Environment, power, and society for the twenty-first century : the hierarchy of energy (New ed)

Howard T. Odum is considered one of the founding fathers of modern ecology as well as its deepest thinker. "Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-first Century" is a major updating of his classic work, bringing it to a whole new generation of students and scholars. "Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-first Century" focuses on the significance of energy and its role in society.

For this edition, Odum refines his original theories and introduces two new quantities: energy and transformity.

These concepts evaluate and compare energy resources and their transformations by calculating all the energy and material that flow in and out of a particular system.

Natural energies such as solar radiation, the cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are diagrammed in terms of energy and energy flow.

Through this method, Odum reveals the similarities between human economic and social systems and the way in which our survival and prosperity are regulated as much by the laws of energetics as by those of the physical and chemical world.