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Ecological Economics and Entropy



Harold Brashears wrote:
 
> If I may interject a moment, this fallacy is a weakness of people who
> have no understanding of thermodynamics.  The concept of entropy
> (disorder) constantly increasing applies only to a closed system.  If
> you do not live in a coal mine, you realize that the earth is not a
> closed system.  It receives a constant energy input from the sun,
> energy which feeds evolution and life on earth.

Harold,
If you would have read a book in the last 50 years
 (or even checked my references), you would know better.

Economists in Europe have been reading about entropy
 and how it relates to the economy for years.
  See:  http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page17.htm


Here a explanation of how thermodynamics is used in
 ecological economics:
------------
All matter and energy in the universe are subject to
the Laws of Thermodynamics. In the discipline of Ecological
Economics, systems are delimited so that they are meaningful
to our economy. What does thermodynamics have to do with the
sustainability of food production?

The two essential forms of stored thermodynamic potential
are "energy" (e.g., a barrel of oil) and "order" (e.g., clean
drinking water and deep topsoil). "Entropy" is a measure of
the unavailability of energy: the entropy of oil increases as
it burns, and the entropy of a water table increases as it
falls because more energy will be required to pump it to the
surface. Entropy can also be thought of as a measure of disorder
in a system: polluted water that requires purification has
higher entropy than the same water unpolluted, and the entropy
of topsoil increases when it is dispersed or polluted by salt
from evaporating irrigation water.
[snip]
---------------
 From:  http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page65.htm


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