Reflections on “Energetics”

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153031/
http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/socec/downloads/HH_Publi_Feb2013.PDF
http://ourenergyfutures.org/profile-n-Helmut_Haberl-mid-8.html

In the early 1970s David Pimentel introduced me to energetics of agricultural and other living systems … and largely because of an energy crisis at that time, I listened. This was amplified and reinforced shortly thereafter by H.T. Odum and Erich Farber, and then many others, who forced me to study and think more and more about human appropriated net primary productivity, and individual and collective ecological footprints.

Ecologist Marty Bender of the Land Institute connected me to the research of Helmut Haberl some ten years ago when two students and I spent 10 weeks doing research at the Department of Energy lab in Richland, Washington. In this reflection, I wish to introduce my friends involved in a fantastic organization called Ogallala Commons, and others, to the fascinating and critically important efforts of only one hard-working and this brilliant ecologist, Helmut Haberl.

One aspect of Dr. Haberl’s work deals with human appropriated net primary productivity, or the amount of energy captured by photosynthesis and left over after photosynthesizers have met their needs … which humans are utilizing at rampant rates and is largely not available to other organisms in community. The key reading for this reflection is from a small contribution of Dr. Haberl to “The Encyclopedia of the Earth.”
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[“Dr. Helmut Haberl is Associate professor at the Institute of Social Ecology (habilitation in Human Ecology, University of Vienna 2001; doctorate in Ecology, University of Vienna 1995). Helmut Haberl works on both theoretical and empirical aspects of society-nature interrelations and sustainable development – a research field he considers to be the core focus of human ecology. In recent years he has led several research projects on the relation between socioeconomic metabolism and land-use change. His research interests include the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP), ecological footprinting, societal energy metabolism and its relation to sustainable development, and other aspects of societal energy use. Dr. Haberl is member of Working Group III (Mitigation) for the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC (chapter 11: Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses), member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org) and of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency (http://www.eea.europa.eu/).”]

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