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Page added on February 12, 2013
Pulsing paradigm or steady state?
Seldom do you come across arguments that truly question the premise of a steady state economy. Sure, growth-obsessed pundits make arguments against it all the time, but these can typically be refuted by reviewing a few facts. After all, the world is finite, and there are real limits to growth. However, when such an argument arises from the work of the late, great Howard Odum, (pictured at left) it’s worth taking a closer look.
Odum — as with Herman Daly — can be considered a genius. Both quite rightly have inspired large groups of disciples. Odum introduced a whole new vocabulary and way of thinking in regard to energy systems and the interactions between civilization, energy, and the environment.[1] One of the concepts that shows up regularly in his work is the “pulsing paradigm.” He asserts that systems of all scales, from the molecular to the galactic, pulse in order to maximize power, and that pulsing systems tend to prevail. He even states that “seeking a constant level of civilization is a false ideal contrary to energy laws… In the long run there is no steady state.” [1, p. 54]
These are worrying words for any devotee of the concept of a steady state economy, and coming from Odum, they can’t simply be dismissed as the ramblings of a lunatic. But before we abandon our quest and run to pitch our tents in the growth-at-all-costs camp, let’s see if the seemingly conflicting notions of the pulse and the steady state can be compatible.
Turning to Daly, we can first ask, how steady is a steady state? The answer should be: steady enough for stability, but not without room for fluctuation. Daly talks of “boundary-oriented stability” [2, p. 53]. Rather than setting a specific point-goal for the economy’s size, we should establish boundaries, and allow fluctuations within them — small pulses perhaps. Admittedly such small fluctuations don’t seem to be on the scale of the pulse that Odum describes (e.g., the rise and fall of a civilization).
Pulses develop from the accumulation of energy or resources over a long period, leading to a short period of frenzied consumption and climax, followed by descent. In modern society, fossil fuels have given rise to our current global-scale pulse. Certainly, there is much to indicate that we may have a period of descent ahead of us, but a period of descent doesn’t rule out the possibility of subsequently establishing a steady state economy.
In fact many of the policies that Odum recommends for this day and age are very similar to those promoted for a steady state economy [1, pp. 388-391]. They include limits on inequality and income, a stable money supply, low fertility rates, a focus on maintenance, and looser restrictions on knowledge and information.
An important question is whether human consciousness can overcome such natural pulses. Odum saw pulses as a mechanism for maximizing power over the long term. He drew on earlier work of Alfred Lotka who also noted the pulsing nature of predator-prey relationships. It seems that pulsing is an evolutionary survival strategy. Yet these systems are not conscious, or if they are (such as with animals), they are not self-aware.
Maybe humanity’s trait of self-awareness could grant us more control. Instead of being trapped in a frenzy of consumption, perhaps we can intentionally restrain ourselves, and store some energy for later use, thus dampening the pulse to a manageable scale. So far it would appear we have been unsuccessful, as we continue to extract and consume energy as quickly as we can. But perhaps a higher level of energy consciousness can be achieved in the future. The implication of this reasoning for steady state economics is that restricting our supply of fossil energy should be of the highest priority — hardly a new idea.
A final insight from Odum relates to the value of information. Like the physical infrastructure of a modern economy, the development of information requires high-quality energy inputs. With a contracting energy supply, society’s store of and access to information will likely diminish. Again, like infrastructure (or any asset), it requires continual maintenance, and information that is not deemed valuable enough will be lost. A long-term objective for steady state economics is to ensure that valuable knowledge survives any period of descent and remains widely available for use in the distant future. In this respect, we can all play our part to keep the flame alive.
10 Comments on "Pulsing paradigm or steady state?"
BillT on Tue, 12th Feb 2013 3:07 pm
Well, as we have almost stopped printing books and of those we do, most are on cheap paper with a life of a few decades at best. Not much knowledge is going to survive the next 100 years. The pieces of shiny plastic we call DVDs will be unusable as there will be nothing to play them on.
Anyone remember 8-track tapes or cassettes? How about 33, 45, & 78 rpm plastic disks? Player pianos with the paper rolls that went round and round with perforations that recorded the music? But the lack of equipment won’t be because they were replaced by something newer. It will be because that equipment no longer exists except in museums (if they exist) or that there simply is no electric to power them.
At least the monks kept some things recorded on paper in hand copied books during the Dark Ages, but much was lost and distorted. We will not have that luxury in the future. The Egyptians had brain surgery 5,000 years ago, but it took almost 5,000 years for it to be rediscovered. Ditto for many other things we had to relearn that was known in antiquity.
GregT on Tue, 12th Feb 2013 4:22 pm
The distant past will soon be our future, if we are fortunate.
There are still many of our elders alive today, that have the knowledge that will be required for our future survival. The time to learn from their experience, however, is quickly running out.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Feb 2013 5:09 pm
Films from the sixties on celluloid are now stored in 1-0-1-0-1 format on millions of harddisks around the globe, 1000 movies per device, and technology is not exhausted yet to allow for vast further storage capacity increase in the future. No electricity needed to at least store them. The world will never run out of oil or hydropower or wind or solar to generate these louse few watts to at least display them on a tablet.
Digital stored information eliminates the need to reproduce information on paper, requiring the need of material resources of producing and transporation. Instead a book can be transported through the ‘aether’ with no materiality at all. On one memory stick more information can be stored than a human can consume in his entire life. The excessive doomers want us to believe that nothing is going to remain from civilisation as we know it, that collapse is the name of the game, where in reality we are moving into a new… well, reality.
Horses got replaced by trams and trams by cars. And you know what? Cars are going to be replaced by glass fiber, clouds and touch screens, that can easily be powered by wind and solar, unlike vehicles. People used to travel to meet, to cooperate, hardly ever to procreate, the only interaction that cannot yet be replaced by fiber and clouds.
GregT on Tue, 12th Feb 2013 5:59 pm
“Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.”
from; The Hirsch Report 2005
Fiber and clouds will do nothing for us that fossil fuels have done, and without fossil fuels there would be no fibre or clouds, at least not in any scale that would be significant.
Glass fibre, cloud computing, touch screens, wind turbines, and solar panels all require extensive energy inputs to build to any meaningful amount. Sure, there may be a small percentage of people that will still be able to afford these technologies, but they will be like the Kings and Queens of old. I doubt very much that the rest of the remaining population will have much time to think about building touch screens from scratch, there will be far more important things on their agendas. As has always been the case throughout history, food, water, shelter, and security will be at the forefront of human needs.
Arthur on Tue, 12th Feb 2013 7:39 pm
“Fiber and clouds will do nothing for us that fossil fuels have done”
The very fact that you in Canada read this message send from Holland is proof to the contrary. No need to post a letter, setting in motion vans, sorting mechanisms, trains, planes and a postman, all using lots of fossil fuel.
Plantagenet on Tue, 12th Feb 2013 8:24 pm
Dreaming of steady state economics is silly. GDP is either increasing or decreasing—-Trying to attain steady state economics is like trying to balance an elephant on the head of a pin.
GregT on Wed, 13th Feb 2013 1:00 am
“Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary”
The communications networks that we have in place today have evolved for over a century.
“oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.”
Try to imagine waking up tomorrow morning to a world without oil. No more cars, aircraft, tractors, trucks, trains, or cargo ships. Banks would close their doors, economies would be non existent, government agencies would shut down. No more police, firefighters, or ambulances. No more plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, or chemicals. No more mining or manufacturing. Rolling brownouts for some, permanent blackouts for others. Lack of FOOD.
What would you do? What do you think that everyone would be doing? Do you think that anyone would care about whether their flat screen computers were working? Do you honestly believe that people’s priorities would be high speed communications?
This is the world that we are heading towards. Many of us reading this will be living in this world. We have been warned that it would take decades of unprecedented mitigation to lesson the impact and that there is no possible way to entirely stop it. We have not prepared, peak oil is here, and we are now heading into uncharted waters.
Food, water, shelter and security will be our biggest concerns in the not so distant future. The only thing that will get us out of this mess is if we were to find 5 more Saudi Arabias in the next couple of years. Not going to happen, and even if it did, burning that much more oil would finish us off completely as a species.
We ARE moving into a new reality. (A reset is probably more appropriate.) The reality that without fossil fuel energy the world will not be able to sustain 7 billion people, and I seriously doubt that very many of them are going to just volunteer to go away.
BillT on Wed, 13th Feb 2013 1:05 am
Arthur, what makes you believe that electronics only need a ‘bit of electric’? They need a whole chain of events to even exist as a machine, or did you forget that part? That I toy you are playing with will last a few years at best. Nothing is designed to last. Especially IT.
Arthur on Wed, 13th Feb 2013 10:52 am
Bill, now you make me post this link for the fifth time, please pick it up this time or debunk it seriously (intuition is not good enough):
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/energy-requirements-of-the-internet/
It refers to a Berkely study that says that currently the internet consumes 1-2% of the global electricity cost, including production energy cost of the hardware. I add that currently internet clients are made up of large desktop and laptops, consuming 60-150 watt, but that tablet technology is emerging using 3 watt per device, that in the future with new processors will be slashed with yet another factor of ten.
So where is your counter argument, backed up with a study, showing that the internet consumes much more than I say?
Greg, IT is not (just) a gadget, but an energy efficient way to communicatie, which is an essential ingredient of any advanced society. IT has the potential to largely eliminate the car. That’s the point.
Arthur on Wed, 13th Feb 2013 4:12 pm
“Try to imagine waking up tomorrow morning to a world without oil.”
That is not going to happen. According to ASPO we still have 50% of the 2000x peak conventional oil by 2040. That is more than enough time for a collapse avoiding transition, at least in the West, provided no major war will erupt, a big if.
http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/
Again, no growth, no smooth transition, just managing decline and avoiding collapse.