Message-ID: <002e01be31c5$04f78040$de0efea9@jay98> Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 08:16:25 -1000 From: Jay Hanson <mailto:j@QMAIL.COM> Subject: "eMergy" To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
MONSTROUS RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE In reality, the economy is nothing but a monstrous -- energy gulping -- Rube Goldberg machine to deliver "needs" to people. These people still "need" the same things that people "needed" 35,000 years ago: shelter, health care, clean water, clean air, and about 2,500 calories a day.But "Each of those three million hunter-gatherers was the energy-using counterpart of a common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), whereas each of today's 232 million Americans matches the energy use of a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus)." [1]
Obviously, the "economy" is incredibly inefficient at delivering "needs" to people. No doubt my statement will stick in the economist's craw, because after all, isn't "efficiency" what economics is all about?
The problem with "economic efficiency" is that "money" is not a measure of anything in the real world (like, say, BTUs). Thus, "economic efficiency" is nothing more than a "political" concept designed to preserve wealth for those who have it.
For over a century, theorists have sought ways of integrating economics and environmental accounting, often using energy as a common metric. But these efforts met with limited success because different kinds of available energy are not equivalent.
"eMergy" (with an "M") is the solar energy used directly and indirectly to make a service or product. In other words, eMergy is the "cost" of a service or a product in units of solar energy.
The metric of "eMergy" allows us to compare commodities, services and environmental work of different types. "Transformity" - the eMergy per unit energy - allows us to compare different kinds of available of energy.
So we need to totally junk the present economic system and replace it with a new one that maximizes the production of "eMergy" (instead of money) and delivers basic "needs" (not Cadillacs) to everyone in a sustainable way.
For more on "eMergy", see ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING, H.T. Odum; Wiley, 1995; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471114421
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Jay ------------------------- [1] THE WORLD'S MOST POLYMORPHIC SPECIES: Carrying capacity transgressed two ways by William R. Catton. Jr. http://dieoff.com/page81.htm