Publisert 2018-04-03
Sammendrag
The utopia of a sustainable world may be necessary to discuss the pressing problems posed by the contemporary environmental crisis. However, to make sustainability locally viable it is necessary to manage it at the level of an agro-eco-system designed expressly. Will there be a theoretical model available for this? This essay explores the implications of Adams' social energy theory for the study of food production systems. Sustainability is possible as a result of the co-evolution of various reproductive systems that interact within an inclusive system that is the social one. Outside of it it cannot happen. The concept of "sustainability" is eminently anthropocentric. It can be defined as the production of food at a minimum dissipation rate compatible with the capacities of the environment. A study of sustainability must establish at what rate it is convenient to extract energy from an agro-ecosystem, how many people can live on it and for how long. The answer to these questions depends on the quality of life demanded by the population involved. The rules of the game change when the level of mere biological survival is exceeded. The higher the consumption, the higher the demand for intensive production systems. Evolution does not show any directionality, although at times it seems to point towards increasing complexity. Food production systems also enter this game, in which variety represents the "raw material" of selection. The evolution of the biosphere is beyond human control. The question is what room for maneuver is left, that is, what can a social group do for its own survival without affecting the bases of its exchange with other living beings and other actants of the landscape.