ECOLOGICAL

ECONOMICS
ELSEVIER

Ecological Economics 13 (1995) 89-92

Commentary

Energy, entropy, environment: why is protection

of the environment objectively difficult?
Karl K. R e b a n e *
Institute of Physics, 142 Riia Str., EE2400 Tartu, Estonia

Received 30 March 1994;accepted 14 September 1994

Abstract

Evolution and man's history indicate that the winners are the species and societies that act faster and consume
more high-quality energy and materials: in other words, those which cause more pollution and faster growth of
entropy. This could be the reason why protection of the environment is objectively difficult and, in particular, why it
is almost impossible to considerably reduce man's consumption of energy and materials in a world of competition.
To escape this fatal evolutionary outcome, fundamentally new thinking is needed, thinking which takes the survival
of mankind as the primary value. The role of religion in solving this tremendously difficult task should not be
neglected.
Keywords: Entropy; Environment; Evolution; Global problems; Religion

1. Introduction: energy a n d entropy

A m o n g the reasons for slow or absent advancement in environmental protection is the influence of the law of entropy growth - the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The essence of the
entropy law is that in the course of all processes
in an isolated system the quality of energy and
matter deteriorates - that after something has
happened, their quality is lower than it was before (see, e.g., Atkins, 1984).
The energy conservation law tells us that in an
isolated system no energy can be created nor will
it disappear. From the law of entropy growth it

* e-mail: rebanek@park.tartu.ee

follows that only high-quality energy (matter) can

be used, and that in the course of use, it inevitably turns into a lower-quality energy (matter).
It is only through the course of such transformations that we can obtain the desired results. There
is no other way to achieve anything or to change
anything at all. Any change and movement always
brings about the growth of entropy, the deterioration of the quality of energy and matter (Lotka,
1922; Odum, 1976; Rifkin and Howard, 1980).
Entropy is connected with and reflects the
level of orderedness of the states of matter and
energy. A high-quality state of matter or energy
means that a system is in a highly-ordered state.
Entropy of this state is low. Lower-quality energy
and matter are less ordered, and their entropy is
higher.

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K.K. Rebane / Ecological Economics 13 (1995) 89-92

2. Open systems: ordered subsystems

The law of entropy growth holds for an isolated system as a whole; entropy as a whole must
grow. However, in a part of the system, in subsystems (which because of the interaction with the
other parts of the large system are open systems),
it is quite possible, and under certain conditions
even inevitable, that in the process of impetuous
growth of the large system's entropy there appear
ordered subsystems. The enhancement of orderedness or the growth of negentropy in a part
of the system takes place at the expense of the
deterioration of orderedness of the large system
as a whole - at the expense of the decrease of the
total negentropy. Thus, both kinds of orderedness
- human-created and spontaneous - can be and
have been implemented only at the cost of the
growth of total entropy (Prigogine, 1961; Rebane,
1980).
The ordered subsystems can live quite long,
but they can be far out of thermodynamical equilibrium and dynamic (alive or interesting in other
ways) only as long as the flows of high-quality
energy in and of low-quality energy out continue.
That is why dynamic ordered systems are far
more unstable than systems in static (or quasistatic) thermodynamic equilibrium.
The energy conservation law and the entropy
growth law in physics and chemistry have enabled
mankind to avoid a tremendous number of expensive and futile undertakings in technology,
and to concentrate only on efforts that do not run
counter to these two great prohibition laws of
thermodynamics. Energy and entropy considerations have been shown to be constructive and
educational also in dealing with economic problems (see Kiimmel, 1982, 1989; Kiimmel and
Schfissler, 1991, and references therein).

3. Entropy and evolution: who are the winners?

Let us now proceed to the deep-rooted evolutionary problem. If a situation has developed in
which for many millions of years the Sun gives
high-quality energy on the basis of which numberless ordered systems and their hierarchies can

appear, then the question arises: Which are the

systems privileged to survive? The great majority
have to vanish and only an extremely tiny fraction
can survive and procreate successors.
The faster a process is, the more entropy grows.
The theory maintains that if processes have taken
place infinitely slowly, then, as an asymptotic
solution, a situation would be conceivable in which
entropy does not grow at all. In such a case,
however, nothing would change in reality either;
no real processes would take place. This gives us
a hint that faster-acting systems produce more
entropy.
My point is that it is the systems producing
more entropy and, consequently, more pollution
of the environment that are privileged to survive
in the struggle for life. They will prevail because
they act faster. The cost of their survival is faster
growth of pollution of the environment. The more
active systems also take away high-quality energy
and matter from the others, thereby suppressing
their competitors.
Evolution has proceeded in such a way that
starting from the first living organisms, and even
from the non-equilibrium ordered formation of
pre-life inorganic matter, the line of our ancestors has always been not only the winner, but also
an "advanced" contaminator of the environment.
Here we have a fundamental deep-rooted conflict: we need the environment; however, the wave
o f evolution favors just those systems, species, and
communities that are the most active users, i.e.
polluters of the environment. This is certainly a
rather unpleasant result, but are not many scientific conclusions unpleasant?
There are examples galore around us matching
the hypothesis from history, biological evolution,
economic competition, and everyday life. Let us
take here only one example, that of military affairs. There is always an urgent need to quickly
devise new systems and develop technologies to
outrun the potential enemy. However, the more
rapid their implementation, the more entropy
grows and the faster the environment will be
ruined.
But the one arming faster and on a larger
scale, producing faster and more damage to the
environment (more entropy) has a better chance

K K Rebane ~Ecological E c c ~ S

to maintain higher military potential and to prevail.

4. Growth of instability

It must be pointed out that regardless of the

prohibitions ensuing from the First and Second
Laws of Thermodynamics, limitless growth of the
power of energy facilities is in principle conceivable. However, the growth of complexity and
power of the energy systems needed for it results
inevitably in a loss of stability and it imposes
limits (Rebane, 1980, 1990, 1993). Accidents in
very powerful and sophisticated systems may happen even a thousand times less frequently than in
conventional energy establishments, but the results of one single accident can be millions of
times more destructive: e.g., the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986). Therefore, there is reason to
doubt that mankind can continue to exist in the
future, consuming energy on the Earth, the
amount of which exceeds, let us say, approximately I percent of the solar radiation. (Of course,
this is only a rough estimate. Maybe a few percent is still acceptable, but 10 percent of the solar
radiation to Earth means about 100 W / m 2 . ) Additional cooling to the heat radiation by Earth
becomes inevitable (in spite of the T 4 law for
black-body emission). The instabilities of cooling
systems will rapidly grow beyond acceptable limits with the increase of their power. These limits
cannot be exceeded even if energy is " p r o d u c e d "
far beyond the Earth (e.g., on solar batteries in
space) because the energy consumed on the Earth
will eventually turn into waste heat which must
be disposed of. T h e r e are many other instability
dangers emanating from the hypersensitivity of
the biosphere as the peak of the "negentropic
pyramid". Some of them become actual long before the average energy production reaches a
high level. Others are quite independent of the
average amount of energy production or the level
of entropy on Earth. One example is radioactive
materials. Further, in handling chemical and biochemical substances, in particular those able to
change genetic material, mistakes and negligence
with extremely sad results are possible. But again,

13 (1995) 89-92

91

in the struggle for existence, those who are able

to develop energetics and increase entropy faster,
calmly neglecting the instabilities (in the name of
consuming more goods, travelling more and faster,
and exploiting more services), have the best
chances of survival.

5. Is there a way out?

The end of the Cold War provides an historic

opportunity to reconsider the disastrous situation.
But the military is not the only problem. The
economy, its goals and the non-military consumption of resources demanded by economic growth
are also a major problem.
In the course of evolution man has developed
more and more into a creature designed to win a user of ever larger-scale resources of nature.
There is good reason to think that the development of the human intellect, too, has been controlled by the pursuit of this goal. This applies
not only to the way of thinking, but also to
structure of the brain: in other words, to software
as well as to hardware. We must be ready to
accept the fact that the human brain and the
whole human control system - neural networks,
body s e n s o r s / d e t e c t o r s together with signal processing, their structure and ways of functioning are in no way favourable to the acceptance of the
new way of thinking. Actually they are in opposition.
We are programmed for short-term survival by
means that, in the long run, inevitably destroy our
environment and us along with it. The value of
human collective survival must establish roots
other than the straightforward (Darwinian) struggle for life.
The objective must be to replace the present
value scale by a radically new one where in first
place stands the survival of mankind. Naturally,
on this scale, too, the measure of value is egocentric, but it is wisely egocentric. This is what we all
must understand at the level of both reason and
emotion.
With regard to the level of emotion, it would
be unwise to ignore religion. Religion influences
the minds, attitudes and deeds of a large portion

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K K Rebane / Ecological Economics 13 (1995) 89-92

o f m a n k i n d . T h e h i g h e r religions t e a c h r e s p o n s ibility, m o d e s t y , m o d e s t c o n s u m p t i o n , a n d altruism. C o o p e r a t i o n b e t w e e n s c ie n c e a n d r e l i g i o n in

o v e r c o m i n g t h e global p r o b l e m s , in t h e n a m e o f
t he survival o f m a n k i n d , will b e a very c o n s i d e r able p o w e r .

References
Atkins, P.W., 1984. The Second Law. Scientific American
Books, New York, NY.
Kiimmel, R., 1982. Energy, environment and industrial growth.
In: Economic Theory of Natural Resources. PhysicaVerlag, Wiirzburg-Vienna.
Kiimmel, R., 1989. Energy as a factor of production and
entropy as a pollution indicator in macroeconomic modelling, Ecol. Econ., 1: 161-180.
Kiimmel, R. and Sehiissler, U., 1991. Heat equivalents of
noxious substances: a pollution indicator for environmental accounting, Ecol. Econ., 3: 139-156.

Lotka, A.J., 1922. Contribution to the energetics of evolution.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 8.
Odum, H.T. and Odum, E.C., 1976. Energy Basis for Man
and Nature. McGraw Hill, New York, NY.
Prigogine, I., 1961. Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes.
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Rebane, K., 1980. Energia, entroopia, elukeskkond. Valgus,
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Rebane, K., 1993. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence
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219-227.
Rifkin, J. and Howard T., 1980. Entropy. A New World View.
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