Energy, the Great Driver

R. Gareth Wyn Jones

Description

Y Creu [Y Gwyddonydd XVI, 2/3], University of Wales Press, 1978

Editors: R. Gareth Wyn Jones and J.LL. W. Williams

Recent Advances in the Biochemistry of Cereals, Academic Press, 1979

Editors: D.L..Laidman and R.G. Wyn Jones

Drawing on research and concepts from fields as varied as physics, biology, anthropology, behavioural psychology and economics, this volume proposes that two unifying threads can be identified running through the 4-billion-year history of life on this planet. The first is the exploitation of energy sources, coupled to an attendant capacity to do work and exert power, generating increasing material and social complexity; the second is a hierarchy of homeostatic regulatory mechanisms, which sequentially stabilise these evolving complexities and are essential to their sustainability and well-being. Six major step-changes in energy use are highlighted, from energising the first cell, out of equilibrium with its environment, to the latest, the industrial revolution fuelled by burning fossil hydrocarbons. Humans now face a seventh revolution, to energise society without these greenhouse gas emissions – however ill-adapted our historic (as hunter-gatherers-cookers) and recently constructed (as Homo economicus) homeostatic mechanisms are to this challenge.

'Given the huge inequalities in wealth and lifestyle, the energy and consequently CO2 footprints of the jet-setting elite from any country must be at least double, probably, treble, the mean, even the ‘rich’ countries. Energy use permeates all aspects of modern life. This is supplied largely by burning fossil fuels. Regrettably, it appears that the non-catastrophic-resolution of one of humanity’s gravest problems, global warming, is made more difficulty by nature of the homeostatic mechanisms that have historically modulated human behaviour.' - Read more about this on page 14 https://www.booklaunch.london/issue-6

 

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Prologue
Chapter I: Introduction
Chapter II: The Mysterious Origins of Life
Chapter III: Harvesting the Sun
Chapter IV: A Structural Revolution: Complex Cells
Chapter V: The Hominid Factor
Chapter VI: ‘Food Glorious Food’?
Chapter VII: Fossil Fuels –An Energy Bonanza
Chapter VIII: The Homeostatic Hierarchy.
Chapter IX: Emergent Patterns
Chapter X: The Gathering Storm – Greenhouse Gases: The Effluence of Affluence
Chapter XI: On human behaviour and our social and physical constructs
Chapter XII: Denouement?
Chapter XIII: The Human Factor
Notes
References

Sujets

• Sciences de la nature
• Sciences de la terre
• Earth Sciences
• Sciences et techniques
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786834249
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

E N E R G Y T H E G R E A T D R I V E R S E V E N R E V O L U T I O N S A N D T H E C H A L L E N G E S O F C L I M A T E C H A N G E

R . G A R E T H W Y N J O N E S

E N E R G Y T H E G R E A T D R I V E R

This p age is intentionally le f t b lank

E N E R G Y T H E G R E A T D R I V E R

S E V E N R E V O L U T I O N S A N D T H E C H A L L E N G E S O F C L I M A T E C H A N G E

R . G A R E T H W Y N J O N E S

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS 2019

© R. Gareth Wyn Jones, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardi CF10 3NS.

www.Uwp.CO.Uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN eISBN

978-1-78683-423-2 978-1-78683-424-9

The right of R. Gareth Wyn Jones to be identiîed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The University of Wales Press gratefully acknowledges the înancial support of the Books Council of Wales and of the Learned Society of Wales in publication of this work.

Typeset by Marie Doherty Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Melksham

Contents

Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Prologue

 Chapter I Introduction  Chapter II The Mysterious Origins of Life  Chapter III Harvesting the Sun  Chapter IV A Structural Revolution – Complex Cells  Chapter V The Hominid Factor  Chapter VI ‘Food Glorious Food’? Chapter VII Fossil Fuels – An Energy Bonanza Chapter VIII The Homeostatic Hierarchy  Chapter IX Emergent Patterns  Chapter X The Gathering Storm – Greenhouse Gases: The Euence of Auence  Chapter XI On Human Behaviour and Our Social and Physical Constructs Chapter XII Denouement? Chapter XIII The Human Factor

Notes References Index

vii ix xi

1 15 29 37 51 67 77 91 105 121

137

155 167

173 179 187

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Acknowedgements

am very grateful to a number of friends and colleagues for read- I ing and commenting on parts of the manuscript as it evolved, including John Llywelyn Williams, Roger Leigh, Tony Rippin, Timm Homan, John Raven, Barrie Johnson, James Intriligator and Duncan Brown. In doing so they saved me from a number of errors, but, of course, any that remain lie at my own door. I am indebted to my son, Huw, and grandsons, Euros and Aled, and to Andrew Packwood for their help with the diagrams. I am also grateful to Professor Gareth Ffowc Roberts, Sir John Meurig Thomas and Sir John Houghton for encouraging me to turn the original concept into this text. I am even more deeply indebted to my wife for her patience and support with a project that should not have taken up so much of my time at this stage in my life.

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List of Iustrations

Figures

 1. Timeline of major events  2. Earth’s oxygen timeline – the breath of life

 3. Internal structural complexity of (a) prokaryotic and (b) eukaryotic cells

 4. The human lineage  5. Growth in global population and energy use since 1800  6. World energy consumption: changing priorities  7. Estimation of growth in global wealth  8. Historic trends in atmospheric CO concentrations 2  9. The homeostatic hierarchy

10. Damasio’s homeostatic tree

11. Social development index to 1900çÉ

12. Comparison of energy prime movers on uneven (a) and even (b) timescales

7 31 39

53 81 82 83 87 95 98 108 119

13. Recent global surface temperature trends 125 14. Projected carbon emissions proîles compatible with 129 66% chance of mean global surface temperature anomaly of less than 2°C

15. The ‘Galbraithian bargain’

16. A model of the economy driven by energy but bounded by the Earth’s resources

146 151