From danamex@mail.internet.com.mx Thu May 18 22:05:07 2000 Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 18:30:41 -0500 From: Ronald Nigh To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu Subject: Re: full energy accounting [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Dear SANET, Energy accounting is really an old story and I think outgrew its usefulness a while back. It is not really surprising to discover that 'primitive' agriculturalists are energy efficient, nor does it take a degree in rocket science to see that industrial agriculture spends far more calories in fossil fuels than it generates in food energy. Where this is all laid out quite well is in the work of Pimentel and others in the 1970s, probably one of the most successful application of Odum's original idea. The reference I can dig up is: Pimentel, D, L.E. Hurd, A.C. Belloti. M.J. Forster, I.N. Oka, O.D. Sholes y R.J. Whitman. (1973). Food Production and the Energy Crisis. Science, Vol. 182: 443-449. though I believe their were other publications based on this work. Another classic presentation is that by Roy Rappaport "The Flow of Energy in an Agricultural Society" that provides a complete characterization of a 'primitive' agricultural system and discovers it to be highly energy efficient. (I don't have the citation to hand but I seem to recall that a version was published in Scientific American) These studies are interesting, as far as they go, but one is left with a feeling of "So what? A problem arises whenever we postulate a single yardtstick to measure all aspects of a complex system such as an agroecosystem. It may be intellectually attractive but it inevitably violates the complexity of the situation. A kilocalorie of gasoline just isn't the same as a kilocalorie of sweet potato or even a kilocalorie of human effort. If we were going to use a single yardstick we might as well stick to money as it reflects the social and politcal aspects more accurately. What is important about our agriculture is not energy or money, however, at least those are not the only important aspects. We want quality food, accessible to all, not just 'cheap' food, be that energy cheap or money cheap. It has become clear that quality is not be measured along a single dimension. Ronald Nigh Dana, A.C. Mexico, D.F. & San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas Tel. y FAX 525-666-73-66 (DF) 529-678-72-15 (Chiapas) danamex@mail.internet.com.mx To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@cals.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@cals.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail From loscott@envsci.rutgers.EDU Thu May 18 22:06:24 2000 Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 12:51:48 -0700 From: Loren Muldowney To: Ted Rogers Cc: sanet Subject: Re: full energy accounting -Reply -Reply Dear Ted, I hope you will not misunderstand or take personally my attempts to be very explicit about what a person means, in this case, what you mean. I have wasted altogether too much time trying to be "polite" and avoid pinning people down, and I'm not going to bother any more. All I can say is that I am willing to be subject to the same. With this preface, I request even more clarification. Ted Rogers wrote: > My exposure to this methodology was through H. T. Odum who > continues to push the envelope. If I remember correctly it was absolutely > critical that embodied energy in equipment and structures be properly > included and amortized in the accounting. You do remember correctly. What is not 100% clear is whether you agree with Odum and accept Odum's view in this or whether you are simply reporting what Odum's position is. It is, of course, part of our academic training to be very "passive voice" about things, but after a point I find that this inhibits, rather than enhances, one's ability to communicate. > I am glad that this dialogue has begun I first subscribed to this list with the expectation that this kind of dialogue would be the norm! Boy was I surprised to discover that some call this "controversial" > and would like to point out, Loren, > that I believe that it needs to be maintained for the next couple of > decades... Ted, I agree with the above up to a point. However, some of us (at least myself) have ALREADY spent a couple decades engaged in the dialogue and are inclined to continue it ONLY if some action seems likely because of continued investment in the dialogue. Otherwise it just seems like time wasting. Howard Odum's "Energetics of World Food Production" dates from 1967. I am getting pretty tired of hearing about the wonderful discovery of things which have been known for decades. One of the barriers to engaging in this kind of dialogue is that it is actually quite a bit of work to remain on top of the subject matter and the literature to date. I have here Odum's "Environmental Accounting" from 1996 and I am finding that it is darned hard to read. Another is that many people seem extremely reluctant to take a position and explain how they get there. I don't go too far in trying to guess why that is, but all of the possibilities I can imagine are rather disturbing. Loomis and Connor (Crop Ecology, 1992) make no bones about the fact that they don't agree with Odum. They refer to his analysis as "energy fundamentalism" and take an alternative view of embodied energy. I personally think it's an "apples and oranges" problem, where each is applying the embodied energy concept in a different context, not recognizing the essential difference in the context or in what he considers to be the boundary conditions of his system. So each may be "correct" within his own context. This creates a problem for discussion, since they use the same words to mean different things. I'd love to see a group here take on this subject in a serious way, but it would require substantial effort on the part of the participants, so I am doubting that it will come to pass, based on my observations to date. Loren Muldowney loscott@envsci.rutgers.edu To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@cals.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@cals.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail