Circular Thermodynamics of Organisms and Sustainable Systems

The free energy principle induces intracellular compartmentalization

Living systems at all scales are compartmentalized into interacting subsystems. This paper reviews a mechanism that drives compartmentalization in generic systems at any scale. It first discusses three symmetries of generic physical interactions in a quantum-theoretic description. It then shows that if one of these, a permutation symmetry on the inter-system boundary, is spontaneously broken, the symmetry breaking is amplified by the Free Energy Principle (FEP). It thus shows how compartmentalization generically results from permutation symmetry breaking under the FEP. It finally notes that the FEP asymptotically restores the broken symmetry, showing that the FEP can be regarded as a theory of fluctuations away from a permutation-symmetric boundary, and hence from an entangled joint state of the interacting systems.

Assessing the energy trap of industrial agriculture in North America and Europe: 82 balances from 1830 to 2012

Early energy analyses of agriculture revealed that behind higher labor and land productivity of industrial farming, there was a decrease in energy returns on energy (EROI) invested, in comparison to more traditional organic agricultural systems. Studies on recent trends show that efficiency gains in production and use of inputs have again somewhat improved energy returns. However, most of these agricultural energy studies have focused only on external inputs at the crop level, concealing the important role of internal biomass flows that livestock and forestry recirculate within agroecosystems. Here, we synthesize the results of 82 farm systems in North America and Europe from 1830 to 2012 that for the first time show the changing energy profiles of agroecosystems, including livestock and forestry, with a multi-EROI approach that accounts for the energy returns on external inputs, on internal biomass reuses, and on all inputs invested. With this historical circular bioeconomic approach, we found a general trend towards much lower external returns, little or no increases in internal returns, and almost no improvement in total returns. This "energy trap" was driven by shifts towards a growing dependence of crop production on fossil-fueled external inputs, much more intensive livestock production based on feed grains, less forestry, and a structural disintegration of agroecosystem components by increasingly linear industrial farm managements. We conclude that overcoming the energy trap requires nature-based solutions to reduce current dependence on fossil-fueled external industrial inputs and increase the circularity and complexity of agroecosystems to provide healthier diets with less animal products.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-023-00925-5.

Entropy and Cities: A Bibliographic Analysis towards More Circular and Sustainable Urban Environments

Cities are critical to a sustainable future for our planet; still, the construction and operation of cities rely on intensive resource and energy use and transformation, leading to the generation of waste, effluents, and pollution, representing negative externalities outside and inside the city. Within every process, transformation implies the use of energy and the increase of entropy. In an urban system, the transformation of energy and materials will trigger the creation of entropic landscapes, mainly in the informal city and in unguarded natural landscapes, even hundreds of kilometers away, which generates substantial economic, social, and environmental impacts. In this sense, cities are significant contributors to the environmental crisis. Upstream, degradation of landscapes and ecosystems is frequent. Cities' externalities and exogenous consumptions are directly linked with entropy and entropic landscapes, which are recognized as pollution (in the air, water, and land) or waste and in the degradation of natural ecosystems and communities. Through a systematic review of existing literature, this paper first outlines briefly how entropy has been applied in different disciplines and then focuses on presenting recent developments of how entropy has been defined, used, and characterized in urban studies concerning sustainability in cities and architecture, and presents a definition of the concept in relation to urban systems and key aspects to consider.

“Somos o que comemos!”: Uma reflexão da política de cuidado ecofeminista plasmada na prática da agroecologia

Objetivo compartilhar uma reflexão sobre a política de cuidado ecofeminista presente na produção alimentar agroecológica. Esta análise é desenvolvida a partir de uma hermenêutica ecofeminista. Parto da revisão de literatura, interdisciplinar e pluriepistemológica, que enfrenta os valores andro-antropocêntricos que constituem a base do capitalismo-financeiro global. Este sistema econômico, que perpetua lógicas de poder, sociopolítico e econômico, originadas no sistema patriarcal e na ideologia colonial, está a levar-nos à destruição irreversível na escala planetária. Conhecimentos e práticas ecofeministas abrem possibilidades para a sociedade humana reconectar sua natureza terrestre e, consequentemente, romper com a economia de morte presente no mundo em nossos dias. Escolho direcionar minha leitura para uma política de cuidado relacional com a comida. Isto porque verifico as interconexões existentes e as transformações possíveis que o alimento proporciona à realização de uma economia da vida, contrariando a fatalidade que ameaça a comunidade Terra.

Rethinking vulnerability in city-systems: A methodological proposal to assess "urban entropy"

This paper aims at proposing a possible alternative point of view to investigate the vulnerability of urban systems. The basic ideal refers to the possibility of thinking about vulnerability as deriving by the interactions of several risks that can affect the urban system and by the interactions among them. In this sense, it is possible to refer to an "integrated territorial risk". Considering the city as a complex and dynamic system that while evolving produce entropy is the main theoretical reference supporting this study. The loss of energy during the evolution of the system corresponds to some conditions of inefficiency that involve the whole system and, as such, this lost energy can be assumed as a "systemic entropy". Is it possible to measure the levels of this vulnerability of the urban system when it stays in ordinary conditions, namely not during stress states that modify the state of equilibrium of the system itself? It is possible to assess the production of this "internal entropy"? In order to answer to these questions in mind, this study aims at analyzing dyscrasias that can occur within the main components of the urban system in order to individuate possible strategies able both to mitigate the fragility of the urban system and to improve its resilience.

An energy-landscape integrated analysis to evaluate agroecological scarcity

Agrarian landscapes theoretically provide ecosystem services that meet the demands of a wide range of socioecological processes. Consequently, any landscape agroecology approach must tackle the dynamic interaction of land-use distribution and associated social metabolism at different spatiotemporal scales. An agroecological scarcity case study explores how driven agricultural energy flows interact with landscape complexity in arid landscapes of 46 counties in the Qazvin Province (Iran). An Energy-Landscape Integrated Analysis (ELIA) was performed to correlate the energy reinvestment (E) and energy redistribution (I) present within the social metabolism network, with landscape complexity (Le) measured in terms of spatial patterns and related ecological processes. As well, a cluster analysis was run to establish agrarian landscape typologies based on the ELIA indicators. The results of this study provide an explicit sketch of the four strategies that society in Qazvin Province has developed within the dry environments that sustain it. Our findings confirm the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between optimizing non-dissipative internal energy loops and landscape complexity, which can explain agroecosystem sustainability. This research enables us to define spatially informed agroecological transitions from a territorially explicit socioecological perspective and will make a significant contribution to decisions on agricultural policies given different land-use strategies, especially under scenarios of ecological scarcity.

Characterization of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in Europe

The recognition and safeguarding of agricultural heritage in Europe are new concepts that are gaining attention due to the contribution they make to sustainability. Of the 57 Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) that exist in the world today, only six have been designated in Europe. Through a qualitative analysis of the proposal documents submitted by these six European GIAHS to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) during the designation process, this study provides a comparative characterization of these sites supported by expert assessment. During the first phase, 24 specific sub-criteria were observed based on the five main criteria that a site has to meet in order to demonstrate its global relevance as an agricultural heritage of humanity. The relevance of the resulting sub-criteria was then assessed by a Delphi panel of experts and the validated ones were applied in an assessment of the six European sites. The European GIAHS sites are characterized by the high value of their cultural landscapes’ evolution, modeled by traditional and adaptive agriculture knowledge and practices that are promoted and maintained thanks to organized and committed social organizations. The results of structuring of sub-criteria can facilitate the application of other possible European GIAHS sites.

Modern Wheat Varieties as a Driver of the Degradation of Spanish Rainfed Mediterranean Agroecosystems throughout the 20th Century

The high grain yield of modern varieties (MV) respond to the increase in fossil-based inputs, and the widespread belief that they are more productive than old varieties (OV) is biased. This belief focuses only on marketable biomass, without considering the consequences on agroecosystem sustainability of the reductions in other portions of NPP. Additionally, field comparisons of OV and MV were normally conducted under industrialized farming conditions, which is detrimental for OV performance. Both trials carried out in this study comparing wheat OV and MV show that, under Mediterranean rainfed conditions and traditional organic management, aerial and belowground biomass production of OV is higher than that of MV, without significantly decreasing yield and enabling a better competition against weeds. From the data of our trials, bibliographic review and information from historical sources, we have reconstructed the NPP and destinations of biomass of Spanish wheat fields (1900–2000). Varietal replacement entailed the reduction in residues and unharvested biomass (UhB), which involved soil degradation in rainfed cereal fields and undermining heterotrophic trophic webs. Our results suggest that OV can increase the sustainability of rainfed Mediterranean agroecosystems at present through the improvement of soil quality, the reduction of herbicides use, and the recovery of biodiversity.