Power and Entropy: The Limits of Ecological Economics

Abstract

Power and the world SyStem: h.t. odum'S economy of energy A science of commerce and government, political economy has since its inception been a topic of intense public debate. This is not the case with ecology. As we have seen, ecology decisively entered the public sphere only in the late 1960s, at a time when the concept of the ecosystem became central to its scientific legitimacy and social role. The ecosystems ecology developed by the brothers Eugene and Howard T. Odum separately and together from the mid-1950s redefined the discipline at a time when ecology was gathering attention and importance as a 'crisis discipline'. It was from this point that ecological science came of age in its new social role as the analyst of humanity's home. Eugene is primarily remembered as an educator, but it was his brother Howard Thomas Odum who brought ecology boldly into the analysis of the industrial causes of the global environmental crisis. Despite numerous collaborations in fieldwork and publication , the brothers tended to favour different metaphors. As Kingsland says, 'Eugene thought of the ecosystem in organic terms as though it were an organism in a state of homeostasis, Tom deviated from this organic