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"Tainter, Joseph A"
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Agriculture and the energy-complexity spiral
The study of cultural complexity is entwined with ancestors myths from contemporary cosmology. Gowdy & Krall expose this mythology by arguing that complexity emerged from economic changes following cultivation. There is more, however, to the development of cultural complexity. Complexity can emerge from abundant energy or from addressing societal problems, which compels still further energy production.
Journal Article
انهيار المجتمعات المعقدة
يبدأ الكتاب بمقدمة وافية عن ماهية المجتمعات المعقدة وتعريفها، وكذا عن ماهية الانهيار وتعريفه، ثم يستعرض حالات عشرات الحضارات عبر الزمان والمكان ويستعرض نظريات انهيارها وينقدها، ثم يقدم أطروحته عن أسباب انهيار الحضارات متبوعة بثلاث دراسات حالة لثلاث حضارات مختلفة، يحاول تطبيق نظريته عليها، ثم ينتهي الكتاب بإيجاز الموضوع كله وطرح توقعات لحاضر ومستقبل العالم.
Book
Energy, transport, and consumption in the Industrial Revolution
We question Baumard's underlying assumption that humans have a propensity to innovate. Affordable transportation and energy underpinned the Industrial Revolution, making mass production/consumption possible. Although we cannot accept Baumard's thesis on the Industrial Revolution, it may help explain why complexity and innovation increase rapidly in the context of abundant energy.
Journal Article
Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse
The literature on sustainability and the human future emphasizes the belief that population and/or mass consumption caused resource degradation and collapse in earlier societies. Archaeological literature proposing overshoot and collapse appears in current debates over resource conservation versus continued economic growth. The prominence of this debate, with its national and international dimensions, makes it important to assess whether there is evidence in the archaeological literature for overshoot and collapse brought on by Malthusian overpopulation and/or mass consumption.
Journal Article
The Nexus of Population, Energy, Innovation, and Complexity
For the past 200 years, humans have benefited from the abundant, inexpensive, and easily obtained energy of fossil fuels. Energy surpluses such as this are unusual in human history. In systems with little surplus energy, population growth is low and complexity emerges slowly due to the energetic costs it carries. On the rare occasions when energy is readily available, societies respond by growing rapidly. They must become more complex in response to the social, economic, and resource challenges of dense population. More complex societies are more expensive, requiring greater energy per capita. The process of increasing complexity necessitates greater energy production, creating a positive feedback cycle. Past societies have collapsed under such pressures. Population and complexity grew rapidly when the Industrial Revolution replaced economies based on annual solar radiation with economies fueled by fossil energy. The Green Revolution of the 20th century is credited with preventing mass starvation, but it has made food production and sustaining population ever-more dependent on high-energy (lowentropy) inputs. Some believe innovation will overcome the limitations of resources and permit unchecked growth. However, increases in complexity, innovation, and fossil energy are all subject to diminishing returns, and cannot continue to support population at current levels.
Journal Article
Resource Transitions and Energy Gain
Energy gain constrains resource use, social organization, and landscape organization in human and other living systems. Changes in energy gain have common characteristics across living systems. We describe these commonalities in selected case studies involving imperial taxation, fungus-farming ants, and North American beaver, and propose a suite of hypotheses for the organization of systems that subsist on different levels of energy gain. Organizational constraints arising from energy gain predict changes to settlement and organization in postcarbon societies.
Journal Article
Dragnet Ecology—“Just the Facts, Ma'am”: The Privilege of Science in a Postmodern World
Instead of retreating to naive objectivism, scientists need to adapt to a postmodern age by becoming conscious of the significance of their narratives. Science of intrinsic quality needs narratives with explicit values--not just facts--particularly as it faces multiple-level complexity in advising on environmental policy, such as planning for energy futures.
Journal Article
Problem Solving: Complexity, History, Sustainability
Sustainability or collapse follow from the success or failure of problem-solving institutions. The factors that lead to long-term success or failure in problem solving have received little attention, so that this fundamental activity is poorly understood. The capacity of institutions to solve problems changes over time, suggesting that a science of problem solving, and thus a science of sustainability, must be historical. Complexity is a primary problem-solving strategy, which is often successful in the short-term, but cumulatively may become detrimental to sustainability. Historical case studies illustrate different outcomes to long-term development of complexity in problem solving. These cases clarify future options for contemporary societies: collapse, simplification, or increasing complexity based on increasing energy subsidies.
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