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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Efficiency

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  • From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Efficiency
  • Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:59:29 -0500

At 02:37 PM 12/24/2007, you wrote:

Granted the semi is more fuel efficient. But let's don't forget to allocate
part of the embodied energy in the semi manufacture, or the cost of the
highways. Moreover, it's unlikely that the 1400 mile food was grown without
costly fossil fuel inputs and heavy machinery with embodied energy in its
manufacture.


Throwing in a few more observations about efficiency here--efficiency is not necessarily the highest desired outcome. Machines can be made more efficient. Working with the land, with animals, with the weather and the climate, is not always amenable to increases in "efficiency." Nor is it always desirable. Making efficiency the most important outcome treats non-predictable components as though they can be made predictable. In the short term, this may work. But it works by pretending that the physical system is an open one, or by simply ignoring the warning signs of an unstable system.

Viewing people and other living organisms (not to mention the short term weather and the long term climate) as comparable to machines is short-sighted and stupid. Just ignoring for the moment the embedded energy, as a system extends it dependencies, it becomes more vulnerable to known problems and more at risk for unknown or unconsidered or just unpredictable ones. Making one part of the system more efficient (whatever that may mean to the people involved in that part of it) often creates completely unexpected problems in other parts of the system. What is needed is not increases in efficiency, but increased understanding of how all the components of a living system work together.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com




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