ISIS Report 25/05/05
Announcing an Important Scientific Publication
Sustainable Systems as Organisms?
The authors Mae-Wan Ho and
Robert Ulanowicz present a new conceptual model for understanding
sustainable systems as organisms that is opposed to the dominant model of
unlimited growth. It is a breakthrough to understanding energy relationships in
living systems that updates the ecological approach of Eugene and Howard Odum.
"It is the most important scientific paper I have written in my
life so far," says Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, " and I owe it to my co-author Robert
Ulanowicz."
Abstract
Schrödinger (1944) marvelled at how the organism is able to use
metabolic energy to maintain and even increase its organisation, which could
not be understood in terms of classical statistical thermodynamics. Ho (1993,
1998a) outlined a novel "thermodynamics of organized complexity" based on a
nested dynamical structure that enables the organism to maintain its
organisation and simultaneously achieve non-equilibrium and equilibrium
energy transfer at maximum efficiency. This thermodynamic model of the organism
is reminiscent of the dynamical structure of steady state ecosystems identified
by Ulanowicz (1983, 2003).
The healthy organism excels in maintaining its organisation and keeping
away from thermodynamic equilibrium – death by another name – and in
reproducing and providing for future generations. In those respects, it is the
ideal sustainable system. We propose therefore to explore the common features
between organisms and ecosystems, to see how far we can analyse sustainable
systems in agriculture, ecology and economics as organisms, and to extract
indicators of the system’s health or sustainability.
We find that looking at sustainable systems as organisms provides fresh
insights on sustainability, and offers diagnostic criteria for sustainability
that reflect the system’s health.
In the case of ecosystems, those diagnostic criteria of health translate
into properties such as biodiversity and productivity, the richness of cycles,
the efficiency of energy use and minimum dissipation. In the case of economic
systems, they translate into space-time differentiation or organised
heterogeneity, local autonomy and sufficiency at appropriate levels,
reciprocity and equality of exchange, and most of all, balancing the
exploitation of natural resources – real input into the system - against
the ability of the ecosystem to regenerate itself.
Get the full paper here: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/onlinestore/papers1.php#229
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