Sociological prediction: "The enemy of an enemy is likely to be a friend."
Ecological (Hydrological, erosion, etc.): "Still waters run deep."

t = (a + 4m + b)/ 6

where t is the time to the event
a is the optimistic estimate
m is the most likely estimate
b is the most pessimistic estimate.

The variance of the estimate is

² = (b - a)² / 6

and answers are given as 10 plus or minus 2 where 2 may be the square root of ²

"Government agencies have to be involved, planning is part of their business, and some of the agencies have had substantial experience. The results have not been faultless, however, and in any event the processes of planning are too uncertain and the decisions too important to be entrusted to any one sector. No sector has a monopoly on wisdom, and participation by a variety of institutions is necessary to ensure that plans and decisions will be subject to a continuous criticism, analysis and possible revision."

Prediction is best done using models. Models increase in usefulness and precision as they progress from verbal to graphical to mathematical. A "trend" tends to be best conceived as a simple linear equation such as

y = a + bx

Trends (the rate being b) tend to have assumptions of both linearity and singularity (that is, not being interactive). More useful models (but requiring greater mathematical or related skills) tend to be curvilinear, multi-dimensional, and aggregative. The so-called multiple-regression equations are often used as predicting equations (Ostle 1954:148-49).

Statistical regression equations are most often used to estimate a mean value; such values have variability, thus confidence limits. Such equations can be used to predict an individual event (i.e., given x's weight, what will be his height, y?). The prediction interval (analogous to a statistical confidence interval) will be larger than the confidence interval for the mean.

The concept of the Standard World (a la Herman Kahn) the Standard Nation, the Standard Ecosystem, the Normal Forest is valuable. It is a system that we do not think plausible, but which has all the trends that everybody takes seriously - population rates, growth rates, energy trends, etc. Then when a decision is reached (e.g., we shall replant one-half of our acres to pines) then we can ask what will be the consequences in these compartments of our Standard World if we achieve this policy. The purpose of the Standard Ecosystem is to lay out a set of alternatives and then see which are the most likely to occur.

Prediction or "look ahead" is only part of feed forward of the systems approach as being described herein. Knowing the predictions, systems manipulators can gain control, that is assure the "good" predictions, prevent or slow the occurrence of the "bad." Some think that time spent crystal-balling the direction it will go is time taken from determining the way it shall go. An estimate of a believable undesirable future may be enough to force alternatives to be re-examined, for decisions to be made that would not otherwise happen or be made seriously or responsibly.

For most environmental systems the analogy of steering a 98 wheel truck is appropriate - no sudden changes in direction are or can be made. Agencies change very slowly. The rate of getting change in universities has been compared to that of moving a grave yard.

Living life forward

No appreciable genetic changes occur naturally in several of hundreds of years, thus this factor can be omitted in most prediction work. Most physical and biological systems are now well enough known to generate alternatives with suitable confidence limits to result in vastly improved decisions affecting the future of man - at least quantitatively, probably qualitatively.

One does not predict "the future"; he or she predicts an event. The predictions that are most useful and receive the most notice are those of events in which man is most interested, e.g., the food supply, the amount of leisure time. The entire system must be developed before the one item you desire can be pulled out. In a sense, good prediction is the development of an "answer box,", one easily and reasonably interrogated. Most questions are of the type: what is y going to be in year t, given

y = a + bt

An alternative and very practical approach is to work from the question, "Well, what's the gap between the objectives and the present condition?" Then we recognize what effects change might have and perhaps develop a solution for action now to change the objectives or the forces affecting the future state of the system. We can call that "a solution." We used feedforward to help get it.

Precepts

The following is a set of precepts of forces, rules, and processes that are believed to be operational within feedforward. As they are employed today, they will determine the state of the future faunal and other natural resources. They are presented partially for content, but largely as a pattern. They begin to form the operating principles of a computer expert system and simulation. A decision maker may ask, "What if state and federal monetary inputs to the region are cut by 50 percent?", then, if those changes do occur, "What happens if I have invested in faunal project Q?" The use is in a two-stage "what-if?" operation in which the first level questions deal with the precepts, the second level deal with the actions to be taken in the present and near future to respond to that set of conditions that are about to be encountered.

Precept 1. The proper period of concern for viewing the future (and a Trevey document is 150 years. This is needed (a) to secure reasonable and rational "returns" from investments in facilities and forests, (b) to encourage inter-generational concepts and concerns including those of children, inheritance, estate taxes, and social and moral dimensions of present decisions, and (c) to apply new pressures to develop computer models of the future consequences of present acts.

In general, 5- and 10-year planning horizons may be necessary and can be executed to meet the needs of certain individuals. However, they are the essence of the current national, state, and regional problems. They generally deny monetary concepts of discounting and present worth; they deny the slow dynamics of basic soil and water systems; they deny the dynamics of forest growth and yield; they deny the political lag time and overlapping 2- and 4-year terms; and even deny the construction periods for highways, power plants, and coal terminals. A 150-year horizon, no matter how difficult to assert, is essential and can establish forest faunal resource agency leadership.This period, at least, accommodates a rotation for a long-life tree stand, the likely minimum age of an old-growth or ancient forest, concepts of "antique items," and from a practical presentation ploy, graphs of 150-year expectations presented in 5-year intervals is readily achieved and a singular pattern can be studied.

Precept 2. Systems development is based on iterative guidance, a continually advancing 150-year guidance period. After the passage of any period, there remains a 150-year period of challenge. There needs to be a sliding or dynamically-extended horizon.

Precept 3. Unique events cannot be predicted, but there are natural and social processes that daily become better known. There are few such events. This knowledge and new models allow consequences of decisions made and actions taken to become accurately estimated. The event cannot be predicted, but new guidance functions provide a meaningful range of options and narrow the costs and risks of operation and the uncertainties. The physical world (e.g., hydrology, forests) is quite well known and reasonably predictable and new models of human behavior are being advanced with increasing success. The essence of the precept is captured in "with knowledge you can only be so wrong."

Precept 4. There are at least two major types of futures -- those of occurrence and timing. It is possible to predict the occurrence of totally new, never-known-before events and items. These require great creativity but at least classes of objects or events can be readily predicted. Specific events can also be readily predicted, e.g., a storm, a flood, an insect attack, a sharp population decline. They will surely occur. The probability is in excess of 0.99. The difference, predicting the second type of future is that of timing. Trees here will be hit by lightning (type 1, class, probability 0.50); that tree will fall (type 2, probability 0.999); it will fall in the twenty-seventh month (type 3, a low probability of being correct).

Precept 5. History can be used to establish trends and observe responses to change. The straight-line projection, assuming the future will be like the past, has served well in the past when conditions were fairly stable. Increasingly, these projections or trend analyses are found erroneous. Complex systems are not linear, but curvilinear. There are thresholds, break points, and even reversals. As Forrester said, there are counterintuitive events that occur m large, complex systems. The best intentions often go astray because of these complex system-interactions. Complex computer models are needed to avoid these counterintuitive events.

Richard Eells in The Political Crisis of the Enterprise System (McMillan 1980) said that if the leaders in the private sector fail to act to forestall the demise of private enterprise, it will not survive for 50 years. The camel of state control pushes a little farther each year into the private sector's tent. Far from inevitable, Fells thinks leaders in the private sector can invigorate the enterprise system.

He suggested several strategies:

1. Installing a program to strengthen social institutions on which the enterprise system is based, e.g., through corporate philanthropy, especially of higher education.
2. Taking interest in community needs.
3. Doing research on public policy.
4. Doing research and development in health and the environment (See also Chironis 1981).
5. Engaging in cultural activities. Fells said, "We have now reached the point in our thinking where it is not only the duty, but the obligation of corporations to encourage and support those other institutions in society from which they derive their support."
6. Reorienting relations between business and government to make relations much more productive and less adversarial.
7. Expanding opportunities for acceptance of the enterprise system outside the U.S.
8. Seeking more self-regulation.
9. Getting more information about social and political trends that will condition the shape of public events and politics and integrate it into decisions.
10. Improving staff development. Managers must learn to aid societal drifts, political trends, and human factors to the business equation.
11. Encouraging imagination.
12. Teaching managerial and organizational skills.

What do faunal resource related enterprises, corporations, and cooperative agencies get out of all of the above? Long-term survival.

Precept 6. Systems existing in a social regional context will be regulated. Whether this regulation will occur from without or within is largely the decision (or failure to decide) of the agency or new enterprise.

Feedforward is the work of being sure that plans are wrong for the present. This negative sounding statement is essential to the positive underpinnings of a complex system. Feedforward is designing in order to be wrong now and for a year in the future, but most right over the long run. Prior planning documents have often included scenarios of the future and then plans are developed to match these. Scenarios based on history can be a useful technique of feedforward, but it is possible to shape the future. The scenario approach has made plans outdated or wrong in the instant they are created. There are an infinite number of potential futures, a thousand trends. Of course, the future cannot be known, but massive amounts of it can be shaped. Shaping the future is a joint function of feedforward documents and an active staff committed to achieving its destination, i.e., the set of objectives.

Winning in a corporate or agency contest has been compared to a chess game . Commitment to a strategy that will ultimately put an agency in the most advantageous position to check the competition is the play action. No longer can the intuitive manager be counted upon to carry a large agency consistently through the years in a winning condition. Rather a finely-honed formalized method is a necessity--a competitive rather than blocking or reactive method.

Precept 7. Policy-like objectives need to be formulated so that the role of managers in achieving these objectives can be evaluated. (These objectives include concepts of growth, diversity, political influence, international scope, social contributions, employee and resource user life-enhancement, and environmental protection and enhancement.)

Precept 8. Game theory offers a powerful framework for formulating strategic decisions.

Precept 9. Systems, both simulations and optimizations, can be created to study the agency's county, regional, and corporate economy.

To some degree, more than most agencies are aware, the future can be controlled by working toward the future that is desired. To a large degree, the future is beyond control and agencies and citizens discover it only as it happens. One future may be seen with some surety, but there are many possible futures. The consequence of ignoring the range of alternative futures can be disastrous. Preparing for several alternatives, while costly, reduces risks. By timing decisions, delaying some when possible to gain more information, and making some decisions early to gain future advantages are all options. Feedforward implies some trade-offs to achieve reasonable success (probably not peak success) in the variety of likely futures.

Additional precepts, I believe, begin to form the perceptual space, the n-dimensional hypervolume, within which the future for the faunal resource agency may occur. There are real physical, spatial, and economic limits; time-dependent phenomena; and thresholds. Some are well known and they can specify the "walls" of the hypervolume. Many of the following precepts are selected from and adapted from Watt (1973) and I believe form some of the bases for realistically conceiving the future in general but particularly the faunal resource system.

It is sometimes said that the reason that science is done is to be able to explain and thus predict. Perhaps. "Predict" has connotations of events and time and is too narrow. It needs to include the statement of precepts, the limits and probabilities of the constraints and their intersections that govern the world. The better known this space, the more quickly and securely the resource manager can go "from the general to the particular" to draw conclusions (make belief statements) about the future and then decide what alternative to select in response.

Precept 10. No energy conversion system is ever completely efficient; losses always occur. This we positively know about the future. Conversions are to be reduced; efficiencies sought as part of the perpetual war of people against the second law of thermodynamics.

Precept 11. Systems become saturated. For many phenomena, the odds of a system breaking down increase as the maximum level of resource availability is reached. The "breakdown" may be complete system failure; the processes are no longer able to handle the loads. Similarly, failure to achieve objectives adequately may be the only condition.

Precept 12. Individuals, species, agencies, universities and enterprises which have greater numbers of "offspring" than their competitors tend to replace their competitors.

Precept 13. Mature systems exploit immature systems. Mature systems tend to be more efficient than less mature systems. The more efficient a system, the more power it has.

Precept 14. Physically and economically stable environments allow accumulation of diversity in mature systems. These, in turn, promote agency as well as habitat and population stability.

Precept 15. Liebig's "law" of the minimum remains useful. It implies that even if all but one of the substances necessary for a plant or animal are present in appropriate concentration, the inadequacy of one may prevent growth. This is not unlike Precept 11, a "law of the maximum."

Precept 16. In addition to needing resources at the correct time, place, form, and amount, plants and animals (and enterprises and agencies) are dependent on the mechanisms that allow for necessary substances to be made available.

Precept 17. Matter cycles; energy flows. Energy only passes through a system once and is lost. Matter can recycle.

Precept 18. The efficiency of food utilization (of energy use) is the mechanism that allows an organism, corporation, or agency to achieve equilibrium within a tolerable range of conditions.

Precept 19. Systems survive and prosper in relation to how well they optimize their size. Related to economy of scale, this precept is seen in the example of small animals that burn up more energy per unit mass per day than large animals. Large animals tend to be more energy efficient than small animals (and agencies).

Throughout our work, I wish to encouraged actions based on economy of scale. These include the guild, team efforts, regionalization, etc. The wildlife manager, agency, or enterprise needs to internalize: the average cost per output achieved tends to fall as the size of a group increases. ..to a point. Finding that point and not passing it is the managerial trick. The power of the systems analysts will be called upon to monitor continually the changes in the location of that margin. The reasons why size of the operation (not just the number of people) is so important in dealing with a concept like the faunal management group (from enterprise to international agency) is that it will only succeed if it reaches a sufficient size. If too large, it will also fail, largely because knowledge about all of the people and activities in the subgroup is no longer possible. Past failures of farms, mines, even towns has been in part that sufficient size was never reached. The reasons why sufficient size is critical are as follows:

1. Increased specialization in labor permits managers to gain expertise in their functions and to spend time on tasks where their knowledge and skills are appropriate.
2. Managerial skills (especially those captured in computer programs) and time can be used more effectively.
3. Only large units with capital can efficiently employ available technologies. ("It takes money to make money.")
4. Several methods, programs, or committee actions can be meshed to achieve the efficiencies of interaction and to regulate better the outputs to meet demands.
5. Large-scale purchasing or selling has price advantages.
6. Some factors, like educators' or accountants' time spent does not increase significantly along with amount or quality of production. For such products, where there are relatively fixed salaries and wages, costs of producing an average unit of service or goods decreases.
7. Temporal and seasonal differences can be accommodated better in large than small groups.
8. Uncertainty in demands and costs can be better hedged against in large groups.
9. Large scale users can typically better use by-products and recycle substances.

Even though economies of scale are said to be less likely for public than private groups because they are user oriented and labor intensive, these are the very characteristics of the faunal resource agencies that demand and can achieve major economies. Economies of scale are critical to creating and maintaining effective systems. Careful analysis and continual monitoring is needed to avoid exceeding the critical point.

Precept 20. Substantial system economies can be experienced, not in increased labor output or natural system outputs management, but in revised taxes and income flows, alternative financing arrangements, trading, packaging and processing of the results of management, advice, and investment in useful embodied-energy tools, materials, and earth forms.

Precept 21. Energy content (or available energy) per unit of weight varies greatly between foods and any system inputs. This affects the acquisition strategies of organisms and should do so for faunal resource management groups.

Precept 22. There is great advantage to occupying space. Species or groups filling a niche can typically make more efficient use of resources in that niche than foreign species which might attempt to invade and replace them.

Precept 23. Spatial distribution determines in part the efficiency of getting and utilizing energy.

Precept 24. Structures that endure through time (like animal horns, hair covering, or customs) are those most able to influence the future units of available energy. The concept: gain structures to get energy.

Precept 25. Large unpredictable environmental variability selects for prolific species. Economic and social unpredictability suggest the need for a prolific number of groups and enterprises.

Precept 26. Different species having identical ecological niches cannot exist for long in the same habitat. This is the competitive exclusion principle. Rephrased, wildlife groups doing exactly the same work cannot exist long in the same territory; one will out-compete the other.

Precept 27. When more resources are supplied to organisms or systems they (a) consume more of it per capita (functional response) than before, (b) they expand, more completely using the resource (numerical response), or (c) they diversify.

Precept 28. Stresses applied to systems may cause perturbations which do not show up until long after they have been applied. This is the lag-effect precept.

Precept 29. Perturbations in one part of a system lead to one or more perturbations in other parts of the system. The latter may be larger and more variable than the original.

Precept 30. Effects of a perturbation applied repeatedly can be much greater than expected. (e.g., effects of mowing, irrigation, or herbicide treatment)

Precept 31. Two or more perturbations to a system can produce much larger (or smaller) perturbations than would be expected from the sum of the separate effects. This is the synergism precept.

Precept 32. Severity and instability characterize deleterious effects of perturbations on wildlife as well as wildlife agencies. The less severe and more stable these factors, the more diversity can develop, the more efficient the organisms.

Precept 33. While physical efficiencies increase with human population density and group size, social efficiencies decrease.

Precept 34. While rapid change in a system that is moving toward its objectives is usually desirable, failure to perceive and act on an impending rapid slackening or increasing change can have great penalties.

Precept 35. There are high costs of transportation in all natural systems. In human systems it is extremely great. The difference between natural and human systems is so great that the human mind does not readily integrate this otherwise natural limitation into everyday decisions.

Precept 36. Working with energy is one of the most fundamental concepts of managing faunal systems.

Energetics is the study of energy budgets and flow in systems. It deals with net energy, the relation of energy used in a system and that which emerges as useful work or products and wastes. That energy is neither created nor destroyed is the first law of energetics. Thus, the energy budget, and its analysis, makes fundamental sense.

Energetics is very closely intertwined with the above precepts. Some ecologists prefer to discuss all ecological and environmental concepts in terms of energy. It is the universal language, once it is learned. Almost all phenomena can be translated into energy flow, and substances into energy equivalents.

Odum (1971) and Odum and Odum (1976) and Odum (1983) are leaders in developing concepts of energetics and energy budgets. (See also Slesser 1974, Chapman 1974, Bridges and Smith 1978, and Pimentel, et al. 1973.)

One rationale for using energetics is that fossil fuels are limited in supply and duration at present use rates. There are various estimates of the duration of these resources. My perception is that there is a maximum of 200 years of fossil fuels readily available and I suspect it is less. For many people, it seems to me, 200 years seems like a long time. I reckon time in tree-years and I have seen many 200- year-old trees. I know people 100 years old; I have visited a 1607 Jamestown settlement. For planning, for wildlife agencies, the end of the planning period is in sight. Even if I am off by 100 years, the conclusions are changed little. We must wisely and carefully use the last of the stored energy! Those who best know energy will profit most, will compete best, will survive.

The effort in this unit is to look at individual (and individuals in faunal agency) opportunity in the present and the next 100 years, and to create a strategy that is consistent with achieving present success and preparing for a future that few people or agencies understand. The future will be energy-short. Even if I am wrong, I cannot believe the proposals herein will create problems. The recommended strategy is thus a conservative one based on (1) knowledge of fossil energy industries and the associated system industry (not just the oil resource) and society's use of coal and other fossil fuels, (2) knowledge of energy in systems, and (3) knowledge of how to gain advantages from mastering energetics.

A full-scale discussion of energetics is not possible here. It is available in the Odum texts and articles. The key issues, as I interpret and use them are shown here.

My logic runs like this:

What is the most fundamental ingredient?

Energy.

Aren't fundamental ingredients valued highly?

Yes.

Don't values increase as supplies decrease?

Yes.

Isn't stored energy, as in coal, oil and gas, likely to decrease as a function of use?

Yes.

As it decreases, isn't its value likely to increase?

Yes.

Isn't there a limit to its decrease? Won't it run out?

Yes, at current rates of use.

What is the meaning of running out of a fundamental resource?

A reversion to a primitive society, something less elegant than the American pioneer (who had metals fashioned from European energy).

Why be concerned about "fundamentals" and "running out?" Technology can "fix it."

Perhaps, but technology is highly energy dependent. It is too big a gamble for society; to lose is to be dead or worse, sub-human. There is another reason. The ultimate currency is needed because when the real pressures of no energy are on, no one will tolerate a coinage that means more to a poor person than a rich person or one which masks real costs and values. Energy is sufficiently abundant now that some errors, imprecision, or sloppiness is tolerated. In the waning days of readily available high quality energy supplies, such imprecision will not be tolerated.

What is the major option?

Energy conservation, maximum use of alternative energy sources, reduced use, an active program based on lessons from faunal energy management, and policies and programs rooted in the knowledge of energetics... .all in a system.

When I was a child, I reckoned in terms of candy bars, not pennies, for that was what was important to me; I related to them. That was my coin, my unit of value. In the future, I believe everyone will relate to energy units. The energy cost and energy benefits (ability to do work) need to be counted. Society, just as do plants and animals, follow the above outlined precepts. The new currency (at least as surviving society will use it) will be the energy unit, e.g., the kilocalorie. The human needs food with energy equivalents of about 3000 kilocalories per day or 1.1 x 10⁶ kilocalories per year. For those used to dealing in Btu's, the equivalents are 12,000 Btu's per day or 4 million Btu's per year. A ton of bituminous coal has about 6.6 x 10⁶ kilocalories or exactly 6 times the annual human requirement.

The simplest examples of the use of energy knowledge is in seeing behind the object. What you see is not what you get. For example, a pound of oak has 1.81 x 10³ kcal energy compared to 1.91 x 10³ kcal in the same amount of birch. The relevance is in what wood to buy, what to produce from the energy in it, and when systems effectiveness is evaluated as wood energy moved per unit of transportation energy costs, efforts will probably be made to manage for birch. The differences appear small, but they are about 5% and 0.1 x 10³ kcal per pound over many tons of wood over 10,000 acres over 50 years is a lot of energy!

It now takes 1.45 cords to produce a ton of pulpwood. Technology is believed to bring that to 1.2 cords by 2000. The implications are enormous, starting with the awareness that only about 82% of the same land (potential habitat for a small group of animals) will be involved in the harvest--a change caused by technology not by wildlife agency land acquisition or intensified management. (Of course, total wood demand and area required will change.)

When the American pioneer and "hillbillies" grubbed out their existence from an acre of forest land, they invested about one kcal for every kcal they obtained from the plants they grew and ate. That was marginal living! Abundant, cheap energy changed that; now people invest many units for every one they get from the soil. That is going to stop. The corporations, agencies, counties, families and individuals who realize it, understand it, and seize it as an opportunity and a challenge, will out-compete and survive those who do not.

It costs 1.16 x 10⁴ kcal to broadcast lime on an acre of wildlife habitat and over a million kcal to produce one ton of lime. Energy costs for broadcasting lime are high, and ground limestone energy production costs much lower than those for processed lime. An agency following energetics will use ground lime. When the market does not reflect the energy - when anhydrous lime costs on the market about as much as ground limestone, the agency will spread lime, for they are buying a prior investment of energy. What they will get for their soil and forage production from the energy of nature (freezing, thawing, ionization, microbial action over time) they substitute with the fossil (or other energy) used in processing the lime. Energetics explains, in part, why manure spreading is not done and why commercial fertilizers are used. It is intuitively evident; energetics allows cost analyses to be done and to determine when one practice is better than another. It costs 2.18 x 10⁴ kcal to spread commercial fertilizer on an acre; 9.12 x 10⁵ to spread manure. Commercial fertilizer is now about 42 times less energy expensive! But it does not count the energy cost of the fertilizer and the manure. Where manure may be said to have zero cost (a waste), production of a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer costs 2 million kcal.

Some of the nitrogenous fertilizers are made from natural gas stock, depleting a very limited resource for a product notoriously poorly used on the land - a squandering of the last of the most refined natural energy resources we have. By "refined," I now mean energetically; it costs us little to process and use natural gas as compared to coal or oil. When all coal energy costs are counted, the yield ratio -- energy out for energy in -- is 4.8 (Odum and Odum 1976:167)! Far more energy is used in oil shale processing than is yielded.

Embodied energy is a phrase that needs to be understood and appreciated. It costs a great deal to produce iron (about 3 to 4 million kcal per ton) and it costs 5 times more to produce steel, but the steel now represents captured energy. The energy is embodied and it can probably last longer and do more work and serve more purposes and cost much less for maintenance than iron. An antique walnut chair embodies a great deal of woodworking energy. It lasts and serves. The same energy invested in a different wood for a chair would have been lost long ago.

Perhaps we are reinventing what our wise grandparents have said. At least we have better notions of why they are being said and the rationale behind them and the means for working in modern civilization with more than slogans like "penny wise and pound foolish" (buy on the basis of energy), and "buy clothes of high quality" (buy on the basis of embodied energy and duration of useful work). Net energy budgeting is not widely accepted. The reasons are: (1) few know of it; (2) few want to consider a novel approach, no matter how fundamental; (3) few have the education (but that will come); (4) few realize how computers can aid in energy analyses and models; (5) and few have an answer to how to attach value, i.e., "How do you deal with a kcal of garbage as compared to a kcal of mink?" The answer is in the values assigned to objectives discussed in Chapter 6. We model and make decisions based on valued energetics.

Systems are designed to use energy to achieve human objectives. Odum and Odum (1976:1) said:

"Everything is based on energy. Energy is the source and control of all things, all value, and all the actions of human beings and nature. This simple truth...has been omitted from most education in this century. When energy sources are rich, economics, knowledge, and aspirations grow; when energy sources are all being used as fast as the earth receives them, activities, values, and aspirations settle into a steady pattern. So it has been throughout the history of humanity and nature.
"Americans...are coming out of a century when there was an excess of energy and much freedom of choice was possible. We are moving into a period characterized by less energy.
" ...The transition from growth to a steady state can be smooth and planned so that individuals can make change and learn new ways; or it can be sharp, disorderly, and disastrous for individuals..."

They contended that the options for the future are set by the laws of energy. I agree. Leaving the laws and finding the options is the quest before all people--particularly faunal system managers. The culture and corporations that can adapt will prevail. Odum and Odum (1976:10) said:

"Thus, energy gives us a way of projecting and planning the future, determining what level of human life best fits nature to create a vital economy, and making difficult choices for the ultimate public good."

The energetic precepts are so important that the previous list can be continued with those of almost parallel importance:

Precept 37. The more intangible and valuable something is, the more it costs in energy. (The reverse is frequently true.)

Precept 38. The more intangible a value, the more energy is lost when it deteriorates or is lost.

Precept 39. Different kinds of energy must be converted to a common base, then quality coefficients used to indicate their real worth in support of the economy of people and nature.

Precept 40. Ultimately, prices are determined by energy.

Precept 41. The long-term basis of the U.S. economy is ultimately the use of effective, self-organizing solar converters, the forests, wetland ecosystems, and lower-energy agricultural patterns.

Precept 42. Energy cannot be stored. It may be held temporarily, but the law of entropy -- that everything progresses toward randomness -- prevails. The challenge is to capture it in a form that will do the most work and resist moth, rust, and other corruption.

Precept 43. While energy is the ability to generate heat, this technical definition is insufficient for dealing with the complex issues of environmental management.

Precept 44. Power is the rate at which energy flows. Gaining power means gaining ability to regulate that rate.

Precept 45. All energy comes from the sun. It raises water to fall from clouds; causes air temperature differences, thus wind; is captured by plants; and influences tidal action. Fossil energy is all solar. Even natural radioactivity is believed to be originally from the sun.

Precept 46. It takes energy to concentrate energy. (Some solar collectors may cost more energy to manufacture than they will ever collect.) Gasoline energy is concentrated; wind or solar energy is diluted.

Precept 47. Energies differ in quality, an expression of their ability to do work. A calorie of dispersed heat cannot do any work.

Precept 48. To get high-quality energy (e.g., electric) it takes many units of lower-quality energy. (The ratio of electric energy to coal energy used to produce it is 1 to 3.4.)

Precept 49. The concept of effectiveness is the ratio of desired or valued output to all energy inputs. (The wood production-to-sunlight ratio is about 0.05 percent.)

Precept 50. Energy entering a system must be understood and measured either as being stored in the system or as flowing out. It is neither created nor destroyed.

Precept 51. In all processes, some energy loses its ability to do work and is degraded in quality.

Precept 52. Systems that survive, animal, plant, agency, or otherwise, build order to aid the storage and use of energy.

Precept 53. Maintaining order costs energy since all systems (structures, patterns, organizations) tend to become disorderly.

Precept 54. The system that survives is the one that gets the most energy and uses it most effectively in competition with other systems. This is the maximum power precept.

The practical implications of this precept are:

1. develop storages of high-quality energy (the ATP energy storage in biological systems)
2. build capital of high embodied energy objects, tools, and structures
3. feed back work from storages to increase inflows
4. recycle material as needed
5. organize control mechanisms that keep the system adapted and stable
6. set up exchanges with other systems to supply special energy needs.

Precept 55. Systems grow only if their sources of energy can support further growth. (A forest can get only the energy that comes regularly per hectare per day. Once it has built enough leaves to catch all the available light, or adaptive "behavior" (phototaxis), it can do no more to maximize energy flowing in from the sun.)

Precept 56. A key cause of monetary inflation (and inflated expectations for faunal agency performance) is increasing the amount of money circulating without increasing the amount of energy flowing and doing work.

Precept 57. Capital assets are "embodied energy." From them we draw the means to continue old activities, gather and pump in more energy, and start new activities. They grow when productive work exceeds use and depreciation. They include buildings, machines, and staff knowledge and abilities.

Precept 58. Where money can be loaned, it can be used to build structures, i.e., to buy the stored energies for new activities. Because of entropy, energy is easily borrowed but not easily returned.

Precept 59. The value of money varies with the amount circulating; energy is the best measure of value.

Precept 60. Even though one system or process may not yield net energy (as does surface mining of coal), interactive systems may yield net energy. One subsystem subsidizes others to result in a productive total system (the excess of one subsystem is not wasted, but used to increase energy flow) (e.g., a diverse private wildlife consulting group may survive; a single consultant fail).

Precept 61. Net energy is the system energy yield that is in excess of the cost of feedback energy. The higher the net energy over the long run, the more successful the system (e.g., the wildlife agency).

Precept 62. High quality energy (e.g., electricity with the embodied energy of a power tool) can be used with low quality energy (e.g., human work) to do work that fulfills the potentials of a system.

Precept 63. When net energy is produced, a system can increase its survival by:

1. Storing energy in growth, as in the past
2. Developing new sources of energy (diversifying)
3. Improving processing of energy
4. Exchanging (exporting) for more important special imports, some to improve energy-getting.

Precept 64. When the main temporary storages of energy are used to provide or increase diversity, the diversity feeds back to stimulate other, minor sources of energy. The more energy processed, the more variety the system has, and the more flexibility the systems has, if there is an interruption to the main source of energy.

Precept 65. Every factor in a system, every piece of matter, has an energy component. Each material may contribute a portion of energy requirements in a system.

Precept 66. When people move to where energy is produced (contra energy moved), the net energy of the system is much greater.

Precept 67. In a stable energy situation, growth and progress which are parts of an individual "work ethic," may not be appropriate. "Success" will be seen as the quantity and quality of participation in a system rather than gaining wealth or power.

Precept 68. The energy-based strategy for energy-rich countries, enterprises, and individuals is to invest in technology, equipment, personnel, raw materials, water, and land.

Precept 69. Areas of a country with a high ratio of renewable-energy (e.g., forests) to purchased-energy (e.g., electricity) tend to change and develop further than areas with low ratios.

Precept 70. Environmental changes associated with and caused by massive use of fossil fuel and petroleum stock will produce new environments to which faunal populations will respond. These include more xeric conditions, changed community composition, changed shoreline lengths, and reduced forest site index that shifts land out of economically viable tree production.

The precepts here can form a 70-dimensional hypervolume. Some precepts block progress in one direction, some in others. Some show cavernous realms for expansion. As environmental and other problems increase, the volume may become smaller. They can be used as mental aids to thinking through how to make today's decisions. They may also become the basis for formal discussion, integration, and models. The hypervolume resulting from their use becomes a jail cell or the opportunity space within people may discover their humanity. I seek as great a volume as possible for us and the next generations. At least, let us be able to say as Hacker (1968) suggested, "just for the historical record...that we were fully apprised of what we were doing."

50 Books for Thinking About the Future Human Condition

Last updated: January 10, 2006

Please send comments and suggestions to dewar@rand.org.

The Past
1. Roberts, J. M., The New History of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0195219279
2. Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel, New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-393-06131-0
3. Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, New York; Viking, 2005. ISBN 0143036556

Thinking About the Future in the Past
4. Keynes, John Maynard, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, New York: Penguin Books, 1995 (originally published in 1920). ISBN 0140188053
5. Kahn, Herman, and Anthony J. Weiner, The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty Years, New York: Macmillan, 1967. (no ISBN available)
6. Kahn, Herman, William Brown, and Leon Martel, The Next 200 Years: A Scenario for America and the World, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1976. ISBN 0688030297
7. Bell, Daniel, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting, New York: Basic Books, 1999 (originally published in 1973). ISBN 0-465-09713-8
8. Toffler, Alvin, Future Shock, New York: Bantam Books, 1971. ISBN 0-553-27737-5

Human Development
9. Lauren, Paul Gordon, The Evolution of International Human Rights, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8122-1854-X
10. Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko, and A. K. Shiva Kumar, Readings in Human Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2004. ISBN 0195670523
11. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0195216784. Also available online from the UNDP Web site.
12. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2001: Making New Technologies Work for Human Development, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0195218353. Also available online from the UNDP Web site.
13. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2002: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0195219155. Also available online from the UNDP Web site.
14. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2003: Millennium Development Goals: A Compact Among Nations to End Human Poverty, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0195219880. Also available online from the UNDP Web site.
15. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 019522146X. Also available online from the UNDP Web site.

Issues For the Future
Global Governance
16. Kaul, Inge, Isabelle Grunberg, Marc C. Stern (eds.), Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0195130529

International Conflict
17. Nye, Joseph S. Jr., Understanding International Conflict, New York: Longman, (4th ed.) 2003. ISBN 0-321-20945-1

Health
18. The Advisory Committee on Health Research, Genomics and World Health, Geneva: World Health Organization, 2002. ISBN 92-4-154554-2. Also available as a downloadable PDF from the WHO Web site. (982 KB)

Demographics
19. Cohen, Joel E., How Many People Can the Earth Support? New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1995. ISBN 0-393-31495-2

Technology
20. Brockman, John (ed.), The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century, New York: Vintage Books, 2002. ISBN 0-375-71342-5
21. Ridley, Matt, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, New York: HarperCollins, 2000. ISBN 0-060-93290-2
22. Wilson, Michael, et al., Nanotechnology: Basic Science and Emerging Technologies, Boca Raton, Fla.: Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2004. ISBN 1584883391

Information Technology
23. Brin, David, The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?, New York: Perseus Books, 1998. ISBN 0738201448

Environment
24. Alley, Richard, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-691-10296-1
25. Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1999. ISBN 0316353167
26. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005. ISBN 1-59726-040-1

Energy
27. Lovins, Amory, Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs, and Security, Snowmass, Colo.: Rocky Mountain Institute, 2004. ISBN 1-881071-10-3. Also available online from http://www.oilendgame.com/

Global Economics
28. Stiglitz, Joseph E., Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2003. ISBN 0-393-32439-7
29. Bhagwati, Jagdish, In Defense of Globalization, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0195300033
30. Friedman, Thomas, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, New York: Anchor Books, 2000. ISBN 0-385-49934-5
31. Todaro, Michael P. and Stephen C. Smith, Economic Development, Harlow, England: Pearson/Addison Wesley, 9th ed., 2003. ISBN 0-321-27888-7
32. Sachs, Jeffrey, The End of Poverty, New York: The Penguin Press, 2005. ISBN 1594200459

Culture
33. Aslan, Reza, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam, New York: Random House, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6213-6

Geographical Regions
34. McCormick, John, Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction, New York: Palgrave, 2002. ISBN 1-4039-4451-2
35. Overholt, William H., The Rise of China, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. ISBN 0-393-31245-3
36. Harding, Harry, China’s Second Revolution: Reform After Mao, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1987. ISBN 0815734611
37. Cohen, Stephen Philip, India: Emerging Power, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001. ISBN 0815715013
38. Skidmore, Thomas E., Modern Latin America, Oxford: Oxford University Press, sixth ed., 2005. ISBN 019517013X
39. Fromkin, David, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, New York: Owl Books, 1989. ISBN 0-8050-6884-8
40. Billington, James H., Russia in Search of Itself, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8018-7976-0
41. Schraeder, Peter J., African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation, Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. ISBN 053456769X
42. Englebert, Pierre, State Legitimacy and Development in Africa, Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. ISBN 1-58826-131-X

Thinking About the Future
43. Cornish, Edward, Futuring, Bethesda, Md.: World Future Society, (2004). ISBN 0-930242-61-0
44. Galtung, Johan, and Sohail Inayatullah, Macrohistory and Macrohistorians: Perspectives on Individual, Social, and Civilizational Change, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997. ISBN 0-275-95755-1
45. Lempert, Robert J., Steven W. Popper, and Steven C. Bankes, Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2003. ISBN 0-8330-3275-5. Chapters also available online.
46. Heller, Peter, Who Will Pay?: Coping with Aging Societies, Climate Change, and Other Long-Term Fiscal Challenges, Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 2003. ISBN 1-58906-223-X. Selected chapters also available online from the IMF Web site.
47. Lomborg, Bjorn, Global Crises, Global Solutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0521606144

Wild Cards
48. Benyus, Janine, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, New York: Perennial, 2002. ISBN 0060533226
49. Kurzweil, Ray and Terry Grossman, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2004. ISBN 1-57954-954-3. Selected chapters also available online from http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/
50. Hostetler, John A., Amish Society, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8018-4442-8

See also An Opinion: System Failures and Future Developments.

See Bennett et al. 2003 Why global scenarios need ecology in Frontiers in Ecology , 1(6):322-329

Ackoff, R. L. 1962. Scientific method: optimizing applied research decisions. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, N.Y. 464 p.

Ackoff, R. L. 1974. Redesigning the future: a systems approach to societal problems. Wiley-Interscience Pub., John Wiley and Sons, N.Y. ix + 260 p.

Giles, R. H. Jr. and N. Snyder. 1970. Simulation techniques in wildlife habitat management, p. 637-654 in J. A. Bailey, W. Elder, and T. D. McKinney (Eds.) 1974. ReadingS-in wildlife conservation, The Wildlife Society, Washington, D.C. 722 p.

Golley, F. B. 1977. Ecological succession. Benchmark Papers in Ecology, Vol. 5, Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Inc., Stroudsburg, Pa. 389 p.

Odum, E. P. ? and E. C. Odum. 1976. Energy basis for man and nature. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York. x + 297 p.

Starr, C.1969. Social benefit versus technological risk. Science 165:1232-1238.

Starr, C. and R. Rudman. 1973., Parameters of technological growth. Science 182:358-364.

Watt, K. E. F. 1973. Principles of environmental science. Book Co., New York. xiv + 319 p. McGraw-Hill

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