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Energetics of agroecosystems
Published in Stephen R. Gliessman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Victor M. Izzo, Eric W. Engles, Andrew Gerlicz, Agroecology, 2023
Stephen R. Gliessman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Victor M. Izzo, Eric W. Engles, Andrew Gerlicz
The theoretical framework known as social metabolism offers ways of correcting these deficiencies. Social metabolism looks at the flows of matter and energy between nature and society and within society. Its origins can be traced back to ancient Greece and the philosophy of organicism, which is based on the comparison of society to an organism. Its proponents noted that both society and a single living animal require inputs of energy, produce waste matter, carry out various processes that transform matter, strive to maintain stable internal states, and reproduce themselves. Organicism exerted a strong influence on some of the late 19th-century thinkers who were interested in understanding society and instrumental in founding the new discipline of sociology. In their view, all elements of a society—transportation, housing, water supply, agriculture, government, and so on—should work in concert to keep the society running, just as an animal’s organs and tissues worked together to keep the animal alive.
Linking society and nature
Published in Raimund Bleischwitz, Holger Hoff, Catalina Spataru, Ester van der Voet, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Routledge Handbook of the Resource Nexus, 2017
Anke Schaffartzik, Dominik Wiedenhofer
In an analogy to the metabolism of a living organism, the concept of social metabolism proposes that a society requires material and energy inputs which it processes and assimilates for the purposes of societal reproduction and then discharges as wastes or emissions (Ayres and Simonis, 1994; Fischer-Kowalski, 1998; Martinez-Alier, 1987). The magnitude and composition of the biophysical flows and stocks, or the metabolic profile, which characterize a socio-economic system strongly depend on how the society in question is organized (Sieferle, 2003). Functional links between different types of material and energy strongly influence metabolic profiles. Societies of hunters and gatherers passively use solar energy by collecting wild-growing plants and hunting wild animals. This metabolic mode supports low population densities and a nomadic life which in turn prohibits the accumulation of material possessions. Biotic materials ‘fuel’ this form of societal organization and the use of other materials is only marginally possible and necessary. By actively harnessing solar energy and cultivating plants and domesticating animals, agrarian societies enable higher population density in a sedentary way of life with a significant impact on material use for buildings, tools, and other durable possessions. The dramatic shift in society’s resource basis is accompanied by comparable shifts in organization, including the ability of agrarian societies to support labor that is not directly required for food provisioning as well as higher fertility rates. The agricultural surplus which can be produced also allows for some degree of urbanization. The use of fossil energy in industrial societies is linked to a completely new form of social organization in which the majority of the population must no longer work in the provisioning of food. Fossil energy both requires and enables the use of materials (such as metals, for example) which were only marginally used in agrarian societies. With high shares of construction minerals, fossil energy carriers, and metals, the metabolic profile of industrial societies is not only characterized by much higher per capita values for material use but also by a composition completely distinct from that of hunters and gatherers or agrarian societies in which biomass was dominant. It has been suggested that the increase of per capita energy availability in industrial societies may be linked to the occurrence of social revolutions (Fischer-Kowalski et al., 2014), possibly related to the degree to which the use of fossil energy allowed human societies to defy what was previously seen as the ‘natural order’ of things and therefore unchangeable: to light up the dark, to develop machines with superhuman strength and endurance, to alter the temperature of the environment (Lord, 2014).
Producing energy, depleting water: the energy sector as a driver of seasonal water scarcity in an extractive frontier of the upper Orinoco watershed, Colombia
Published in Water International, 2021
Parisa Rinaldi, María Cecilia Roa-García, Sandra Brown
The rapid expansion of extractive activities to new frontiers is transforming local hydrological and social dynamics. Intensive water use for extractive activities is increasing in rural territories across the globe (Bebbington et al., 2010). Changes in the global social metabolism, the way human societies organize exchanges of energy and materials with the environment, induce socio-environmental pressures and conflicts (Martínez-Alier & Walter, 2016). Extractive frontiers are regions where economic processes linked to the consumption, depletion and appropriation of natural resources are concentrated and expanding (Martínez-Alier, 2009), and where biophysical and social factors coalesce, leading to geographies of uncertainty and risk for populations dependent on land, water and other resources (Cuba et al., 2014). Although the increases in water demand, depletion and degradation are linked to stress, conflict and deficit in water-scarce regions, an analysis of water-related conflicts indicates that similar challenges can emerge in water-abundant areas (Praskievicz, 2019). In some regions, the discourse of abundance is promoted by state entities and the private sector to legitimatize excessive or intensive water uses (Urteaga-Crovetto, 2016). Although these uses may not have a visible impact throughout the entire watershed or in the year as a whole, a closer examination of downstream sources and dry season availability indicates scarcity for local uses, as well as ecological functioning (Mubako et al., 2013). Additionally, water bodies used as sinks for the dilution and disposal of pollutants are not included in calculations of intensive water use. These are often neglected as a factor defining territorial transformation. Extractive frontiers appear to be characterized by inadequate water-use regulation as exercised by environmental authorities, particularly during periods of acutely reduced water availability, such as dry seasons. Moreover, it is apparent that most decisions regarding water allocation and discharge permits are made with limited knowledge of availability or seasonality, generating uncertainty about possible impacts. This combination of limited knowledge and inadequate regulation is reminiscent of what Anand (2015) calls the management of ignorance. Anand shows how limited knowledge about water leaks in the Mumbai water distribution system concealed water shortages and allowed government officials to distribute water beyond the capacity of the system. The lack of data was strategic to retaining political power and control over water distribution.