Journal of Geography  & Natural Disasters
Open Access

Abstract

Ecological economics & sustainability

Paul Comet

Natural ecosystems provide network models for human waste disposal where detritovores & otherdecomposers keep the habitat clean & provide much needed nutrients to photosynthetic organisms. In returnthe decomposer receives the energy & nutrients sequestered in dung, cadavers or phytal debris. This is doneby accessing a range of biosynthetic pathways that can utilise biological waste as a primary feedstock. Thesepathways may involve oxidation or fermentation. Different decomposers have different specializations.Examples might be brown rot fungi eating wood cellulose & white rot fungi eating the lignins also from wood.Photosynthesis, respiration & decomposition can be observed in the model environment of a small glassecosphere, containing shrimps, algae & bacteria rich sediment, which when set by a window, can be (withsome difficulty) maintained to be indefinitely sustainable. In the ecosphere the Calvin (photosynthetic), Krebs(respiratory), & the fermentation cycles can be inferred to be in balance - if the shrimps live, & their tiny, holistic,microenvironment has enough light. ATP is the common currency that links all 3 major biosynthetic pathways.Even marine animals that contain chloroplasts operate similarly. The idea of an alternative energy currency canbe transferred to human economic systems. The pairing of urban & rural municipalities using an alternativeenergy currency or Joule - based credit card system is proposed here. Electrical energy from solar panels,wind turbines & particularly, waste to energy, is directed to microgrids linking homes & businesses withagricultural areas generating food, to create a sustainable economic system in effect a "superorganism" thatfeeds off the waste of the current system to create a parallel economy, using an alternative energy dollar thatcan be used for the goods & services created from waste recovery, recycling, remanufacturing etc. Thisalternative energy dollar would need strict regulation to prevent it impairing the present economic systemwhich appears to lack specie, though originally linked to petroleum; the "petrodollar". By using an alternativeenergy dollar (or linking the existing dollar to progressive amounts of alternative energy), the fossil carbonemissions problem might be solved. However, I believe new, local, currencies would be more effective insolving the waste problem, though the dichotomy between a parallel & a circular economy & their impact on one another is not fully resolved. Computer modelling is required as well as practical “real world experiments”.

Published Date: 2020-09-12; Received Date: 2020-08-31