Catastrophe Theory

Katastrofa w swoim greckim źródłosłowie zawierała splot trzech znaczeń: biologicznego – jako śmierć, upadek bądź kres ciała; politycznego – jako podbój, ujarzmienie, zagłada armii, ludów czy polis; wreszcie, tekstualnego (teatralnego) – jako rozwiązanie węzła dramatycznego, ale również koniec opowieści, tekstu. Καταστροφή łączy w sobie te trzy porządki końca: ciała biologicznego, ciała politycznego, ciała tekstu. W niniejszej książce staraliśmy się nie zapomnieć o żadnym z nich. Katastrofy dają do myślenia.

SINOSSI: Lo spaventoso sisma di Lisbona, verificatosi il 1° novembre 1755, non comportò solo incalcolabili devastazioni sul piano socio-economico, ma andò a colpire profondamente tanto l’immaginario popolare (minandone le certezze quotidiane), quanto i savants dell’Europa settecentesca, stimolando un’intensa riflessione (che coprì l’intero spettro dei punti di vista, da quello teologico, a quello scientifico). Il giovane Kant è chiaro exemplum dell’interesse suscitato dall’eccezionale fenomeno tellurico presso gli illuministi: tra il gennaio e l’aprile del 1756, egli dette alle stampe tre brevi saggi interamente dedicati alla descrizione scientifica del terremoto portoghese, saggi che si inseriscono nel contesto degli studi del pensatore di Königsberg riguardanti la filosofia della natura e, nello specifico, l’età, l’origine e la costituzione della terra (oggetto dei saggi del 1754 e del 1755). Con il presente lavoro, si intende portare all’attenzione del lettore quella che pare essere una precisa evoluzione della concezione dell’utilità del terremoto, nel passaggio dal periodo pre-critico a quello critico, in particolare nella Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790). Qui l’Autore pare escludere il terremoto dall’elenco degli eventi naturali catastrofici la cui esperienza, “se ci troviamo al sicuro”, genera nell’uomo il concetto di sublime dinamico (KU, AA 05: 261). Quali sono le ragioni per cui il terremoto non trova spazio in questo discorso? Il sisma perde cioè i caratteri di catastrofe agli occhi di Kant, oppure è giudicato così terrificante da togliere ogni razionalità all’uomo e impedire ogni spiraglio interpretativo?

ABSTRACT: The dreadful Lisbon earthquake, which occurred on 1 November 1755, did not only cause an untold socio- economic devastation, but it also profoundly affected both public imagination (by undermining everyday certainties) and the savants of 18th century Europe, stimulating an intense debate (which covered the entire spectrum of points of view, ranging from the theological to the scientific). Young Kant is a clear exemplum of the interest aroused by this unprecedented seismic phenomenon amongst European thinkers of the Enlightenment: between January and April 1756, he published three brief essays entirely devoted to the scientific description of the Portuguese earthquake, essays that must be understood in the context of his studies on natural philosophy and, in particular, on the age, origin, and formation of the Earth (which were the topics of the essays of 1754 and 1755). With this paper, we aim to draw the Reader’s attention to the evolution that has characterised, in our opinion, Kant’s theses concerning the value and the benefit of the earthquakes, from the pre-critical to the critical period. We intend to focus on the Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), in which Kant seems to exclude earthquakes from the list of catastrophic natural events, the experience of which generates the concept of dynamic sublime “wenn wir uns nur in Sicherheit befinden” (KU, AA 05: 261). Why do earthquakes have no place in this discourse? Namely, does the earthquake lose its catastrophic essence in Kant’s eyes, or is it judged to be so terrifying that it deprives man of rational thought and suppresses any glimmer of further interpretation?

Feeding Everyone No Matter What presents a scientific approach to the practicalities of planning for long-term interruption to food production.

The primary historic solution developed over the last several decades is increased food storage. However, storing up enough food to feed everyone would take a significant amount of time and would increase the price of food, killing additional people due to inadequate global access to affordable food. Humanity is far from doomed, however, in these situations - there are solutions.

This book provides an order of magnitude technical analysis comparing caloric requirements of all humans for five years with conversion of existing vegetation and fossil fuels to edible food. It presents mechanisms for global-scale conversion including: natural gas-digesting bacteria, extracting food from leaves, and conversion of fiber by enzymes, mushroom or bacteria growth, or a two-step process involving partial decomposition of fiber by fungi and/or bacteria and feeding them to animals such as beetles, ruminants (cows, deer, etc), rats and chickens. It includes an analysis to determine the ramp rates for each option and the results show that careful planning and global cooperation could ensure the bulk of humanity and biodiversity could be maintained in even in the most extreme circumstances.

A number of risks could cause widespread electrical failure, including a series of high-altitude electromagnetic pulses (HEMPs) caused by nuclear weapons, an extreme solar storm, and a coordinated cyber attack. Since modern industry depends on electricity, it is likely there would be a collapse of the functioning of industry and machines in these scenarios. As our current high agricultural productivity depends on industry (e.g. for fertilizers) it has been assumed that there would be mass starvation in these scenarios. We model the loss in current agricultural output due to losing industry. Then we analyze compensating strategies such as reducing edible food fed to animals and turned into biofuels, reducing food waste, burning wood in landfills for energy, phosphorus, and potassium, and planting a high fraction of legumes to fix nitrogen. We find that these techniques could feed everyone, and extracting calories from agricultural residues, fishing with wind-powered ships and expanding planted area could feed everyone several times over.

A number of risks could cause global electrical failure, including a series of high-altitude electromagnetic pulses (HEMPs) caused by nuclear weapons, an extreme solar storm, and a coordinated computer virus attack. Since modern industry depends on electricity, it is likely that much industry and machines would grind to a halt. The most challenging need to be met in these scenarios is likely to be food, and this is analyzed elsewhere in this conference. However, without industry, food cannot easily be shipped around the world, so one method to maintain the human population without electricity in an emergency is relocating people to the food sources. We find that this is possible even in the worst-case scenario by retrofitting ships to be wind powered. We also discuss solutions for non-industry inland transportation, water supply and treatment, and heating of buildings. We find that the nonfood needs could be met for nearly everyone in the short and medium term.

Asistimos a la presencia generalizada de situaciones que llamamos “catastróficas”. Por un lado, el campo del estudio de emergencias y catástrofes es amplio y diverso: distintas disciplinas estudian varios tipos de catástrofes, las analizan y exploran y hasta cuestionan su naturaleza. Por otro, varias profesiones intervienen en los primeros momentos de acontecimientos desastrosos y proveen esa atención inmediata que no admite demora ni duda. Entre las perspectivas macroscópicas de las ciencias sociales y la inmediatez de la respuesta eficiente de quienes atienden los desastres, la experiencia de la clínica introduce una pregunta por la dimensión subjetiva. Exactamente en esa confluencia intentamos abrir un espacio. Esta segunda entrega de nuestra serie sobre “Intervenciones en Emergencia” continúa aquella que llamáramos Encuentros Interdisciplinarios (2014). En este caso compartimos experiencias y propuestas planteando tres ejes que intentamos hacer confluir: intervención, clínica y crítica. Intervenciones y modelos de abordaje en catástrofes; clínica de catástrofes subjetivas; y crítica e investigación sobre desastres.

Escriben: Natalia De Avila, Eduardo Viera, Daniela Fernández, Carlos D. Russo, Carina Tumini, Dinorah Otero, María Teresa Ravagnan, María Laura Zanatta, Estefania Berengan Mendaña, Karina Di Benedetto, Juliana Agustoni, Walter Behobi Baudou, Tamara Zapponi, Ayelén Colosimo, Diego Benegas Loyo, Nelly Velázquez, María Laura Romero, Carolina Thomaz da Fonseca.

The literature suggests there is ~0.3 percent chance per year of full-scale nuclear war. This event would have ~20 percent probability of causing U.S. mass starvation due to collapse of conventional agriculture from smoke blocking the sun. Alternate foods exploit fossil fuels (e.g. methane digesting bacteria) and stored biomass (e.g. mushrooms growing on dead trees) and are technically capable of saving all Americans from starving. However, current awareness is low and the technologies need to be better developed. This Monte Carlo study investigates the economics of three interventions including planning, research and development. Even the upper bound of $20,000 per life saved is far lower than the millions of dollars typically paid to save an American life. Therefore, it should be a high priority to implement these interventions as they would improve American resilience and reduce the possibility of civilization collapse.

We describe how the dynamics of cosmic structure formation defines the intricate geometric structure of the spine of the cosmic web. The Zel'dovich approximation is used to model the backbone of the cosmic web in terms of its singularity structure. The description by Arnold et al. in terms of catastrophe theory forms the basis of our analysis. This two-dimensional analysis involves a profound assessment of the Lagrangian and Eulerian projections of the gravitationally evolving four-dimensional phase-space manifold. It involves the identification of the complete family of singularity classes, and the corresponding caustics that we see emerging as structure in Eulerian space evolves. In particular, as it is instrumental in outlining the spatial network of the cosmic web, we investigate the nature of spatial connections between these singularities. The major finding of our study is that all singularities are located on a set of lines in Lagrangian space. All dynamical processes related to the caustics are concentrated near these lines. We demonstrate and discuss extensively how all 2D singularities are to be found on these lines. When mapping this spatial pattern of lines to Eulerian space, we find a growing connectedness between initially disjoint lines, resulting in a percolating network. In other words, the lines form the blueprint for the global geometric evolution of the cosmic web.

Convegno internazionale: La catastrofe trattenuta: atteso e misura dell'inatteso nel XVIII secolo (Pisa, 17-18 maggio 2022).

Prime due giornate di un convegno su La catastrofe: dalle radici settecentesche all'Età contemporanea.

17 maggio 2022, h. 15. Aula Magna Palazzo Matteucci (Piazza E. Torricelli, 2, Pisa)

Chiara Savettieri (Università di Pisa), Matteo Marcheschi (Università di Pisa), Introduzione
 
Coordina: Chiara Savettieri (Università di Pisa)
 
Alfonso Maurizio Iacono (Università di Pisa), La catastrofe e la misura dell’inatteso
Alain Schnapp (INHA, Paris), Le rovine e la memoria delle catastrofi dai Sumeri ai Lumi
Matteo Marcheschi (Università di Pisa), Trattenere la catastrofe: la rovina e i tempi impigliati della storia (1755-1788)

18 maggio 2022, h. 9.30 Aula Magna - Palazzo Boileau (Via Santa Maria, 85, Pisa)

 Coordina: Giovanni Paoletti (Università di Pisa) 

Maria Susanna Seguin (Université Montpellier III – IHRIM ENS de Lyon - IUF), Temporalité naturelle, temporalité historique: le Déluge universel au XVIIIe siècle 
Catherine Volpilhac-Auger (IHRIM ENS de Lyon),  «La plus terrible catastrophe qui soit jamais arrivée dans le monde»: la catastrophe insensible chez Montesquieu
Elena Giorza (FSC, Modena), «Lisbonne est abîmée, et l’on danse à Paris»: dal  disastro naturale alla catastrofe con spettatori
 
18 maggio 2022, h. 15. Aula Magna - Palazzo Boileau (Via Santa Maria, 85, Pisa)

Coordina: Matteo Marcheschi (Università di Pisa)
 
Tommaso Parducci (Università di Pisa), Rovine e catastrofi. Vico pirronista e antiquario
Pierre Girard (Université Lyon III), Vico e la catastrofe politica
Marco Menin (Università di Torino), La catastrofe armoniosa: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre versus Buffon
 
Conclusioni
 

Le retoriche giornalistiche e gli immaginari mediali ci parlano di un mondo in declino, il cui orizzonte si fa sempre più difficile da scorgere, tormentato da innumerevoli paure e messo in discussione da catastrofi imminenti. Crisi politiche, disastri ecologici, complotti globali, scenari da fine del mondo. Ma qual è il confine tra pericoli attuali o futuri, narrazioni mediali e immaginario socioculturale? Cosa rende il catastrofismo così radicato nell’immaginario collettivo, sin dai tempi antichi? Come si propaga nella società contemporanea e attraverso i media? Il volume rende conto di questo complesso intreccio simbolico e culturale, ponendo le basi per leggere analiticamente i discorsi contemporanei della e sulla catastrofe: mappandone le strutture e i temi comuni, ricordando le teorie matematico–semiotiche che lo hanno utilizzato, indagando le dinamiche culturali e il concretizzarsi della catastrofe nelle immagini, e indagando le narrazioni e le esperienze percepite durante e in seguito a tali eventi, i resti culturali e concreti della loro influenza nella nostra cultura.

Une version pragmatiste des régimes d'énonciation des futurs. Au-delà du catastrophisme et de la collapsologie, travailler à partir d'une pluralité d'ouvertures d'avenir en tension. Ce texte prolonge les analyses proposées dans l'ouvrage Aux bords de l'irréversible (Pétra, 2017), qui s'attachait à travailler l'idée de bifurcation et la fabrique d'alternatives rendues possibles ou potentielles à différentes échelles, en évitant de tout écraser avec des  énoncés macro ne considérant que l'échelle globale comme pierre de touche des scénarisations du futur.