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  • From: Jim <ashevillecurrencyproject@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Howard T. Odum (2007)-- Environment, Power, and Society
  • Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:14:14 -0500

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@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.

Copyright (c) 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit,
educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the
author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses
contact the Reviews editorial staff: hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.





  • [permaculture] Howard T. Odum (2007)-- Environment, Power, and Society, Jim, 01/10/2008

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