permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

Very good points, Jason. Nutrient and energy loops are open at one level of 
any holarchy, but they are closed at the next higher level. And often, vice 
versa. There is no rule in nature that says all loops must be closed on all 
levels. That's thermodynamic death.

I highly recommend Darrell's book, "Bioshelter Market Garden," which 
describes the permaculture design and operation of his bioshelter greenhouse 
and farm. I'd call it permaculture, for sure. He arrived at the design and 
processes through the design system. And LL is right, it seems that as soon 
as you sell one tomato, some folks (not necessarily April, but others) 
believe it is now tainted and can't be permaculture. We're still on that 
"what is permaculture" subject, aren't we?

Trade (barter, commerce, import and export of resources) is how surplus gets 
converted into resources that a system cannot produce itself. It's how 
ecosystems work. Trade enriches a system by importing diversity that a system 
cannot create itself. All successful systems trade with other systems and 
with their environments. I import essential amino acids that I can't make 
myself. And so on.

Ecological systems contain loops, but they are never completely closed. A 
plant imports CO2, water, minerals, and solar energy, and exports the deadly 
corrosive pollutant oxygen, which caused huge problems for much of life about 
2.4 billion years ago. It also exports water vapor, pollen and other organic 
matter, and so forth. Animals like me import oxygen, carbon-based nutrients, 
etc, and export huge amounts of entropy in the form of useless heat, plus 
manure, urine, and lots of other stuff that in the wrong system are 
pollutants. The marvelous loop of the Krebs (TCA) Cycle is constantly 
importing carbon compounds like pyruvate and energy sources, and exporting 
CO2, other energy compounds, and surplus amino acid percursors. It's a loop, 
but it ain't closed.

The key point is not whether a system has imports and exports--it must have 
those. It is whether a system is draining its resource supply, and loading 
its export regions, faster than those regions can deal with those loads, or 
if it is taxing them with substances that cannot be integrated.

All systems need imports of matter and energy to function, and they all 
export entropy and "waste." That dissipation of energy is what maintains the 
patterns within the system. Stop the flows of imports and exports, and the 
system dies; the pattern collapses.

The field of dissipative systems is one that is very relevant to 
permaculture, and I recommend a look for anyone with a systems-type bent.

It also turns out that the systems that maximize the energy flowing through 
them tend to be the most successful under selection pressures. This is called 
the "maximum power principle,"  or MPP, and there's been a lot written about 
it. It's also starting to look like the systems that export the most entropy 
(loosely and inaccurately defined as disorder) into their environments are 
also the most successful. That sounds terrible--he who dumps the most garbage 
wins--but what it really means is that the order created by that entropy 
dissipation results in highly organized and successful systems. This is 
called the maximum entropy production principle, or MEPP.  

This is one of my favorite subjects, but it delves too deeply into 
thermodynamics and other theoretical matters for most folks, so I don't write 
about it much (altho I do go to a study group twice a month with a bunch of 
crazy retired scientists and jabber about this with them, which is huge fun).

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Jan 29, 2014, at 7:10 PM, Jason Gerhardt wrote:

> The concept of "closed loop systems" bothers me. I see very few closed
> loop systems in the natural world. I see more of the opposite--open systems.
> As we learn more about the planet we are realizing it is a much more open
> system than we thought, even as a whole. I think it's time to drop the
> "closed loop systems" mantra.
> 
> I don't mean to quote the Designer's Manual like the official word, but
> Bill addresses this topic very well in the chapter Concepts of Design (a
> highly overlooked chapter in my opinion) in the section 2.3 and 2.6. Here's
> just a taste "Although the material world can perhaps be predictably
> measured, by applications of the laws of thermodynamics, these relate to
> mainly non-living or experimentally 'closed systems'. The concept of
> entropy is not necessarily applicable to those living, open earth systems
> with which we are involved and in which we are immersed. Such laws are more
> useful in finding an effective path through material technologies than
> through a life-complexed world. The key word in open systems is 'exchange'".
> 
> In my practice of permaculture it's all about designing relationships, and
> relationships, at least the good ones, are all about exchange. We're really
> trying to design more complex open systems, therefore more relationships,
> as I see it.
> 
> I like to design open systems that accept the waste of neighboring systems
> that aren't recycling their energies. Once those energies get to my site I
> want to cycle them as long as possible to maximize the use of those
> energies and therefore increase yield, while knowing full well there will
> still be a flow of nutrients or water or whatever that leaves the site, and
> goes on to enrich another system. Practicing permaculture in cities for
> example, I'll accept as much waste as is useful to the system I'm
> designing. Why would I want to close the nutrient loop? I say keep it
> coming if that material is going to do harm somewhere else. At this current
> point in time I don't see any shortage of useful materials and energies of
> all kinds on a city scale, so instead of closing my loops, I'm going to
> accept the waste of other systems to enrich and grow my own by forming
> relationships with those other systems.
> 
> This also gets to the concept of every permaculturist having to know how to
> do everything. Instead more of us are coming to realize that we can form
> relationships to meet many of our needs through exchange. The more
> relationships and the more exchanges, the more resilient the system as it
> often turns out. To me closed loop systems are for those who strive to be
> self-sufficient and survivalists. As Larry Santoyo has said about
> homesteaders interested in self-sufficiency and survivalism, "build your
> doomstead now". Closed systems are boring, and eventually lead to doom, as
> the law of entropy suggests. So can we drop the "closed loop systems"
> mantra? I think it's misleading, and truth be told, I've never seen one in
> practice.
> 
> Jason Gerhardt
> -- 
> PO Box 4355
> Boulder, CO 80306
> 720-496-9744
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