Sustaining the Terrestrial Biosphere in the Anthropo-cene: A Thermodynamic Earth System Perspective

Axel Kleidon

Ecology, Economy and Society - the INSEE Journal, 2023, vol. 06, issue 01

Abstract: Many aspects of anthropogenic global change, such as shifts in land cov-er, the loss of biodiversity, and the intensification of agricultural production, threat-en the natural biosphere. The implications of these specific aspects of environmen-tal change are not immediately obvious; therefore, it is hard to obtain a bigger pic-ture of what these changes imply and distinguish the beneficial from the detri-mental, where human impact is concerned. In this paper, I describe a holistic ap-proach that allows us to obtain such a bigger picture and use it to understand how the terrestrial biosphere can be sustained in the presence of increased human activi-ty. This approach places particular emphasis on the free energy generated by pho-tosynthesis—energy that is required to sustain both the dissipative metabolic activi-ty of ecosystems and human activities (with the generation rate being restricted by the physical constraints of the environment). Thus, one can then identify two types of human influence on the biosphere and their resulting consequences: the detri-mental effects caused by enhanced human consumption of this free energy and the beneficial effects that allow for more photosynthetic activity and, therefore, more dissipative activity within the biosphere. I use examples from the terrestrial bio-sphere to illustrate this view and global datasets to indicate how this can be quanti-fied. Thereafter, I discuss how certain aspects of modern technology can enhance free energy generation within the terrestrial biosphere, which can, in turn, safeguard its sustenance even as human activity increasingly shapes the functioning of the Earth system.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:inseej:343170

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.343170

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