Energy Resource Dynamics gets a new name

It has been almost 2 years of writing Energy Resource Dynamics. I've learned a lot, and I hope you have too. My original intention was to help readers understand the physical details of how we humans use energy and other natural resources. I've written 50+ articles about how cogeneration, oil refineries, nuclear reactors, and photosynthesis works, explored the implications of biofuels and trophic levels, and investigated thermodynamic concepts like how entropy and exergy are more accurate (and important) than energy. I both love and think it's critical to understand the basics of how all of our energy systems work. A solid foundation of these dynamics allows us to optimize our energy and resource systems to ends we desire, and it helps us spot ideas that may sound good initially but have no prospect of working out.

As a lifelong learner, avid reader, and thinker, I started to think beyond just our technological energy and resource systems. I became interested in how those systems fit into broader systems like the economy, ecosystems, and all of nature. It now feels incomplete, almost negligent, to describe humankind's energy and resource systems without touching on the implications for the wider world—in space and time.

"Energy Resource Dynamics" was more of a descriptive placeholder name until I found a better one. Going forward, this publication will be called "Anthropocene Dynamics" to reflect the content it will cover. The term "Anthropocene" was first used in the 1980s by ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer before being popularized by the atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen in 2000. Combining the Greek ánthrōpos, meaning "human being," and the suffix -cene, denoting a recent geological period, the "Anthropocene" is a proposed geological epoch that we're in the beginning stages of, marked by various human impacts on the environment. These impacts are so significant that they are literally shaping the geophysical and biochemical nature of the planet in ways that affect all life on Earth—now, and for the foreseeable future.

What to expect

In a nutshell, Anthropocene Dynamics explores humankind's relationship to nature. We cover how humans use energy and materials in our daily lives and economy, and the implications for the environment. We investigate the dynamics of how humans affect nature, and in turn, how nature affects humans—emphasizing physics, biology, ecology, and other sciences. We also cover the related philosophy, economics, and historical examples. Understanding these topics requires thinking in systems, as few things are isolated.

Expanding the discussion from simply how things work to their implications in the larger systems, I think, is more relevant in this age of AI-generated content. While AI is getting very good and is increasing productivity, I feel it's a tool to be used with extreme caution—not because of an AI-apocalypse, but because it can erode human meaning and truth. For now, AI lacks the humanity and ethics that only biological brains in carbon-based bodies possess.

Why am I writing this?

Simple. I believe a planet full of rich, diverse life is not only essential for the continued existence of humanity, but also makes life beautiful. My goal is to educate others about our relationship to nature, of which we are a part, so that we may be ethical stewards of it as we pursue meaningful lives.

Human progress, innovation, and economic growth for the past few centuries have given us abundant wealth, comfort, and access to goods and services our ancestors couldn't have imagined. It's reduced child mortality, improved medicine, and provided a long list of other benefits too numerous to name here.

But now, in the process of creating those benefits, progress and growth are eroding the foundations of future growth by damaging the natural systems that support us and the rest of life. Synthetic pollutants, pesticides, and plastics litter soils, waterways, oceans, and our bodies. Industrial agriculture degrades the soil and destroys natural wildlife habitats. Forests and other wildlands are being cut down and burned. Species are going extinct at rates that threaten the fabric of ecosystems. Fresh water is becoming scarce as we pump more from aquifers than can be replenished.

And the irony is that we're suffering from crises of overabundance. We not only have an environmental crisis, but a crisis of health and a crisis of meaning.

My goal is to understand and educate about these interconnected problems so that humans and other species alive today and those of future generations can live lives of meaning, respecting the natural systems we all depend on.

One more thing

I'm working on writing a book on these subjects. It will take several years due to the complexity of the matter, but in the meantime, I plan to publish an article every few weeks on Anthropocene Dynamics. If you'd like to support my work, please consider sharing these articles with others. You can also pledge to support my work, and I appreciate comments. If you'd like to get involved in creating solutions to the challenges we're facing, please reach out to me directly. I'm doing the same. Maybe we can collaborate.

To the ethical stewardship of beauty, integrity, and richness of life on Earth.

See the world. Make it better.

-Tanner Janesky