International Society for the Advancement of Emergy
Research
(ISAER)

The Emergy Society

    President's Address, David R. Tilley PhD.

    Congratulations, fellow emergy scientists. As founding members of the
    International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research we open a
    new chapter that continues a philosophy of energy science seeded nearly a
    century ago by Boltzmann and Lotka and advanced to its modern form by
    H.T. Odum. The Society will foster the intellectual endeavors of the
    membership in propelling our work to larger temporal and spatial scales of
    influence.

    It is the greatest professional honor of my life to be addressing you as the
    President of a Society inspired by the thinking of Dr. Odum. With a
    membership that embodies one of the most elegant and powerful ideas in
    science, we have great potential for advancing the cognizance of humanity.
    We share the duty to conduct our work no matter how difficult it is to
    translate it into action. While much of the power and elegance of emergy, its
    refined perspective on the workings of highly complex systems, has been
    revealed, there is much more to discover. Formation of this Society is the
    logical step required to continue the expansion of the intellectual gift of Dr.
    Odum. One day the world may produce an individual that fills the craters
    left by his footprints, but until that day arises we, as a well-organized
    intellectual society, have the responsibility to continue to advance the
    science of emergy.

    Over the last several centuries the world has experienced one of its greatest
    rates of growth in empower consumption ever. Never has civilization
    achieved such high production of knowledge and material wealth at the
    expense of consuming such tremendous natural capital. However, based on
    many ecological and economic signals this global pulse appears to be at its
    peak. Likely, the world's energy consumption is in transition to a period
    where its basis is in doubt. As the world heads for the next phase of the
    pulse, one that will witness a never before seen decline in the consumption
    of ancient fuel resources, it is a vast understatement to say that these are
    unknown times to humanity.  As the professional Society that recognizes
    this inevitable pulsing of the global human-energy system, prepared with one
    of the most unique and powerful system-analytic tools available to
    humanity, our organization has a duty to uncover the mysteries of
    humanity's dependence and connection to natural and artificial energy
    systems. We must advance the world's knowledge on how to cope with its
    energy transition and beyond. What specifically can this include?

    Foremost emergy is a tool for assessing the balance of energy flows in
    systems that span multiple scales of the energy hierarchy; scales which often
    include human endeavors. As a dynamic Society we cannot escape the
    natural rule of system self-organization. This implies that the Society must
    always be testing the tenets of its philosophy, discarding the disproven and
    readapting to the new ones. The Society should always provide a means for
    sharing the latest findings among members, related-peers and generations
    that will be to complete a critical step of a self-organizing intellectual system.
    To this end the Society should always provide some type of digital media (e.
    g. web page) for short-term, global communication and convene periodic
    conferences for face-to-face exchange. In addition, the Society should
    explore new digital means so members can exchange ideas. For example,
    can "Twittering" be useful tool or a distraction? At this time in our formative
    period, I discourage the Society from undertaking a conventional print-
    media, peer-reviewed periodic journal. However, the Society should support
    the continued publication of the biennial proceedings. During the next few
    years, the Society should consider publishing monographs or the best
    articles  'endorsed' by the Society.

    The Society should support emergy scientists as they continue to make
    advances in the theory and application of emergy as an environmental
    decision-making tool. New uses for conventional indices and generation of
    new indices should continue. I would stress that theoretical development of
    emergy indices be followed with robust experimental evidence that supports
    or refutes the theorist's contention. The Society should support the
    mathematician's interpretation of emergy, energy quality, transformity and
    other derived properties. This formal mode of scientific communication will
    open the ideas of our field to countless new minds. Assessment of
    alternative energy production systems proposed as replacements or
    supplements to fossil fuels may always be a pursuit of Society members.
    Conjectures offered about the role of different forms of energy in operating
    the human-ecological-energy system are best tested with emergy evaluation.
    The Society must continue to assess the validity of these proposed energy
    alternatives. While there have been good case studies made to show the
    fallacy of popular alternatives, it is a never-ending struggle to convince non-
    emergy scientists that emergy evaluation can serve as a predictor based on
    energy laws. The Society should continue to pursue ways to overcome this
    roadblock. The membership of the Society and other emergy scientists are
    working in many other areas of specialization that are too numerous to
    recite here. I will only comment that the Society remain open to new
    pursuits but use its collective experience and knowledge to offer encouraging
    criticism. The collective intelligence of the Society must wield the ultimate
    power to make decisions concerning fundamental tenets of emergy science.

    One final thought. While we as a group have completed many emergy
    evaluations that enlighten us to the energetic sustainability of real and
    proposed systems, we have made much less progress in generating ideas
    about what constitutes a real sustainable system. The challenge is to take off
    your 'scientist-hat' and to put on the hat of a 'system-designer'; that is one
    who generates new ideas on how man and nature can exist on flow-powered
    rather than stock-powered energy sources. We need to utilize our academic
    diversity to encourage our colleagues around the world to consider using
    emergy-based systems ecology as an intellectual guide for focusing their
    thinking on human-energy issues.

    Like all of you, my intellectualism will forever be inspired by the science of
    H.T.Odum. During a lunch in Gainesville in the late 1990's he told me, "It
    takes about 20 years for people to accept my ideas.”  A powerful thought
    on several dimensions. If, one day, we can judge the significance of our
    Society on the same time-scale, then I think we will have justified our
    existence.

President's Address to the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Emergy Society