By David Schwartzman
The continuing use of
Georgescu-Roegen’s theory of entropy by neo-Malthusians as foundational support
for their views comes as no surprise. Lately, those warning of a
Can
an effective strategy to achieve a society sustainable for both humans and
nature rest on a fallacious theory of how energy and matter interact? The
answer should be obvious, but unfortunately this is not a rhetorical question
because such a theory now has wide currency among environmental and even
Marxist writers. This discussion will provide a critique of this theory and
suggestions for a more defensible approach. I submit that only a red green
practice informed by the most robust theories and knowledge derived from the
natural and physical sciences and an historical materialist approach to social
change can measure up to the immense challenges now facing humanity.
There
is now strong evidence that catastrophic effects of global climate change will
occur unless radical steps are taken in the coming few decades to effect a
solar-based energy transition from the present reliance on fossil fuels (e.g.,
Leggett, 2006; Milliken, 2006; Harvey, 2006). Further, defeating the main obstacle to this
transition, the
Such
is the urgency of constructing a robust red green theory and practice. However,
an influential Marxist contributor to this project has recently reasserted the
relevancy of a widely discredited new “law” of thermodynamics. I will argue
that this same misinterpretation of thermodynamic theory has already fertilized
a wide range of regressive ideologies that are serious obstacles to achieving a
sustainable future. Further, the continued appropriation of fallacious
thermodynamic interpretations undermines the grounding of effective red green
theory and practice. The same attempt to
introduce these interpretations into Marxist theory of the material aspects of
production and consumption and societal interactions with nature brings neither
clarity nor illumination.
The
fallacious “law” of thermodynamics in question is Georgescu-Roegen’s fourth
law. While this law once had superficial credibility because of the undeniable
contributions of its inventor, it is no more valid than the repudiation of
modern physics by those who claim the invention of perpetual motion
machines.
I
previously critiqued the misuse of thermodynamic concepts, especially entropy,
in environmental green and Marxist discourse, in an attempt to reground the
project for Marxian communism on robust physical theory that comes to terms
with ecological issues (Schwartzman, 1996). In particular, this misuse has been
largely drawn from the influence of Georgescu-Roegen’s work. While
Georgescu-Roegen surely deserves credit for founding the field of ecological
economics by virtue of his influential writings, especially The Entropy Law and
the Economic Process, and for stimulating discussion regarding waste and the
economic process, his thermodynamic theorization has received critical rebuttal
from both within and without the discourse of ecological economic (footnote 1).
While some scholars still defend Georgescu-Roegen’s thermodynamics (e.g.,
Mayumi and Giampietro, 2004), the predominant view now seems to acknowledge the
fallacy of his fourth law, because of its conflation of isolated and closed
systems.
Nevertheless, Georgescu-Roegen should be credited at least
with a useful error, if the thermodynamic fallacy of his fourth Law is
understood. “Despite the flaws in Georgescu-Roegen’s definition of a Fourth
Law, … His focus on the dispersal of materials and limits on recycling
foreshadowed the development of industrial metabolism and industrial ecology
…in which the analysis of material cycles is used to understand how production
and consumption impact the environment, and how to design new technologies that
reduce such impacts” (Cleveland and Ruth, 1997).
In spite
of its refutation from a wide range of scholars, Georgescu-Roegen’s
thermodynamics is still very influential, especially among neo-Malthusians and
lately
So this paper
will revisit this continued invocation of Georgescu-Roegen’s theories in the
hopes of strengthening red green theory and practice. After a brief review of
the laws of thermodynamics and the use of Georgescu-Roegen’s theories by
Neo-Malthusians and other non-Marxists, I will concentrate on a recent paper by
Paul Burkett (2005), a well- known Marxist scholar with many valuable
publications on red green theory (e.g., Burkett, 2003; Foster and Burkett,
2004). (Burkett’s
2005 paper is included with minor revisions as chapter five in Burkett 2006). I conclude with a reexamination of the real
potential of achieving the necessary material conditions for ecosocialist
transition from global capitalism to solar communism.
The Three Laws of Thermodynamics, is there a Fourth?
I will
begin with a short summary of standard thermodynamics and its three laws (see
Atkins, 1984 for a clear discussion). Actually there are already four laws
counting the “zeroth law”, which grounds the concept of temperature. The first
law asserts the conservation of energy (after Einstein, mass and energy). The second, the important one for our
purpose, captures the fundamental dissymmetry of the universe, in which the
distribution of energy changes in an irreversible manner. This irreversibility
is measured by the production of entropy. There are several different ways of
expressing the second law. One is that work can be totally converted into heat
but the reverse is impossible. Entropy
is defined as the heat supplied to a system divided by its absolute temperature
(e.g., 0 deg Celsius, the freezing point of water, equals 273 deg Kelvin on the
absolute temperature scale). Temperature is a measure of the intensity of thermal vibrations in any
material system, its kinetic energy, i.e., active as opposed to potential
energy, Zero degrees on the Kelvin scale is
the lowest temperature conceivable, at which, in theory, all thermal
vibrations cease, but this state is physically unattainable (see third law). One other
formulation is relevant here: heat cannot flow from a cooler to a hotter
reservoir without any other change (i.e., work must be done). The increase of
entropy is equivalent to the increased inability of an isolated system to do work, resulting from the degradation of low
entropy energy into waste heat (an isolated
system is defined as being closed to both energy and matter transfers in or
out, while a closed system is only
closed to matter transfers).
The
third law applies to matter at very low temperatures, forbidding it to reach
absolute zero in a finite number of steps.
So is
there a fourth law recognized by modern physics? Could modern physics be wrong
and guilty of suppressing an unconventional yet valid new law for over 30 years
(Georgescu-Roegen, 1970)? To answer this question we will first look at the
specifics of Georgescu-Roegen’s so-called fourth law, since it is foundational
for such a diverse discourse as well as being at the core of Burkett’s
argument. A concise expression of his so-called fourth law is found in Georgescu-Roegen
(1980, 304), where two formulations are given: First,
“unavailable matter cannot be recycled; second
“a closed system (i.e., a system that
cannot exchange matter with the environment) cannot perform work indefinitely
at a constant rate. “ Burkett quotes another very similar formulation
(Georgescu-Roegen 1981, 59-60) which in addition to the second statement above
posits that “in a closed system available matter continuously and irrevocably
dissipates, thus becoming unavailable’ and
that ‘’complete recycling is impossible’. Here his
definition of a closed system follows its standard definition in thermodynamics
as already pointed out. If we substitute “isolated” for “closed” (an isolated
system means there are neither matter nor energy transfers
between the system and its environment) then Georgescu-Roegen’s second
formulation (an isolated system cannot perform work indefinitely) is equivalent
to the second law of thermodynamics. As I previously argued, for an economy run
on fossil fuel energy, which of course has finite reserves, the second law
simply indicates that energy to do work is not renewable, i.e., you cannot
reuse waste heat ad infinitum (true of waste heat from using solar energy as
well) nor can you regenerate the low entropy energy reserve (with solar energy
the sun does this for you!). Before engaging in further discussion of this
alleged fourth law, we will first see how those outside the red green discourse
have recently used Georgescu-Roegen’s thermodynamic theories. This will
illustrate the importance of clarity and accuracy with respect to the
thermodynamic grounding of red green theory. How can red greens effectively
critique regressive and harmful ideologies while adopting their same fallacious
theoretical sources?
If the dominant political
economy of global capitalism is assumed to be largely irrelevant to explaining
humanity’s and nature’s sorry condition, then pointing to the present size of
human population and its forecasted growth as the primary cause will be
user-friendly to the continued rule of capital. Biology triumphs over political
economy. Thus, we find prominent environmentalists and ecologists claiming that
the Earth’s carrying capacity is now exceeded by the global human population
size (e.g., Rapley, 2006; Pimentel and Pimentel, 2006, Pimentel, 2006). Garrett Hardin (1993), one of the most influential
neo-Malthusians of the 20th Century, argued that the 2nd
law of thermodynamics is the physical basis for the limits to a sustainable
human population level. As Gillot and Kumar (1997) pointed out, Hardin assumed
the Earth is a isolated system (p. 163) with Hardin (just like
Georgescu-Roegen) ignoring the real potential of tapping the huge solar energy
flux to the Earth’s surface by high efficiency technology for humankind’s use.
James Lovelock of Gaia fame has
reiterated his long-standing neo-Malthusian views in his new book (Lovelock,
2006). Here we find the following
assertion:
The root of our problems with the environment comes from a lack of constraint on the growth of population...the number...has grown to over six billion, which is wholly unsustainable in the present state of Gaia, even if we had the will and the ability to cut back. (140)
Lovelock
elaborates on this theme in a recent interview (Revkin, 2006):
Q.
You say in the book that sustainable development is a fantasy, essentially, and
you have a different notion for what needs to happen, of "sustainable
retreat."
A.
At six-going-on-eight-billion people, the idea of any further development is
almost obscene. We've got to learn how to retreat from the world that we're in.
Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.
Some ecologists have gone so far as
to advocate the elimination of 90% of the world’s population by airborne Ebola
(see report by Mims, 2006)—with protective measures presumably being provided
for the privileged 10%, living in gated communities? This genocidal
prescription recalls Rifkin’s (1989) more modest claim that a pre-industrial
global population of less than 1 billion people is required for a sustainable
planet, though he never apparently advocated genocide to reach this goal.
Many neo-Malthusians still ground
their arguments with Georgescu-Roegen’s version of thermodynamics (e.g.,
Campaign for Political Ecology, which includes well known advisors such as
Jonathan Porritt and Norman Myers). From
the CPE website:
“Our
guiding concepts are limits, diversity and stability. The key issues are
overpopulation, overconsumption and uncontrolled technology.” “renewable energy may, and indeed must, play
an increasingly important role in future but it will be difficult or impossible
for it to match demand unless total energy consumption is also greatly
reduced." “ The thermodynamic and ecological limits to growth are explored
in:
Ophuls,
W, 1992. Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (Freeman)
Rifkin,
J, 1989. Entropy (
Other
examples of this argument are found in the work of John
Attarian, (2005) and that of Jay Hanson (2001); the
latter acknowledges his debt to Georgescu-Roegen:
“ No so-called "renewable" energy system has the potential to
generate more than a tiny fraction of the power now being generated by fossil
fuels! " Others drawing from Georgescu-Roegen include
Huesemann 2001, 2003, and numerous believers in a
A systematic refutation of these
neo-Malthusian views is not the subject of this paper, so the reader should go
elsewhere (e.g., Cohen, 1995; Boucher, 1999). My brief rebuttal to Rapley
(2006): the
Earth is too crowded—but with billionaires. Population stabilizes with
reduction of poverty and empowerment of women. Yes, radical changes must be
made to realize global sustainability: solarization, demilitarization,
agroecology. The challenge is political and economic, not one of reducing
population size. Another world is possible if the global "excess"
population is sufficiently organized to force it into being, constraining the
rule of capital that enriches the few, while bringing immiseration to the many.
The widely
cited writings of Herman Daly supporting a steady-state economy were profoundly
influenced by Georgescu-Roegen (see critique in Schwartzman, 1996; Boucher et
al., 1993). Georgescu-Roegen’s and Daly’s concepts have been foundational for
advocates of “limits to growth” and a steady-state (in this context,
zero-growth) economy (Czech, 2000; Czech and Daly, 2004; Attarian, 2005).
Lately,
the spectre of Hubbert Peak, the likely peak in production of oil in the next
50 years if not sooner, has been added to the mix of neo-Malthusian and
anti-growth ideologies (see e.g., Hanson, 2001). There is little doubt this
peak will come sooner or later in the 21st century (Smil, 2003; WorldWatch,
2006), hopefully sooner, corresponding to the rapid shift to a global renewable
energy infrastructure forced by transnational red green struggles. Given the
now undeniable link of fossil fuel consumption to global warming and other
multi-fold negative impacts to humans and nature, it will be catastrophic to
wait for a production peak driven by the actual recoverable geologic reserves
of oil, or a shift back to coal (see Leggett, 2006).
Two
prominent and influential Marxist scholars have recently drawn from Georgescu-Roegen’s
theory of entropy. Joel Kovel’s appropriation of Georgescu-Roegen’s theory was
critiqued in Boucher et al. (Kovel, 2003; Boucher et al., 2003). A more recent
paper by Paul Burkett (2005) supports Georgescu-Roegen’s theory of entropy in
an apparent attempt to seek convergence of Marxist theory with ecological
economics. The very shaky foundations of Georgescu-Roegen’s thermodynamic
theory, however, undermine this
attempt. Nevertheless, I thank Paul
Burkett for reigniting a discussion on the relationship between Marxist theory
and ecological economics. Red-green
theory will surely be enriched by engaging in a dialogue with scholars
dedicated to developing ecological economics, who have critiqued neo-classical
economics for its neglect of ecological concerns (see Costanza et al,1997, for
an overview, Martinez-Alier, 1987, for an interpretation open to Marxist
concerns).
As
discussed earlier, a common if not predominant use of Georgescu-Roegen’s theory
of entropy since Rifkin’s popularization in the 1980s has been to create the
illusionary appearance of a robust physical basis for neo-Malthusian
and anti-development ideologies, not to support a Marxist critique of
neo-classical economics. Hence Burkett’s embrace of Georgescu-Roegen’s theory
is curious given Burkett’s own valuable critique of neo-Malthusian views
(Burkett, 1998).
In
Rifkin’s work, the entropy concept is
extended to its apocryphal limits. Entropy appears as a pollutant, as an
indicator of cosmic disorder, the inexorable outcome of all economic activity,
the mother of ecocatastrophe. (Georgescu-Roegen enthusiastically endorses
Rifkin’s treatment of the subject (Georgescu-Roegen, 1980). Rifkin, as noted,
favors a pre-industrial global population of less than one billion people, and
rejects the use of computers since they generate entropy (1989 edition,
190-191)! Should we wonder whether Rifkin’s more recent books were composed on
a word processor rather than a less entropic typewriter?
Entropy is
too abstract and coarse a concept to illuminate most issues in the
environmental discourse unless the full context of its use is thought
through—the “ascent from the abstract to the concrete” in Marxist epistemology
(Ilyenkov, 1982). Its invocation in the environmental discourse commonly serves
little purpose other than to avoid clarity while creating the illusion of rigor
because a concept from theoretical physics is used. Is entropy a useful measure
of unsustainability? A consideration of the physical entropic flux (roughly
equivalent to the radiant energy flux) from the Earth’s surface should
demonstrate that appealing to anthropogenic (man-made) entropy production as a
measure of negative environmental impacts fails to recognize their real
qualitative aspects.
This
entropic flux is dominated by the natural heat production from both solar
radiation interacting with the Earth’s surface and incoming radiation from the
greenhouse effect. Any plausible anthropogenic contribution is trivial. The
greatest potential anthropogenic contribution arises from global warming. Since
to a good first approximation the entropic flux is equal to the incoming solar
flux divided by the absolute temperature (Schwartzman, 1999, 2002, 162-163), a
5 deg C global rise in surface temperature will lower this flux by about 2%, which is
derived from the ratio of absolute temperatures (288/293), the global incoming
solar energy flux being the same (recall that the denominator of the entropy
flux expression is always the absolute temperature). Whatever the change in
entropic flux arising from changes in the Earth’s surface temperature, the
entropic flux in itself will tell us nothing about actual impacts of global
warming, which are both the linear and nonlinear outcomes of fossil fuel
consumption and other sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
The concrete linkage of cause and effect must be worked out from application of
the sciences of biogeochemistry, climatology, oceanography, ecology etc.
Likewise, while the entropy of mixing gives some insight into general aspects
of pollution it fails to capture the relevant qualitative aspects so critical
to the health of humans and nature (Schwartzman, 1996).
On a
cosmological scale, the increase in entropy in the universe is inevitable as
expressed in the Second Law, but this very increase is the necessary
requirement for the emergence and maintenance of self-organized systems. The
debt of self-organizing systems to “chaos” is the environmental increase in
entropy. As we shall see sustainable societal self-organization on the planet
Earth is only limited by the low-entropy solar flux, a limit with no practical
consequences far into the future, with the entropic debt paid as the heat flux
to space, the ultimate heat sink. This future, I argue, is only achievable by
the contingent outcome of global red-green struggle.
Given
the mineral and fossil fuels reserves of the Earth’s crust, the "economic
system is... doomed to "run down" as the low entropy material
resources on earth are dissipated and become unavailable" (Burkett, 2005, 135, quoting Georgescu-Roegen). We do not need a fallacious fourth law
to tell us this, the first and second laws provide sufficient explanation.
Without the use of incoming solar radiation, this system will ultimately run
out of available energy to do work. It is important to point out that even
without the use of incoming solar radiation as a prime source of energy (aside
from the low efficiency collection by photosynthesis, the basis of
agriculture), this system is not isolated since waste heat is dissipated,
ultimately radiated into space. Nuclear energy, even fusion power will only
postpone this ultimate fate in a real economy limited to the terrestrial
environment since this energy source utilizes the finite reserves of
fissionable (or, in the future, fusionable) raw material. The solar fusion
reactor 93 million miles away is the true sustainable alternative.
Thus the
inescapable flaw of the fourth law is its neglect of the possible flow of
energy into/out of the system which is defined as closed but not isolated.
By converting low entropy, high temperature energy (solar radiation) to high
entropy, low temperature heat, work can be produced to recycle indefinitely
(footnote 2). A caveat: indefinitely does not mean "eternally" (even
protons may have a finite half-life). To get concrete about this issue, the
relevant time scale is hundreds, even millions of years, not eternity.
Moreover, we should be considering the urgent prospect of solarizing and
demilitarizing human society in the 21st century, not in the distant future,
when humanity will plausibly expand outward in our solar system and even
further into the galaxy if it survives the present epoch of destructive capital
reproduction and future challenges.
Interestingly,
in one text Georgescu-Roegen (1976, 8)
incorrectly defines “closed” as entailing no exchange of matter or energy with
[the] environment (recall that in thermodynamics this is defined as an
“isolated” system, not a “closed” system); he still maintained that according
to the second law matter along with energy is subject to irrevocable
dissipation. This confusion may be linked to his pessimistic view on harnessing
solar energy since the latter is the relevant energy flux to consider for the
closed but not isolated system containing economic activity on the earth’s
surface. Thus, immediately following his formulation of the fourth law in his
1980 text we find his argument that there is no immediate prospect of solar
energy (high efficiency) going from feasible to viable, i.e., escaping from its
perpetual status as a parasite on fossil fuels, the dominant contemporary
energy source. Parenthetically, I found no evidence that Georgescu-Roegen ever
explicitly corrected himself by acknowledging his definition of closed systems
in this paper (Georgescu-Roegen 1976) was
wrong.
But
Burkett claims that the concept of unavailable matter, “the inevitability of
friction, corrosion and decomposition” transcending energy reductionism is
critical to Georgescu-Roegen’s insight. Therefore, Burkett argues that since
the “earth is open to massive solar energy inflows but basically closed
materially, it is not surprising that low-entropy matter, not energy, emerges
most clearly as the ultimate constraint on human production” (Burkett, 2005, 119-120). I welcome Burkett’s
implied rejection of Georgescu-Roegen’s views on solar viability. But his
argument regarding the implications of “unavailable matter” is highly
problematic, recognizing that it is a partial retreat from the strong version
of the fourth law. On what time scale? What are the real and potential fluxes
of low entropy solar energy that can reclaim this dissipated matter? Just what
determines the “unavailability” of high entropy matter? Does this alleged
constraint imply that near future migration to the moon or asteroid Belt is
necessary? Is waste heat a critical concern with respect to the utilization of
solar energy? And finally is this
spectre of “unavailable matter” really relevant to a future solarized physical
economy? My short answer to each of the previous three questions is: no.
What
is the ultimate limit to global energy consumption? Presently the global
anthropogenic (human-created) energy flux is equal to 0.03% of solar flux to
land. Or, to put it another way, humanity currently uses an amount of energy,
mostly from fossil fuels, equivalent to 0.03% of the solar energy reaching the
land surface of earth. Hence tapping this solar flux has a huge potential as
the energy basis of a solar utopia, with much smaller impacts on global ecology
than the present unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear power
(Schwartzman, 1996). Thus, for a solar energy source, the waste heat flux back
into space is to a very good first approximation not incremental to the natural infrared flux from the Earth’s
surface, at least until such time as human energy demand increases many
hundreds of times. This is precisely the same argument made by Kaberger and
Mansson (2001) referenced but unfortunately not addressed in
Burkett’s paper. Of course, I am not claiming that the first basis for human
civilization, low efficiency biomass energy, can be the basis of this solarized
economy. Only high-efficiency solar energy can do this. The conflation of the
two is common in Neo-Malthusian treatment (e.g., Huesemann,
2001, 2003).
Recycling
Now,
more specifically on the possibility of "complete" recycling in an
open system, Burkett’s discussion of this issue (Burkett, 2005, 132) lacks
sufficient concreteness with respect to a real physical economy on the earth’s
surface, consistent with Georgescu-Roegen and Daly’s abstract treatment.
In practical terms, 100% recycling efficiency is not required (see
Kaberger and Mansson's (2001) illuminating discussion). Given the possibilities
of a future dematerialized solar economy, with a lower throughput than now, and
of course recognizing that current information technology is not really
dematerialized under current capital reproduction, as Burkett rightfully
argues, (2005,135), the huge solar flux is again the basis of any ultimate
limit to practical recycling on the earth's surface, and not the entropic flux
of waste heat. The latter would be
dissipated anyway by the absorption of solar energy on a land surface (with an
albedo, i.e., reflectivity, of about 0.3-0.4, with 0 being perfectly absorbing
and 1 being perfectly reflecting (like an ideal white surface). Under these
conditions, the "tremendous increase in the entropy of the environment' or
the “adverse material effects of waste heat on eco-systems” resulting from recycling
(Burkett, 2005,132-133) is an illusion for a solarized economy as Kaberger and
Mansson (2001) show. Unfortunately,
Burkett’s discussion of the case made for the plausibility of total recycling
in an industrial society (citing Ayres, 1999) does not confront the qualitative
difference between a solarized and a depletable-energy-based economy.
Further
unclarity is found in Burkett’s quotation from Georgescu-Roegen
“at the macro-level no practical procedure exists for converting energy into
matter or matter of whatever form to energy”. It is not clear “whatever form” means. In a
footnote Burkett cites Daly (Burkett, 2005, 120; Daly, 1991 (a different
printing, 1992 is cited by Burkett) in support. In this reference Daly says
“Although we can turn matter into energy, we have no means for turning energy
into matter on a significant scale”. Daly is clearly referring to nuclear
reactions, where mass to energy conversion is small but measurable, unlike
chemical reactions where the conversion likewise occurs but is infinitesimal.
Burkett
critiques energy reductionism in his citation of Georgescu-Roegen (Burkett,
2005, e.g., 121, Footnote 14). Is it energy reductionism to
uphold the relevancy of the second law, i.e., entropy must be considered
besides energy, entropy in its full quantitative and qualitative aspects (see
discussion of the entropy of mixing and its relevancy to recycling and
pollution in Schwartzman, 1996).
Ignoring the second law is indeed energy reductionism. The issue of
friction and dispersal of matter in anthropogenic cycles has energetic,
biogeochemical and social qualitative aspects, which some critics of
Georgescu-Roegen take seriously, but that does not make the "fourth
law" any more valid. Friction equals waste heat; dispersal of matter can
be radically reduced depending on the physical design of the process of
production/consumption and, of course, energy source. Two of Georgescu-Roegen’s
examples of "unavailable matter" arising from the inevitable friction
inherent in any physical process are rust and broken glass (Georgescu-Roegen, 1986). So we are to believe that even with available
energy these wastes cannot be efficiently turned back into iron and glass
bottles respectively!
If the
reader will indulge me, I will now make a personal observation to illustrate a
point about recycling. My now deceased father spent 40 years as a diamond
setter on the Bowery in lower
The core of the red-green project is to effect an
ecosocialist transition from global capitalism to “solar communism”, my name
for a future global society that will realize an updated version of Marx's
guiding principle for his vision of communism, namely "from each according
to her ability, to each according to her needs", where "her"
refers to humans and nature (ecosystems) (Schwartzman, 1996).
I urge that concrete visions of communist utopia should now be discussed and
represented by political movements that challenge the global rule of capital. This
envisioning should of course be a work in progress, continually revised with
input from both the scientific-technological and political communities. If
there is "another world possible" let’s begin describing concretely
how it will function and begin creating embryos of the future as global class
struggle unfolds to achieve its full reality.
The
material prerequisites for solar communism include: 1) a global high
efficiency solar energy infrastructure, replacing fossil fuels and nuclear
energy; 2) application of the containment and precautionary principles to
environmental policy (including industrial ecology, organic agriculture
centered around and in green cities); 3) progressive dematerialization of
technology, global availability of state-of-the-art information technology;
4)
increase of human population density centered in green cities, elimination of
sprawl leaving extensive biospheric reserves, managed to preserve biodiversity.
Radical
political and economic changes are, of course, necessary to realize these
material prerequisites (Schwartzman, 2005), a challenge that is now
a focus of intense investigation and debate by scholars and activists globally.
The
transition to energy-limited (not entropy-limited!) solar communism must
proceed from entropy-limited capitalism through ecosocialism (Schwartzman,
1996). I think that “solar capitalism” is an illusionary prospect because the
level of red and green struggle required to solarize global capitalism will
likely result in ecosocialist transition. While individual capitalist economies
may solarize, the dominant role of the “nuclear military fossil fuel industrial
complex” in global capitalist reproduction makes its termination both an
essential requirement for and likely a direct path to ecosocialist transition
on a global scale.
Is ecosocialist transition to solar communism an
achievable goal in this the 21st century, or is this simply wishful thinking,
an example of an infantile disorder as identified in Lenin’s Left Wing
Communism? Aside from the formidable
political challenges, are the claimed material prerequisites realizable? Two material prerequisites are arguably
paramount: the creation of a solar-based energy infrastructure, and an
agroecology sufficient to support the global human population while
significantly reducing negative environmental and ecological impacts. The practicality of creating a global solar
infrastructure with even existing technologies by mid century is now plausibly
argued (e.g., Leggett, 2006; Scheer, 2002, 2007; Bradford, 2006; Shinnar and
Citro, 2006, for the
And as for
the second big challenge, can the global population be fed without the
concomitant negative impacts of industrial agriculture? To be sure, the world
and especially urban areas in countries of the South are overpopulated, but
only in the context of the carrying capacity of the present political economy
in this world of extreme inequalities and not the alleged carrying capacity of
the biosphere. Mike Davis eloquently
describes the overpopulated cities of the South, bursting with poor residents
driven from rural areas (
Human
population size and relative overpopulation are not the fundamental drivers of
global inequalities and widespread misery; they are, rather, symptoms of the
unsustainability of this world dominated by capital reproduction takes priority
over the needs of humanity and nature.
Even now there is still enough food produced globally, both in calories
and nutritional content, to potentially feed everyone (Boucher,1999), although
this mode of production has huge negative impacts on people and nature. Hunger
and malnutrition are the results of existing political economy not any real
shortage of food. But can agroecology still feed the world's population without
the well-known negative impacts of industrial agriculture? There is a very good
case that it can, even in preferred synchronicity with the process of
solarization (Badgley et al., 2007; Ho and Ching, 2003; Pimentel et al.,
2005; Vasilikiotis, 2005).
In
the interests of promoting more dialogue between ecological Marxists and
ecological economists we need principled and clear arguments that are firmly
rested on real science, in this case thermodynamics. The appropriation of
misleading entropy concepts by Marxists is particularly unhelpful, since
Marxist theory should be a guide for red-green political practice.
1
E.g., Ayres, 1997, 1998, 1999; Kaberger and
Mansson, 2001; Fleissner and Hofkirchner, 1997;
Baumgartner, 2002, 2003, 2005; Cleveland, 1999; Cleveland and Ruth,
1997; Craig, 2001; Gillett, 2006;
Rothman 1989.
2 See
e.g., Bianciardi et al., 1993. Burkett
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3 The Trans-Mediterranean
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http://www.mng.org.uk/green_house/renewable_energy/csp.htm
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David
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Professor
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