Member

PWD Information Strategies
I heard that Betty Odum was interested in the actualization of the “Prosperous Way Down” book. Besides that, the ISAER webpage says that Mary Odum, in the last Emergy Conference, inform to the PWD group that the main motivation of H.T. Odum in developing the emergy methodology was to analyze the global decline to suggest alternatives to the social institutions to prepare for a change of system. Then, taking this into account, I think on the idea of how to organize to establish, goals, priorities, strategies and actions to actualize the Prosperous Way Down book ideas. I have been working on something similar at local level. This task is a difficult one, but necessary. Therefore, in this communication to ISAER PWD group, I give my ideas on how to proceed for the reviewing and actualization of the book and also on how to create an interaction to make possible this task. Then, my suggestions are the following:
1. Create a framework to analyze the global inertial trends and the possible social and ecological alternatives, at three levels:
a. Global perspectives;
b. Bioregional perspectives;
c. Local perspectives.
2. This analysis should consider as main problems:
a. Climate Change;
b. Economy Dynamics and Crises;
c. Social Dynamics and Crises;
d. Political and Cultural Dynamics and Crises.
3. Besides the previous concerns, the prospective of the social-ecological structures of current and future scenarios should provide answers to these questions:
a. What could happen if Capitalism persist and the alternatives of its inertial evolution (some of those already operating) as Neo-Liberalism, Constrained Social Democracy, Fascism and Nazism, State Socialism-Capitalism, Re-colonized countries (degraded by drug traffic, economic and military mafias).
b. What could happen if Capitalism get conscious? Is this alternative philosophically and technically possible? What are its possible limitations?
c. What could happen if some kind of Socialism become viable? Is this alternative socially and technically possible? What are its limitations? How can these limitations be overcome? How can the classical Socialism be converted into an ecological socialism or even other types of more progressive social-ecological systems? How to warrant democratic process within these new systems? What kind of interactions will be necessary?
d. What could happen if it occurs a global collapse without any social control and without this kind of information?
4. Description of interesting bioregional eco-social systems that remain untouched by Capitalism or Macro-Socialism ideology, using emergy methodology.
5. In this effort it will convenient to consider the minimodels explained in the book “Modelling for All Scales: an Introduction to Systems simulation” (H. T. Odum and E.C. Odum, 2000) mainly the model INFOBEN.
Best regards, Enrique