[permaculture] Howard T. Odum (2007)-- Environment, Power, and Society
Jim
ashevillecurrencyproject at gmail.com
Thu Jan 10 11:14:14 EST 2008
Hi-
This is a bit wonky, but Odom is a significant inspiration to both
Mollison and Holmgren.
As the reviewer notes, it is not an easy read.
-- Jim
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Environment at h-net.msu.edu (December 2007)
Howard T. Odum. 2007. _Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy_. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. xiv + 418 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $74.50 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-231-12886-5; $ 39.50 (paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-231-12887-2.
Reviewed for H-Environment by Ashwani Vasishth, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, California State University, Northridge.
Down-slope Energetics
We are all aware, perhaps at some sub-cognitive level, that the basic building blocks of the universe are matter, energy, and information. Howard T. Odum [1] helped make this insight real for us, even as he made the practice of systems analysis pragmatically possible. This recently, and posthumously, released book refreshes his general systems vision of the earth metabolism organized into an energy hierarchy. He shows us, again and effectively, how we can reconceptualize the phenomena and events which shape our world in the language of energy doing work. For instance, he traces the energetics of the ocean-atmosphere interface, driven by solar energy to shape weather and climate.[105-106] Or takes the phenomenon of photosynthesis and traces it across the multiple facets of the planet, taking us on a journey of reconceptualized reality.[144-150] With deft strokes, he recharacterizes the ownership of cattle in rural India as pulses of energy across the landscape, linked to exchange and conversion processes which drive village life.[184-185] And then turns around and takes up on a breathless ride that races past hunter-gatherer societies retold as systems of energy processing and exchange, and on past the complex interactions that characterize tropical forest systems, where high rates of diversity ensure that conventional mono-crop agriculture remains an alien reality.[177-187]
In telling the story of human habitation on the planet, Odum relies on a general systems theory perspective, which expects “an alternation between slow production, growth and succession followed by a pulse of consumption, descent and decession.”[2, p. 22] Linking the history of the biosphere--because Odum is more a biological ecologist, than an ecosystem ecologist--to the human reliance on fossil fuels as a primary source of energy, he presents human society as having passed its climax stage and as being in the descent phase. The question, he feels, is how best might we manage our descent, so as to avoid “crash and burn”.
“Population and cities, energy consumption and climate change, agriculture and environment, information and electric power, capitalism and economic policies, structures and materials, human life and standard of living are dealt with […] as interconnected aspects of the same problem, i.e. the necessary descent phase of human economies, due to decreasing resource base.”[2, p. 21]
This book would work best for those already familiar with the original 1971 version, and with Odum’s basic argument that power (energy) obeys the same sorts of rules irrespective of the system under consideration—be it biological, economic, or social. For the reader new to Howard T. Odum’s work, this book is likely to be heavy going, at the very least. If you are not familiar with what Odum means when he speaks of “energy hierarchies” (presented as strict rank hierarchies) or exergy (available energy), or emergy (used energy), or empower (energy per unit time) , or emdollar (the dollar value of an emergy flow), it will take a fair amount of inference and page-flipping to get a murky understanding of these memes. No where at the outset does he clearly tell us what a hierarchy is, and why it matters, let alone explaining the ways in which we have conventionally and consistently misunderstood that organizing frame in ecosystem ecology.[3, 4, 5]
The book is thick to engage, partly because the illustrations unpack themselves only gradually and never more than partially, and partly because of the lack of a narrative flow to the rather staccato text, as the author’s mind races from one consideration to the next, never pausing to tell us why what we have just heard has significance, or just how one portion of the puzzle he is unveiling becomes central to the reconceptualization of another. It is also thick in the sense that rereading passages and periodically going back a couple of chapters to reread the material does generate increasing amounts of meaning. (Hint: It will really pay to spend a few minutes memorizing the circuit diagram icons explained on page 26.)
The bulk of the book is itself focused on illustrating the ways in which the principles of energetics can be used to describe diverse facets of human society. The book has its roots in an effort to range widely over human affairs from the point of view of energy flows, with an implicit but never quite vocalized intent to urge ways of living more lightly upon the land. The new sections seek to expand the scope of the original text, and the result is an encyclopedic medley of vignettes, showing the range of issues Odum has engaged from within his energetics frame. What is missing, however, is the translation that would connect the material and the meaning of this book with that of _A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies_ [6], written with his wife, Elisabeth C. Odum, and barely alluded to in the brief concluding chapter.
Assertions and assumptions abound, however. Specific research taken from a narrow biological view of ecology is then turned around and projected onto human society as fact. To take merely one example, in the case of populations, Odum points out that research from ecology shows in several instances that the availability or scarcity of food is a check on population growth in certain particular animal populations, concluding that “many natural populations in undisturbed systems practice a kind of birth control.”[pg. 282] He then goes on to project this scheme onto human populations, asserting that, as a result of “welfare programs,” food constraints no longer apply to the poorer populations, and, as a consequence of the removal of this feedback mechanism, “population growth curves have been steep and Malthusian,”[pg. 284] Human population dynamics have been far more complex than the simple exponential growth-type curves suggested here, and the idea of carrying capacity is substantially more nuanced [7] than what we are encouraged to believe in this text.
The book is uneasy about trading off between breadth and depth. Thus carrying capacity and the notion of ecological footprint, not to mention the huge literature on sustainability, are all dealt with hurriedly, and then summarily dispatched in a rather undifferentiated way. It is hard to sense what might be the two or three crucial factors that we must certainly keep in mind, to think through the genuine dilemmas facing humanity as it verges upon the down-slopes of fossil fuel availability in the face of global climate change--two realities barely touched upon in the text.
That said, it is an important book, and for those interested in understanding the world as a function of energy flows, will prove increasingly useful over time, as it is gradually unpacked by repeated engagement. There is a way of thinking about the world that is depicted here, which is extremely valuable. We become able to consider the biosphere—indeed, the ecosphere as well—in a far more intelligible way using the tools that he provides us.
Howard T. Odum’s contribution to ecology and to society is at least legend. He has established himself quite clearly as what he called an “agent of the earth”--speaking out in ways that provide humanity with important tools by which we may come to live more lightly upon the planet.
Notes
1. Howard T. Odum, _Environment, Power, and Society_ (New York: Wiley Interscience, 1971).
2. Howard T. Odum & Elizabeth C. Odum, “The Prosperous Way Down,” _Energy_ 31 (2006): 21-32.
3. Timothy F.H. Allen & Thomas B. Starr, _Hierarchy: Perspectives for Ecological Complexity_ (Chicago: University of Chicago University Press,1982).
4. Robert V. O’Neill & D.L. DeAngelis & J.B. Waide & T.F.H. Allen, _A Hierarchical Concept of Ecosystems_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
5. Timothy F.H. Allen & Thomas W. Hoekstra, _Toward a Unified Ecology_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
6. Howard T. Odum & Elizabeth C. Odum, _A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies_ (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2001).
7. Robert W. Kates, "Population, Technology, and the Human Environment: A Thread Through Time," _Daedalus_ 125 (1996): 43-71.
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