Connecting Chemistry and Environmental Studies through the Lens of Entropy

Erin CarlsonENVS 220 Fall 2014

• Defined commonly as “a process of degradation or… a trend to disorder” (Merriam-Webster Online 2014); entails the move from an orderly system to a disorderly one.

• Governs atomic interactions and energy dispersion throughout the known and unknown parts of our universe. • A glass of milk falls and breaks; will not spontaneously form

back into the more orderly state of an unbroken glass with milk in it.

• Carbon dioxide gas in a pressurized container will not reform in the same dispersion of molecules once the container is depressurized and the molecules are released into the atmosphere.

• A forest of trees burned in a wildfire will not grow back or restructure in the same pattern of forest that was originally there.

These ideas go mostly undisputed, but each result entails the move towards a more disorderly universe. Coming from a background in Chemistry with a minor in Environmental Studies, in this poster I attempt to view the physical laws that address entropy from the viewpoints of chemistry and environmental studies by studying chemistry, economic, biological and ecological perspectives involving entropy in order to gauge the agreements and disputes on how this law affects the world around us.

An Introduction to Entropy

The Scientific Specifics of Entropy (S)

Economic Implications of the Entropy Law

Panarchy: A New Vision of Entropy?

Final Implications

Entropy in chemical and molecular terms, denoted as S, is “associated either with the extent of randomness in a system or with the extent to which energy is distributed among the various motions of the molecules of the system” (Brown et al. 2012, 790).• First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy is conserved in any process.

• The energy of the universe now and in the future is theoretically the same amount of energy that the universe started with

• Second Law of Thermodynamics: “[A]ny irreversible process results in an increase in total entropy... [and] any reversible process results in no overall change in entropy” (793). • Therefore, the total entropy of the universe is always increasing!

Entropy indicates how energy is dispersed… So, even though the amount of energy in the universe is unchanging, the second law of thermodynamics suggests that energy becomes more and more dispersed as time goes on. For a system to decrease in entropy, it must be that energy is expended and dispersed to the surroundings enough to make the total change in entropy of the universe positive.• ∆Suniverse= ∆Ssystem + ∆Ssurroundings

Holling’s (2001) article provides a mechanism for the workings of ecological, economic, and even social systems. This mechanism is called panarchy and “combines the concept of space/time hierarchies with a concept of adaptive cycles” (392). An adaptive cycle has three properties that determine the present and future states of a system: the potential or “wealth” of the system available for change; the degree of connectedness (rigidity or flexibility) between internal and controlling processes; and the resilience (adaptive capabilities) of the system. • The curve from exploitation to conservation (See Figure 6 below) implies an increase in connectedness,

stability and wealth of the system; the system eventually becomes so connected that it becomes rigid until an agent of disturbance (“wind, fire, disease, insect outbreak” (394) etc.) triggers a release and loss of organization. This is where it could be said that the entropy of the system increases.

• One might predict, from the second law of entropy, that this irreversible step will only result in further disorder and chaos; however, Holling highlights a “period of rapid reorganization during which novel recombinations can unexpectedly seed experiments that lead to innovations in the next cycle” (395). As the name “adaptive cycle” implies, we can see that systems, be they human/social, ecological, economic or other, are subject to inevitable disorganization and collapse, but due to this disorganization a new innovative system in which unique connections are possible and encouraged will develop.

Bruno Latour’s (2011) “Love Your Monsters” sees environmental problems in a similar light; conceding that “unintended consequences are quite normal… the most expected things on earth” (loc. 346) when attachments are made between humans and their environment, Latour believes that the worst thing to do (and yet is what encouraged most in “green” policy and environmental thought) is to “leave Nature alone and let the humans retreat” (loc. 317). This is not at all what an adaptive cycle suggests; rather, reorganization of a new system requires innovation and the formation of new attachments. Latour imagines a “future in which there will be more… imbroglios, mixing many more heterogeneous actors, at a greater and greater scale and at an even-tinier level of intimacy requiring even more detailed care” (loc. 298). • Holling’s panarchy illustrates a nested set of adaptive cycles on different scales that communicate and

affect one another when connections and organizations are made or broken on the different levels (see figure 7).

• The “interactions between cycles in a panarchy combine learning with opportunity” and offer the possibility of a “sustainable development… fostering adaptive capabilities while simultaneously creating opportunities” (399).

• Chaos and dispersion in dealing with the many interrelated levels contributing to environmental problems is a given and initiates innovation and growth.

Economy & Entropy: Economists often think of entropy within their focus as a measure of resource availability and degradation. • Erich Zimmerman: “To be sure, not even omniscience can create matter or

energy out of nothing. Nor can any science, no matter how skillful and advanced, ever restore to human use the energy once locked up in coal, oil, or gas, but spent” (Swaney 2001, 855).• Here Zimmerman addresses both the first and second law of

thermodynamics in the context of resources. Just as Figure 2 illustrates for the ideal gas, he suggests that energy used from resources cannot be harnessed and manipulated to become the usable energy again without expending massive amounts of energy in doing so.

• Richard Brinkman: Mankind can overcome entropy law “through the process of general cultural evolution” “by harnessing control over greater and greater amounts of free energy” (856).

• Brinkman’s view is vastly different from Zimmerman’s- he suggests that humanity can overcome a physical law which implies that it is impossible for the entropy of the universe to decrease. If Brinkman’s belief is true, the entropy law dictates that enormous amounts of energy would have to be expended in order to utilize the free energy (energy capable of doing work).

Schmitz (2012) visualizes entropy in the process of manufacturing and recycling glass. His visualization (see Figure 4) shows why, even in recycling, there cannot be 100% efficiency and the entropy of the “world,” as he calls it, always increases due to this or any process.

Entropy is a law governing molecular and physical systems in its most scientific interpretations, where the change in entropy due to a process is (theoretically) calculable.• We have now seen that entropy is interpreted not only as a

thermodynamic law but also as a concept of general disorder and chaos with implications in economic, biological, and ecological systems.

• Entropy entails a decrease in resource and free energy availability to humanity’s future pursuits; contributes to massive disordering of energy due to biological processes; drives the chaos that ensues following a disturbance to the organizations of systems.

• Some environmental ideologies (often classic or apocalyptic) can use “entropy” as confirmation of the collapse of the “environment” and “humanity,”; other environmental ideologies (mostly contemporary and non-apocalyptic) are far more optimistic about the future despite entropy’s presence.

• Holling offers in his explanation of panarchy a vision of interconnected cyclic adaptive systems in which entropic degradation of system organization provides opportunity for creation and new, possibly better, connections. • Chaotic creativity is part and parcel to how systems evolve. • His explanation of panarchy may offer a new perspective on

how the concept of entropy applies to systems often studied in environmentalism

• Perhaps provides apocalyptic thinkers (i.e., Zimmerman and Meadows) with a more cyclic and adaptive view of systems on the earth despite entropy’s indication of ever-increasing disorder.

• May indeed connect more with contemporary environmentalism (Latour), which posits a more optimistic vision of the future and of humanity’s capabilities.

Figure 1. A diagram of increasing entropy, as a substance moves from a solid to a liquid to a gas. (Eldredge and Averill 2014, “General Chemistry”)

Figure 2. An ideal gas expands as the valve is opened, leading to an increase in entropy of the molecules and the system. Without work done on the system, the gas is not seen compressing back its original chamber. (From http://hcp3y1011.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html).

Figure 3. The life cycle of a glass bottle. (Schmitz 2012).

Figure 4. The entropy of the glass recycling process (white) and of the world (grey). It’s easy to see that even if the entropy of the glass process “system” decreases, in steps like pressing the glass, the process is contributing in each step to a greater entropy of the “world”. (Schmitz 2012).

Entropy in Ecology and BiologyEcological and biological systems seem to present a challenge to entropy: living things are characterized by a

high level of order, from the molecular to the systemic levels (Udgaonkar 2001). However, the thermodynamic principle of entropy remains essential in explaining why life is possible.• In order for living things to stay at a low level of entropy, they must receive energy from their

surroundings and inevitably disorder it. • Human systems are suggested to be greatly entropic in that our highly ordered life systems contribute to

far more entropy increase than any other species (Swaney 2001, Brown et. al 2012, 800).• Udgaonkar (2001) states, “Progress in nature is nearly always achieved by the development of more

complicated biological structures…by accumulation of small random changes in the DNA master plan, not by starting again from scratch” (62). This suggests a parallel between the evolution of life and the entropy of the universe: evolution and entropy increase can, in a way, show the irreversible arrow of time. Neither process will lead to their initial states; they inescapably lead to a more complex world, on both microscopic and macroscopic scales.

[There are] “symptoms of a world in overshoot,

where we are drawing on the world’s resources

faster than they can be restored, and we are

releasing wastes and pollutants faster than the

Earth can absorb them or render them

harmless. They are leading us toward global

environmental and economic collapse”

(Meadows et. al 2004, 3).

“For better or for worse, humans appear fully capable of continuing to support a burgeoning population by engineering and transforming the planet” (Ellis 2011, loc. 756).

Connecting Economic Views of Entropy to Environmental Texts

Classic/Apocalyptic Environmental Text

Contemporary/Anti-Apocalyptic

Environmental Text

Works Cited• Brown, Theodore, LeMay, H. Eugene, Jr., Bursten, Bruce, Murphy, Catherine, and Patrick Woodward. 2012. “Chemical

Thermodynamics.” Chemistry: The Central Science. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.• Ellis, Erle. 2011. “The Planet of No Return.” In Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene, ed.

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, loc. 672-900. Oakland: The Breakthrough Institute. • "Entropy." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014.

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entropy>.• Holling, C. S. 2001. “Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems.” Ecosystems 4 (5):

390–405. doi:10.1007/ s10021-001-0101-5.• Latour, Bruno. 2011. “Love Your Monsters.” In Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene, ed.

Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, loc. 256-418. Oakland: The Breakthrough Institute. • Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, and Jørgen Randers. 2004. The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, 3.

Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.• Schmitz, John E.J. 2012. “Approaching the World’s Environmental Problems Through the Second Law (Entropy Law) of

Thermodynamics.” The Encyclopedia of Earth. Accessed October 4, 2012.http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150152

• Swaney, James A. 2001. “Economics, Ecology, and Entropy.” Journal of Economic Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics) 19 (4): 853-864.

• Udgaonkar, Jayant B. 2001. “Entropy in Biology.” Resonance 6 (9): 61-66.

Figure 6. An adaptive cycle. See explanation above. (Holling 2001).

Figure 7. A visual representation of a panarchy with interconnected levels on different scales. (Holling 2001).

(Jorge Cham 2005, from http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=575).