Energy—The Critical Resource - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 23

way, nature's rules of engagement inform society of the acceptable, behav-
ioral latitude (read “biophysical constraints”) of its citizens if they want to
survive in a sustainable manner. These principles are as follows:
1. Everything in the universe is a relationship supporting relationships,
thus precluding the existence of an independent variable, absolute
freedom, or a constant value beyond the number one—the universal
common denominator; everything else is a multiple of one.
2. All relationships are productive, because all relationships pro-
duce an outcome.
3. The only true investment of energy on Earth is solar energy from sun-
light; everything else is a reinvestment of existing energy—including
all market dynamics, such as the energy that drives the stock market.
4. All systems are defined by their function—not their pieces in isola-
tion of one another.
5. All relationships result in a transfer of energy, which is all we
humans ever do.
6. All relationships are self-reinforcing feedback loops; whether feed-
back loops are positive or negative depends on whether or not they
satisfy a human desire.
7. All relationships have one or more trade-offs.
8. Change is a constant process that produces only novel outcomes.
9. All relationships are irreversible because all outcomes are novel, and
we cannot go back in time to recapture a past outcome.
10. All systems are based on composition, structure, and function, where
composition determines structure, and structure allows function.
11. All systems have cumulative effects that compound unnoticed through
time until a visible threshold is crossed, which makes them apparent.
12. All systems are open to cosmic energy; consequently, closed loop
of anything (be it an economic system or technology) is a physical
impossibility, because while energy can be constrained, it cannot be
contained.
13. All systems function in curvilinear cycles, like a coiled spring,
wherein each cycle approximates—but only approximates—its
neighbor through the ever-changing process of novel outcomes, but
each cycle is simultaneously linear because the coils never touch.
14. Systemic change is based on self-organized criticality, which simply
means that an internal shift in one or more components of the sys-
tem ultimately caused a dramatic shift of systemic proportions.
15. Dynamic disequilibrium rules all systems, which negates the roman-
tic notion of the “balance of nature.”