|
Tainter, Joseph
Joseph Anthony Tainter (born December 8, 1949) is an American anthropologist and historian. Biography Tainter studied anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975. he holds a professorship in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. His previous positions include Project Leader of Cultural Heritage Research, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Albuquerque, New Mexico and assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Tainter has written and edited many articles and monographs. His best-known work, ''The Collapse of Complex Societies'' (1988), examines the collapse of Maya and Chacoan civilizations, and of the Western Roman Empire, in terms of network theory, energy economics and complexity theory. Tainter argues that sustainability or collapse of societies follow from the success or failure of problem-solving institutions and that societies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological anthropology, Biological (or physical) anthropology studies the biology and evolution of Human evolution, humans and their close primate relatives. Archaeology, often referred to as the "anthropology of the past," explores human activity by examining physical remains. In North America and Asia, it is generally regarded as a branch of anthropology, whereas in Europe, it is considered either an independent discipline or classified under related fields like history and palaeontology. Etymology The abstract noun ''wikt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, airports, public transit systems, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet connectivity and broadband access). In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment. Especially in light of the massive societal transformations needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change, contemporary infrastructure conversations frequently focus on sustainable development and green infrastructure. Acknowledging this importance, the international co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doi (identifier)
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; they also fit within the URI system (Uniform Resource Identifier). They are widely used to identify academic, professional, and government information, such as journal articles, research reports, data sets, and official publications. A DOI aims to resolve to its target, the information object to which the DOI refers. This is achieved by binding the DOI to metadata about the object, such as a URL where the object is located. Thus, by being actionable and interoperable, a DOI differs from ISBNs or ISRCs which are identifiers only. The DOI system uses the indecs Content Model to represent metadata. The DOI for a document remains fixed over the lifetime of the document, whereas its location and other metadata may change. Referring to an onl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Complexity, Problem Solving, And Sustainable Societies
"Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies" is a paper on energy economics by Joseph Tainter from 1996. Focus It focuses on the energy cost of problem solving, and the energy-complexity relation in manmade systems. This is a mirror of the negentropic tendencies of natural evolution, according to ecological economics, notably the arguments of Donella Meadows and her colleagues on the economic constraints of contemporary problem solving. ''The Limits to Growth'', 1972, argued that "to raise world food production from 1951-1966 by 34%, for example, required increasing expenditures on tractors of 63%, on nitrate fertilizers of 146%, and on pesticides of 300%. To remove all organic wastes from a sugar-processing plant costs 100 times more than removing 30%. To reduce sulfur dioxide in the air of a U.S. city by 9.6 times, or particulates by 3.1 times, raises the cost of pollution control by 520 times." All environmental problem solving will face constraints of this ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peak Oil
Peak oil is the point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate, after which it will begin to decline irreversibly. The main concern is that global transportation relies heavily on gasoline and diesel. Adoption of electric vehicles, biofuels, or more efficient transport (like trains and waterways) could help reduce oil demand. Peak oil relates closely to oil depletion; while petroleum reserves are finite, the key issue is the economic viability of extraction at current prices. Initially, it was believed that oil production would decline due to reserve depletion, but a new theory suggests that reduced oil demand could lower prices, affecting extraction costs. Demand may also decline due to persistent high prices. Over the last century, many predictions of peak oil timing have been made, often later proven incorrect due to increased extraction rates. M. King Hubbert introduced the concept in a 1956 paper, predicting U.S. production would peak between 1965 and 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peak Complexity
Peak Complexity is the concept that human societies address problems by adding social and economic complexity but that process is subject to diminishing marginal returns. Adding additional complexity will then impose growing burdens on those societies, making them more vulnerable to external threats. Origin and Definitions Who first coined the term is unclear. The first published use of the term may have been by Christopher Burr Jones, in the context of climate change, in 2019, although the term had been used online before that. The 'peak' element refers by analogy to peak oil and peak minerals, although the comparisons are not exact. The concept is credited to Joseph Tainter, who argued that ancients civilisations collapsed because they encountered diminishing marginal returns on complexity. Tainter did not use the term peak complexity, however. Melia defines peak complexity as: "the diminishing marginal returns, and proliferating unintended consequences, of increasin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sassanid Empire
The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign over ancient Iran was second only to the directly preceding Arsacid dynasty of Parthia. Founded by Ardashir I, whose rise coincided with the decline of Arsacid influence in the face of both internal and external strife, the House of Sasan was highly determined to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding and consolidating the Iranian nation's dominions. Most notably, after defeating Artabanus IV of Parthia during the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, it began competing far more zealously with the neighbouring Roman Empire than the Arsacids had, thus sparking a new phase of the Roman–Iranian Wars. This effort by Ardashir's dynasty ultimately re-established Iran as a major power of late antiquity.Norman A. Stillman ''The Jew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parthian Empire
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power centered in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I ( BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to present-day Afghanistan and western Pakistan. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and regalia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th centuryAD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'. During the early centuries of the Roman Empire, the western provinces were Romanization (cultural), Latinised, but the eastern parts kept their Hellenistic culture. Constantine the Great, Constantine I () legalised Christianity and moved the capital to Constantinople. Theodosius I, Theodosius I () made Christianity the state religion and Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use. The empire adopted a defensive strategy and, throughout its remaining history, expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Returned On Energy Invested
In energy economics and ecological energetics, energy return on investment (EROI), also sometimes called energy returned on energy invested (ERoEI), is the ratio of the amount of usable energy (the '' exergy'') delivered from a particular energy resource to the amount of exergy used to obtain that energy resource. Arithmetically the EROI can be defined as: : EROI = \frac. When the EROI of a source of energy is less than or equal to one, that energy source becomes a net "energy sink", and can no longer be used as a source of energy. A related measure, called energy stored on energy invested (ESOEI), is used to analyse storage systems. To be considered viable as a prominent fuel or energy source a fuel or energy must have an EROI ratio of at least 3:1. History The energy analysis field of study is credited with being popularized by Charles A. S. Hall, a Systems ecology and biophysical economics professor at the State University of New York. Hall applied the biological met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Degradation
Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or a group of organisms Other physical and cultural environments *Ecology, the branch of ethology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings *Environment (systems), the surroundings of a physical system that may interact with the system by exchanging mass, energy, or other properties. *Built environment, constructed surroundings that provide the settings for human activity, ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places *Social environment, the culture that an individual lives in, and the people and institutions with whom they interact *Market environment, business term Arts, entertainment and publishing * Environment (magazine), ''Environment'' (magazine), a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decline Of The Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided among several successor Polity, polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western Roman province, provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the Late Roman army, army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the Roman economy, economy, the competence of the Roman emperor, emperors, the internal struggles for power, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration. Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climate variability and change, Climatic changes and both Endemic (epidemiology), endemic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
