Energy: forms, conversions, quality, exergy
Energy forms and conversions Energy is a fundamental quantity in nature that is transferred between systems or parts of systems. It is ‘stored’ in a variety of forms and is associated with movement, combustion, heat and (the capacity to do) work. Boiling water for a cup of tea, using the microwave oven, switching on the central heating system, cooling food [...]
Energy use: units and flows
Energy use: units Energy units. It is important to get some familiarity with the units of energy quantities (stocks) and flows. The energy stored in systems is a stock. Examples are the chemical energy stored in a liter of gasoline, the heat content of a cup of tea or the kinetic energy of a moving car. The basic unit of [...]
Acquiring knowledge: strong and weak knowledge
It is a very fundamental principle indeed that Knowledge is always gained by the orderly loss of information, that is, by condensing and abstracting and indexing the great buzzing confusion of information that comes from the world around us into a form which we can appreciate and comprehend. (K. Boulding) How do humans acquire knowledge? It is often associated with [...]
Fishing strategies: an agent-based simulation
Already for decades, ecologists are aware that proper modelling and management of fisheries has to incorporate the behaviour of fishermen. An early example was a model of two different fishing strategies (Allen and McGlade 1987). A more recent analysis investigates different harvesting strategies in an anegnt-based simulation model (ABM) (Brede and de Vries 2009). Let there be a distributed resource [...]
Fisheries: a history of technology and oil
The force of technology is illustrated with some numbers. Fishing power, defined as the product of number of ships and potential catch per ship, has globally increased sixfold between 1970 and 2005. There was a massive increase in ship size, with supertrawlers as floating fish factories operating for months on sea. In 2016 the global fleet exceeded 4 million vessels, [...]
Views of Nature and biodiversity
To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, Even the loose stones that cover the high-way, I gave a moral life, I saw them feel, Or link’d them to some feeling; the great mass Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all That I beheld, respired with inward meaning. Wordsworth, Prelude For the Chinese the bamboo expresses the [...]