As argued in the seminal publication by Frosch and Gallopoulos (1989), Industrial Ecology looks to non-human 'natural' ecosystems as models for industrial activity. This is what researchers on the field dubbed as the 'ecological analogy'.
Industrial Ecology strives to recognize those analogies, as they are presented in a social, political and economical context, throughout the industrial (eco)systems. The realization of those analogies and how they can be identified and used to ultimately transform industrial activity (and life connected to it) is, in my eyes, one of the greatest puzzles of our field. Dynamic and prescriptive, and not static and descriptive, approaches will need to be implemented, focusing on all areas of environmental interventions. This develops a link between the human impacts on the environment and the tools used to counteract them, leading to more adaptive and efficient technologies.
In the Americas, the large-bodied mammals (mega-fauna), such as saber-toothed cats (Smilodon) or Mammoths, vanished around 11.000 - 13.000 years ago; following the arrival of human populations. Constructing the cause-effect chain of this phenomenon, we start with the ice age (cause) leading to a system wide disruption of their natural environments and to a major loss of biodiversity, affecting their hunting groups (smaller prey). That coupled with the large amount of energy required for the biochemical reactions that are sustaining them through life (reproduction, hunting, feeding), precipitated the reduction of their population and finally their extinction (effect).
Analyzing the current state of the adaptive cycle, it is evident that the ecosystems following a large scale distortion (ice age) through all levels of adaptive cycles, from higher (slower) to lower (faster) cycles, released the long accumulated trasformative properties of the ecosystem (creative destruction). The ecosystem then entered a state dominated by transformation and opportunity, where change and variety are increased. This way new cycles were created and new species came to occupy the newly formed niches of the ecosystem (rapid reorganization).
The respective analogy of this ecological phenomenon to our socio-technical systems can be reflected in the growing concern for resource scarcity. As the ecosystem works in completely closed loops, no resources used are actually removed from the environment but they are transformed and used in other processes. Only minimum energy losses (mainly heat exchange and biochemical reactions) take place although there are some exergy losses (quality losses). The need for storage of materials is minimized, due to its high energy need.
This cannot be said for our industrial (eco)systems, where the processes entail higher energy losses and there is an ever increasing demand for products and services (and their use, storage, disposal). The scarcity of materials used in many of our advanced technologies (e.g. ICT) sets an interesting challenge for our industrial systems. But even when considering abundant materials, the exergy losses we mentioned earlier combined with their increasing amount needed to match the demand, have as a result an inevitable increase of their energy intensity (KW/tn of material).
These considerations create a sense of urgency for analyses from a system perspective and changes in a system level. A redirection of the physical flows of our systems is needed, transforming waste products into commodities, by efficiently recycling and reusing them. The puzzle contains not only the need too find suitable technologies required in the myriad of transformations but also creating new governance systems that have a broader scope than the ones we have today. They will have to consider the relationships and the newfound dependencies, among the new clusters of actors, governance and the problems, at different levels. These systems will have to foster and regulate this new interconnectedness.
The second possibility of the mega-fauna extinction, the arrival of human population, leads to a different cause-effect chain that could have a significant impact on the transformation and a key role in the analogy. Through the increased complexity of their social interactions humand created societies, small at first, bigger and more complex as time passed. With the appearance of this communities, the large mammals were seen as a contester of the available resources; that belief shaped their intentions and ultimately their actions towards them (cause).
The transformation of human societies of that era to more organized forms (people started to settle in a specific area, institutionalizing their societies by creating norms) presented the need for harvesting food, acquiring water sources, shelter and the subsequent need to protect them. The development of more efficient forms of communications (sign language transformed to speech) led to a diffusing of knowledge through their societies, and that in its turn brought more efficient ways of dealing with their problems; ultimately this facilitated in the extinction of their adversaries (effect).
There are two aspects of this analogy applied to modern industrial (eco)systems. We can see that humans, through a rationality, which was sub-optimal concerning information about the ecosystem around them, brought about (negative?) large scale effects. Even nowadays, in spite of the higher quality and quantity of information, the uncertainty still remains; current beliefs, norms, dependencies of the social, economical, political and regulatory systems of society form intentions that inhibit the change needed in the system to deal with problems wanting a systems-approach like resource scarcity.
On the other side, the analogy can provide us with useful insights if we can use it more as a guide instead than a tool. Optimizing the forms of communication and information sharing through the various levels (cycles) of the social-ecological systems, in a way that it will enable them to transform product and process design alike, will be the other big challenge of this puzzle.
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