought significant heatwaves. In Paris, a colleague remarked that the country is well prepared to face winter cold, yet structurally ill-equipped for extreme heat. Along the Seine, temperatures pushed beyond 30°C in a string of sweltering days, and yet relatively few homes have air conditioning.

Back in Brianza, between home and office, I enjoyed a constant climate—cool nights for a pre‑7 a.m. run, and actively cooled spaces at home, at work, and en route. All this despite Aeolus rarely visiting the Milan area and the rain gods seemingly ignoring our streets, concrete walls, and surrounding countryside.

Climate change—rising temperatures, melting ice, and increasing atmospheric CO₂—has moved from prediction to lived experience. It may tire or unsettle us, but it no longer surprises. We understand the causes, we discuss and analyze them, and we try to control what we can. We broadly accept human responsibility for excessive emissions that warm the planet. As floods, heatwaves, and stronger storms become more frequent, few now turn to divine intervention. Instead, we look to ourselves—our households, companies, governments, universities, and scientific associations—to act, invent, and implement solutions that can manage a well‑studied problem and repair what humanity has damaged.

In the scorching summer, we went to the Peloponnese. The long beaches invite short detours into olive groves and historic sites like Olympia. Despite the heat, less‑than‑Herculean fitness, and stiff sandals, I jogged a full lap of the ancient stadium, millennia after athletes ran there for the glory society bestowed on strength and discipline—immortalized in statues with sensual, powerful forms. Olympia—the cult of human excellence offered at Zeus’s temple—feels modern, echoed by our contemporary Olympics.

And yet it vanished.

The site fell into disuse; stones weathered under wind, rain, and sun; and without human upkeep they crumbled back into the earth, hidden by scrub and brambles. Temples, gymnasium, and stadium disappeared from sight until excavations in the last century resurfaced broken stones, terracotta shards, and copper plates.

Zeus ‘died’ under the pressure of a Christian Rome, and with him the hands that maintained the site. When belief faded, action stopped—and Olympia decayed.

Walking among the ruins and museums, three lessons stood out:

• Timing: neglect can erase achievements for centuries.
• Triggering causes: the collapse of a belief system can halt maintenance and progress.
• Consequences: recovery is not guaranteed; survival is often a miracle.

There are some parallels with the fall of Olympia and what many call the Energy Transition.

Regaining control of what we broke seems a long‑term process—likely beyond a few decades. Do we really have that time?

Le cause scatenanti l’aumento delle emissioni si legano alla rivoluzione industriale, e a un assetto sociale ormai globale, con ripercussioni economiche enormi. Due delle tre gambe della sostenibilità (sociale ed economica) oggi si basano su un consumo energivoro pazzesco che lega costi bassi e larga disponibilità a grandi volumi di emissioni nocive. Toccare l’energia rischia di sconvolgere l’intera sostenibilità del nostro mondo, cosa abbiamo quindi definito sotto il nome di Transizione Energetica? Abbiamo un piano preciso, condiviso, e poi soprattutto, abbiamo una fede predominante in questa condivisa Transizione Energetica?

Finally, the consequences. The Energy Transition is certainly not presenting itself as the advent of a new empire or a new religion, and in some respects not even as a true revolution. It seeks social priorities through politics and economic priorities through the management of energy markets, aiming to minimize disruptions and avoid devastating consequences. However, ecological consequences are not being mitigated much in this way, and the timelines will be long. Will nature be benevolent? Will it manage to preserve a livable planet for us in the coming century and beyond? What kind of life will that be?

Dai balconi del Palazzo Reale di Genova si vedono i traghetti, giganti del mare assopiti nel porto, e le gru a svettare in lontanaza. Guardo mia figlia nel sole, e penso a un articolo dell’Economist che racconta di come ci sia un crescente interesse scientifico nei tipping point dei vari disastri ecologici che potrebbero cambiare il mondo in cui viviamo. In uno studio di D. Armstrong McKay et al. del 2022 (“Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points”) il collasso della calotta di ghiaccio della Groenlandia (“Greenland ice sheet collapse”) pare possa avere un punto di non ritorno entro i 2 gradi centigradi sopra i livelli pre-industriali. Porterebbe mediamente, ho letto, 7 metri in più al livello dei mari, sarebbe sufficiente per pescare branzini direttamente dalle finestre dei carruggi. Sempre che questo enorme labirinto di vicoli medioevali esista ancora.