Use renewable energy - References and quotes
Philosophy
2021
REFERENCES AND QUOTES
PROSPERITY WITHOUT GROWTH“Economics is an artefact of human society. Its apparent intractability is a cultural construct.”196 I ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONSEconomy as subsystem 15 empty to full world 18 neoclassical economics preanalytical vision 22 Throughput has two ends: depletion of environmental sources and pollution of environmental sinks. Unlike exchange value the flow of throughput is not circular. It goes from low-entropy sources to high-entropy sinks, a consequence of 2nd law of thermodynamics, the entropy law. Recycling not possible at 100 %, neither material nor energy. Recycling, “a circular eddy in the overall -one-way flow of the river”. 31 Throughput and extreme use of materials 33 Technology helps us to be more efficient but cannot not reverse the metabolic flow. Recycling requires more energy and more material. Entropic dissipation. Nature 100 % recycler? Maybe but not human beings. 39 Finite planet. Finite materials. Finite rate of replenishment, finite sinks and flow of sun light. Cannot create something from nothing. Economic production requires material input. 62, 63 History of thermodynamics, Georgescu-Roegen, entropy – increasing disorder. Entropy, a continual increase in disorder in the universe 64, 65 E = mc2 and increasing disorder in materials. 66 Low entropy only restored by conversion of low entropy to high entropy elsewhere. High entropy will always be greater than the low entropy restored. 67 Life is an open system powered by the sun! Schrodingers explanation! 68 Economics wanted to be like mechanical physics. Alfred Marshall although thought biology would be a better model. Entropy means absence of temperature differential and inability to perform work. Universe and heath Death. Mechanical physics, no free will but allows circular flow in economics. Economic system is entropic! 1st law of Thermodynamics states that you can’t create something from nothing. “…hence that all production must ultimately be based on resources provided by nature.” Only low entropy can transform resources. 69 1st law of Thermodynamics also waste is created in the economic process. 2nd law of Thermodynamics both in process of transforming resources into useful stuff and in the disintegration of useful stuff. “The economy is thus an ordered system for transforming low-entropy raw materials and energy into high-entropy waste and unavailable energy, providing humans with a “psychic flux” of satisfactions in the process. Most importantly, the order in our economic system, its ability to produce and provide us with satisfaction, can only be maintained by a steady stream of low-entropy matter-energy, and this high-quality, useful matter-energy is only a fraction of the gross mass of matter-energy of which the Earth is composes” Psychic root in want satisfaction. 70 Chemical and physical erosion. Georgescu-Roegen vs Ayres on entropy and minerals, 100 % recycling and possibility of steady-state and. Are we causing irreparable damage to Earths ability to sustain life and can we master the art of polymers that could possibly substitute minerals? Daly, probably could sustain a steady-state for a long time. 84 Waste from minerals. 85 Minerals and entropy, atoms being rubbed off. Minerals will never depleted because they will be of higher and higher entropy and become useless to humans. Steady state a pipe-dream because of entropic limit? In the long run atom by atom will erode but in the meantime we can come close to steady state. Waste is a bigger problem though. 86 Biotic resources and abiotic resources. Value of our complex ecosystem for our survival. 93 Ecosystems and uncertainty 94 Risk uncertainty and ignorance. Quantum physics and chaos theory show that uncertainty and ignorance are inherent in systems. Bill Gates and 540 kilobyte of computer memory 95 uncertainty in economic analysis a normative (ethical) decision 96 Positive feedbacks in rain forests. Uncertainty in structure and function. Ecosystem structure and function interact. 96, 97 Critical depensation and sustainable yield vs uncertainty 101 Ecosystem functions of trees 105 “In review, the structural elements of an ecosystem are stocks of biotic and abiotic resources (minerals, water, trees, other plants and animals), which when combine together generate ecosystem functions, or services” 106, 107 Destroying biological stocks destroys funds. Forest to timber. Soil moisturizer. “The relationship between natural capital stock-flow and fund-service resources illustrates one of the most important concepts in ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS: It is impossible to create something from nothing; all economic production requires a flow of natural resources generated by a stock of natural capital. This flow comes from structural components of ecosystems, and the biotic stock are also funds that produce ecosystem services. Therefore, an excessive rate of flow extracted from a stock affects not only the stock and its ability to provide a flow in the future, but also the fund to which the stock contributes and the services that fund provides. Even abiotic stocks (i.e, elements and fossil fuels) can only be extracted and consumed at some cost to the ecosystem. In other words, production requires inputs of ecosystem structure. Ecosystems structure generates ecosystem function, which in turn provides services. All economic production thus as an impact on ecosystem services, and because this impact is unavoidable, it is completely internal to the economic process” Problems of wastes, the other end of economic process as dictated by laws of thermodynamics 107 Humans depend on the ability of plants to capture solar energy in 2 ways: 1. direct energy 2. Life-supporting functions generated by the ecosystems. Economic production require natural resources. Economic production generates waste. 109 Resource and sinks where limits in sinks are the most pressing problem for human beings SeeENERGY AND ECONOMIC MYTHS 358 122 I THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION: THE RACE TO GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN A WORLD IN CRISISMore evolved a specie in nature’s hierarchy the more energy. Miller free energy needed to keep species alive, ”Miller calculates that three hundred trout are required to support one man for a year. The trout, in turn, must consume 90,000 frogs, which must consume 27 million grasshoppers, which live off of 1, 000 tons of grass.” More complex organism the more energy. 31 More complex institutional arrangements the more energy 32, 33 MacCurdy, “human experience as an evolutionary journey in the increasing use of available energy” White, energy use as a yardstick for “successful” cultures. Function of culture is to harness energy in the service of human beings. Energy not human inspiration sets the limit of progress. 33 Odum, “All progress is due to special power subsidies, and progress evaporates whenever and wherever they are removed. Knowledge and ingenuity are the means for applying power subsidies when they are available, and the development and retention of knowledge are also dependent on power delivery” See THE ECONOMICS OF THE COMING SPACESHIP EARTH on information systems.34 Extending central nervous system. Maturing of empathy. New energy/communications/consciousness complex structures requires more energy to stay away from equilibrium. 37 Prigogine, dissipative structures, fluctuations, positive feedback. Dissipative structure ability to reorganize itself into higher order of complexity and integration and a greater flow-through. This is the history of human beings where we “have created the most complex systems, andeach succeeding qualitative shift in social structure, up to now, enjoyed greater energy throughput and produced more entropy than the social structure that preceded it.” 38 Equilibrium in near climax ecosystem and Amazon rainforest. 494, 495 peak oil and the oil dependency of the economy 509 New energy for new economy 511 Culture a prerequisite for trade and commerce and governance, since they are built on social trust. Culture creates the empathic cloaks that allows people to confidently engage in market place or government. 550 Vision of economy where collaboration trumps competition. 553 I ENERGY AND ECONOMIC MYTHSEconomy of any life is governed by the entropy law 352 Economy as irreversible process that takes low entropy (valuable resources) and leaves high entropy (valueless waste). But “It compels us to recognize that the real output of the economic process (or of any life process, for that matter) is not the material flow of waste, but the still mysterious immaterial flux of the enjoymentof life” 353 Myths that price mechanism can offset shortages in land, energy or materials. 354 Limited access to energy and material 355 Hard to create matter 355, 356 Exhaustion of material and recycling a pearl neckless, need enough energy and infinite time 356 Waste as a physical phenomenon. Chemically, nuclearly and physically (carbon dioxide) 357 Waste and finitude of our space. Written 1975 “Since the Entropy Law allows no way to cool a continuously heated planet, thermal pollution could prove to be a more crucial obstacle to growth than the finiteness of accessible resources.” 358 “In- stead of continuing to be opportunistic in the highest degree and concentrating our re- search toward finding more economically efficient ways of tapping mineral energies- all in finite supply and all heavy pollutants- we should direct all our efforts toward improving the direct uses of solar energy - the only clean and essentially unlimited source” 377 “Fourth, until either the direct use of solar energy becomes a general convenience or controlled fusion is achieved, all waste of energy-by overheating, overcooling, overspeeding, overlighting, etc.-should be carefully avoided, and if necessary, strictly regulated.” 378 THE ENTROPY LAW AND THE ECONOMIC PROCESS IN RETROSPECTScarcity is steadily increases. 8 I DECOUPLING DEBUNKED – EVIDENCE AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST GREEN GROWTH AS A SOLE STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABILITYIncrease in energy use 21 I ON THE CIRCULAR BIOECONOMY AND DECOUPLING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH Empty to full world. “Biophysical analyses of the metabolic pattern of contemporary social-ecological systems show that inside the technosphere both the densities and paces of flows per unit of societal funds (flow/fund ratios) are much larger than those of the natural flows per unit of ecological funds (flow/fund ratios) in the biosphere (Giampietro et al., 2012). Human society (in the technosphere) gathers and concentrates material and energy forms required for its maintenance and reproduction from the context, and to achieve this result it heavily relies on non-renewable energy sources (linearization of flows) (Giampietro et al., 2012). The current level of productivity of production factors (labor, capital, land) is obtained by altering the pace and density of the flows naturally occurring in the biosphere in managed ecosystems (human land-uses). In doing so, society can express structures and functions (associated with a given rate of positive entropy generation) that would otherwise not be possible (if relying on the negative flux generated by natural processes) (Smil, 2015).” Boosted agriculture through fossil fuel. “For example, the yield of grain per hectare from a crop field is at least an order of magnitude larger than the available quantity of biomass from unmanaged land. The pace and density of the natural deposition of nitrogen in soil (the fund-flow supply given by nature) does not permit yields of 7–10 t/ha of grain typical of modern agriculture. Maintaining such yields require heavy doses of artificial fertilizer. In the same way, irrigation in agriculture boosts the supply of water (blue water) whenever the natural availability of water in the soil (green water) would limit yields. Rather than relying on ecological processes of natural pest control, modern agriculture uses pesticides. Indeed, with the event of the industrial revolution the agricultural sector moved from low external input to high external input agriculture (Giampietro, 1997; Arizpe et al., 2011). While the former relied on nutrient recycling through a complex network of interactions among ecological fund elements (thus guaranteeing soil health, biodiversity, healthy aquifers, etc.), the latter is based on linearization of flows through the use of fossil energy (stressing ecological fund elements). This continuous human struggle to boost the pace and density of natural flows has resulted in a tremendous increase in agricultural productivity inside the technosphere: from less than 1 t/ha of grain in pre-industrial agriculture to more than 10 t/ha in industrial agriculture. An even more impressive improvement has been achieved in labor productivity—from about 1 kg of grain per hour of labor in pre-industrial agriculture to around 1000 kg/h in industrial agriculture. The price to pay for this increased agricultural productivity has been a progressive liquidation of ecological funds (which would slow down productivity because of their low flow/fund ratio).” The price of linearization is the liquidation of ecological funds. Linearization of energy. 149 I SOCIETIES BEYOND OIL: OIL DREGS AND SOCIAL FUTURESInvolment of oil in thing and in food production, e.g. the Green Revolution SeeTHE CIRCULAR BIOECONOMY AND DECOUPLING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH on circular economyon the great linearization 149 50, 51 I EATING FOSSIL FUELS - RESILIENCE Oil in food https://www.resilience.org/stories/2003-10-02/eating-fossil-fuels/To encouragement
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