Introduction

Nielsen, Søren Nors; Fath, Brian D.; Bastianoni, Simone; Marques, João Carlos Souza; Müller, Felix; Patten, Bernard C.; Ulanowicz, Robert E.; Jørgensen, S.E.; Tiezzi, Enzo

doi:10.1016/b978-0-444-63757-4.00001-2

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Phenomenon 2-Heat engines with greatest efficiency have greatest fitness for survival Thermodynamic efficiency of any given heat engine becomes a factor of its fitness for survival (Nielsen et al, 2020), either individually or through cooperative network relationships with other heat engines. Those heat engines with the greatest individual or cooperative thermodynamic efficiency generate the least amount of specific entropy and the greatest amount of specific exergy.…”

Section: Exergy Building Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other forms of disturbances of a disruptive nature, such as meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, and extreme weather patterns also contribute, resulting in the partial tear down of existing heat engine cycles and the formation of new heat engine cycles. A greater functional diversity of electrochemical heat engines is thus created with greater molecular complexities and greater efficiencies over time (Kay and Schneider, 1994;Nielsen et al, 2020).…”

Section: Exergy Building Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To open the presented theory, the tools of analysis and abductive reasoning will be astrophysics initially, classical physics more broadly, and the burgeoning science of ecological thermodynamics theory (Nielsen et al, 2020). The proof begins with a cosmological review of the evolution of Earth and the Sun into islands of order in the entropy of an expanding space.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Pancosmorio (world limit) theory of the sustainability of human migration and settlement in space

Irons

2023

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It seems to be an accepted assumption that human migration into space is inevitable. However, almost 60 years of scientific studies of the effects of space on Earth life suggest this is not a given. Life on Earth evolved in the context of conditions that are unique to Earth and are not duplicated anywhere else in our solar system. The science indicates that life-sustaining conditions on Earth could be the very things that inhibit our ability to live off-Earth. This paper combines 100 years of scientific development of a theory of ecological thermodynamics with classical mechanics theory and analytical models of self-restoring heat engines to explain how the Sun and Earth have evolved into islands of order in the entropy of space. An explanation is provided regarding how naturally occurring conservative force fields engage a diversity of natural resources in semi-reversible cycles that build a high-exergy ecosphere. The science infers that the ability to establish a human settlement in space without Earth-like self-restoring order, capacity, and organization will result in settlement sustainment challenges. Historical evidence of Earth settlements with disrupted ecosystems point to the following possibilities. Supply chains would disappear, market resources would be depleted, advancement in human pursuits would be disrupted, social and governance systems would falter or collapse, human population numbers would decline, genetic diversity in the human genome would be lost, average human individual biomass would decrease, and human knowledge and understanding would be forgotten. What does it mean to have a location in space outside of Earth be “like Earth?” The results of research are presented as a pancosmorio theory ofhuman sustainability that is developed using the scientific philosophy methodology of abductive reasoning. Four analytical models of space ecosphere sustainability and five hypotheses with proposed tests for falsifiability are provided, including a theorem that suggests a limit to human expansion into space. A new quantitative method of human sustainability is developed from theories of network ecology, providing orthogonal properties of an ecosystem network stability function based upon an ecosystem network production function. Conclusions are made regarding the potential for sustainable development in space using balanced sustainability. Insights are provided regarding human endeavors on the Moon and Mars, as well as the Fermi paradox.

show abstract

Section: Exergy Building Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Exergy Building Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Pancosmorio (world limit) theory of the sustainability of human migration and settlement in space

Irons

2023

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In spite of the powers and wide importance of these principles, the principles as a whole have been presented in surprisingly few other textbooks than Odum’s own. A recent demonstration of these powers may be found in Jørgensen et al [ 52 ] and Nielsen et al [ 53 ]. The weakness, if any, may be that the concepts are mainly phenomenological in character and not all parameters are easy to quantify.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Thermodynamics in Ecology—An Introductory Review

Nielsen

Müller

Marques

et al. 2020

Entropy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How to predict the evolution of ecosystems is one of the numerous questions asked of ecologists by managers and politicians. To answer this we will need to give a scientific definition to concepts like sustainability, integrity, resilience and ecosystem health. This is not an easy task, as modern ecosystem theory exemplifies. Ecosystems show a high degree of complexity, based upon a high number of compartments, interactions and regulations. The last two decades have offered proposals for interpretation of ecosystems within a framework of thermodynamics. The entrance point of such an understanding of ecosystems was delivered more than 50 years ago through Schrödinger’s and Prigogine’s interpretations of living systems as “negentropy feeders” and “dissipative structures”, respectively. Combining these views from the far from equilibrium thermodynamics to traditional classical thermodynamics, and ecology is obviously not going to happen without problems. There seems little reason to doubt that far from equilibrium systems, such as organisms or ecosystems, also have to obey fundamental physical principles such as mass conservation, first and second law of thermodynamics. Both have been applied in ecology since the 1950s and lately the concepts of exergy and entropy have been introduced. Exergy has recently been proposed, from several directions, as a useful indicator of the state, structure and function of the ecosystem. The proposals take two main directions, one concerned with the exergy stored in the ecosystem, the other with the exergy degraded and entropy formation. The implementation of exergy in ecology has often been explained as a translation of the Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest” into thermodynamics. The fittest ecosystem, being the one able to use and store fluxes of energy and materials in the most efficient manner. The major problem in the transfer to ecology is that thermodynamic properties can only be calculated and not measured. Most of the supportive evidence comes from aquatic ecosystems. Results show that natural and culturally induced changes in the ecosystems, are accompanied by a variations in exergy. In brief, ecological succession is followed by an increase of exergy. This paper aims to describe the state-of-the-art in implementation of thermodynamics into ecology. This includes a brief outline of the history and the derivation of the thermodynamic functions used today. Examples of applications and results achieved up to now are given, and the importance to management laid out. Some suggestions for essential future research agendas of issues that needs resolution are given.

show abstract

“…This new epoch characterizes for threatening the natural system’s conditions in which our species has thrived, and with this, our own sustainability [9–12]. Understanding the relationships that human activities and demands have within the natural system has then become key for determining the sustainability of the coupled system, and required for properly assessing human limits and/or opportunities for growth [4,13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How greedy is too greedy? A network toy model for evaluating the sustainability of biased evolutionary dynamics

Weinberger,

Zalaquett,

Abades

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Modern humanity has changed the biosphere at a global scale, threatening its own sustainability. It is claimed that through technology humans maximize the extraction of energy from the natural system towards their own benefit, with rates of appropriation that surpass the time-scales for systemic adaptation. This time-decoupled coevolutionary dynamic is at the core of human societal unsustainability. Here, we developed in silico experiments of an open energy-based flowing network toy model of natural systems and study the effects that greedy evolutionary strategies, resembling human societal demands, have upon the performance and scarcity tolerance of the system. We aim to determine the flexibility that those biased evolutionary dynamics have for matching or surpassing natural evolution outcomes. We studied four different indexes of system’s growth and development (total system throughflow (TST), average mutual information, ascendency and entropy difference) and compare their scarcity tolerance and performance outcomes with respect to four different greedy scenarios. The results showed that greedy strategies rarely surpassed the tolerance and performance achieved by natural systemic evolution. The nature of the greedy scenarios developed were closely related to increases in TST and therefore, we emphasized this comparison. Here, the maximum percentage of greedy networks capable of surpassing natural dynamics was around one-third (approx. 35 % ). However, results suggest the existence of a space parameter where local increases of energy flow can outperform the outcomes of natural systemic evolution, but no evident network property seems to characterize those greedy networks. A mild inverse relationship was found between the number of links that greedy nodes have towards the output and their capacity to outpass the control evolution. As many of the human societal effect upon biospheric processes have dissipative byproducts, knowing that such dynamics might diminish the systems tolerance and performance suggest care in their (ab)use. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis’.

show abstract

Introduction

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Pancosmorio (world limit) theory of the sustainability of human migration and settlement in space

Pancosmorio (world limit) theory of the sustainability of human migration and settlement in space

Thermodynamics in Ecology—An Introductory Review

How greedy is too greedy? A network toy model for evaluating the sustainability of biased evolutionary dynamics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About