Summing SantosRC Mackin15/02/2006

•Anthroposystem model looks

at sustainability via a human

ecosystem within an inclusive ecosphere,

modeling both physical and biological environments in order to maintain human civilization.

•An undermining principle of the concept of sustainability is its ambiguity, while the anthroposystem forces thought beyond economic development, in terms of sustainable human systems.

•The broad ideal of a society in balance with its surroundings can be conceptually viewed in terms of: conservation, spaceship earth, federal law, ecology, sustainable society, development, economics, & UN policy…just to name a few frameworks, all of which are entwined and overlap.

•Four components of the system: Matrix / Producer / Consumer / Decomposer

•The ideal closed anthroposystem does not grasp fully the reality of world, an open system. The ideal is broken with the consideration of waste generation and byproducts,

energy inefficiency and dissipation (2nd Law of Thermodynamics), and imports/exports.

•Industrial Ecology: multifaceted study of the link between natural systems, industry, and economics, broadening the scale of these traditional concepts.•Call-2-Action: Development of universal theories to understand, explain and test systems

Explaining Ecosystem…RC Mackin15/02/2006

• Ecosystems consist of:

Producers / Consumers / Decomposers• The physico-chemical environment can be

conceptualized with flows between various “pockets”, and aided with the use of metaphors, i.e. industrial metabolism.

• Plant::Producers::Mobilizers;

Animals::Consumers::Emitters

Microorganisms::Recyclers::Receptors• The anthroposystem lacks efficient recyclers as compared to the strict

natural ecosystem, while the former system displaces its “pockets” more drastically.

• Mass moved by producer is transferred at the surface to be used by the consumer, whose products in turn are transferred via the atmosphere to be received by the receptors.

• Two-Way linkage of Atmo-, Hydro-, Litho-, and Bio-Spheres• Mechanisms for reducing compounds in anthroposystem must be man

induced, as opposed to naturally occurring in the ecosystem.

Contrast & CompareRC Mackin15/02/2006

•Shining Similarities:

- Use of the same three components:

producers, consumers, and decomposers

- Present anthroposystem as an ideally open system,

both with shortcomings in the modeling.

•Glaring Differences:

- Santos uses physico-bio environment; Ecosystem uses physico-chemical environment

- Ecosystem lacks the 4th dimension of an exterior “matrix” in its flow chart.

- The use of metaphors in Ecosystem provides a methodology of actually explaining a

complex system, not merely stating that one exists.

- Ecosystem presents a moreover closed anthroposystem, while Santos’ expansive semi-

open system is more difficult to grasp, real as it may be.

- Santos presents the 4 spheres as not only linked, but interwoven like a Venn diagram.

Questions Posed:

-Where do we focus: producers, consumers, decomposers, or flows between?

-Likewise, which Sphere do we focus on?

-Where do we draw the line on the openness of a system?

~ Don’t limit your thinking. Expand. Connect. ~