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Climate Change and Circular Economics
Human Society as a Closed Thermodynamic System
- 1st Edition - June 19, 2024
- Author: Ionut Purica
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 4 4 3 - 2 9 9 6 9 - 8
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 4 4 3 - 2 9 9 7 0 - 4
Climate Change and Circular Economics: Human Society as a Closed Thermodynamic System aims to go beyond the concept of ‘fighting climate change’ to analyze the capacity of human… Read more
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Request a sales quoteClimate Change and Circular Economics: Human Society as a Closed Thermodynamic System aims to go beyond the concept of ‘fighting climate change’ to analyze the capacity of human society to evolve in relation to the environment based on a more complex approach. The book stresses the role of resource recovery by innovation in reducing the temperature increase, determined through an irreversible thermodynamic approach. Determining the speed of temperature increase contributed by selected economies and comparing these to environmental recovery time constants shows that emerging economies have a much greater speed and consequently a larger impact on environmental capability to recover.
Chapters progress from an analysis of present society as a dissipative open system to a thermodynamics view of the need for a circular economy, a big data analysis of climate change and risk mitigation, economic indicators, including entropy and economics, risk maps of climate change events risks, and insights into the ‘Gibbs paradox’, which describes the connection of two separate systems (like society and environment).
Chapters progress from an analysis of present society as a dissipative open system to a thermodynamics view of the need for a circular economy, a big data analysis of climate change and risk mitigation, economic indicators, including entropy and economics, risk maps of climate change events risks, and insights into the ‘Gibbs paradox’, which describes the connection of two separate systems (like society and environment).
- Offers a unique, intersectional perspective on climate change
- Introduces generational risk maps for climate change events, opening the possibility for insurance as well as other mitigation and adaptation policies
- Provides methods to determine the contribution of selected economies to temperature increase and speed of increase using irreversible thermodynamics that allows for comparison with environmental recovery time constants
- Ends with a solution of the Gibbs ‘paradox’ that relies not on binary logic, but rather a multivalued modal logic of possibilities that sheds a profound light on the interaction of separate spaces versus their combination
Researchers and Academics (Faculty, graduate students and researchers) in the fields of environmental studies, economics, energy, engineering, physics and innovation
- Cover image
- Title page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- About the author
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments and credits
- Chapter One. Human society and nature interaction
- 1.1. Society as a dissipative open system
- 1.2. Closing processes in self-organizing cycles
- 1.3. Evolution of human society toward a closed system
- 1.4. Model evolution 3
- 1.5. Specific results
- 1.6. Is an inclusive society possible?
- Chapter Two. Irreversible thermodynamics view of the need for a circular economy
- 2.1. Introduction
- 2.2. Irreversible thermodynamics approach
- 2.3. Circular economy
- 2.4. Estimating temperature increases and crises
- 2.5. Turning waste into assets—resource management policy and new technologies
- Appendix 2.1
- Chapter Three. Resource materials and recycling technologies
- 3.1. The main elements of the raw materials initiative
- 3.2. Improving recycling rates
- 3.3. Japan and rare earths in permanent magnets
- 3.4. Managing resources
- 3.5. China's gallium and germanium restrictions
- 3.6. Rebirth of nuclear and the needed resources
- 3.7. Technological resources
- 3.8. Nuclear reactors
- 3.9. Energy storage technologies
- 3.10. Direct conversion of energy
- 3.11. Geostrategy of resources and critical infrastructures
- 3.12. Conclusions
- Annex 3.1. Food versus biofuels—an energy balance approach
- Chapter Four. Big data analysis for climate change proof and risk mitigation
- 4.1. Introduction
- 4.2. Data series
- 4.3. Risk mapping by risk category
- 4.4. Risk assessment frequency/probability measures
- 4.5. Assessing damage
- 4.6. Climate change risk maps
- 4.7. Mapping tool and combined climate change effect risks
- 4.8. Population at risk and economic impacts
- 4.9. Setting the basis for a climate change event risk insurance policy
- 4.10. Decisions based on risk
- 4.11. Hazard risks and their impact on critical infrastructure
- 4.12. Conclusions
- Annex 4.1
- Annex 4.2
- Chapter Five. Brief considerations of economic indicators
- 5.1. From simple to aggregated
- 5.2. Normalization of parameter values
- 5.3. Population migration—A potential cyclic behavior due to saturation
- 5.4. Avoiding or crossing limits—System resilience
- 5.5. Sustainability—Accepting limits
- 5.6. Economy versus environment—Negotiating development
- 5.7. Conclusions
- Annex 5.1
- Chapter Six. Green investment schemes for sustainability
- 6.1. Case study—green investment scheme of World Bank
- 6.2. Case study: Japan Bank for International Cooperation–proposed green investment scheme financing structure
- 6.3. General green investment scheme for Romania
- Chapter Seven. Entropy in economics (bioeconomics, thermoeconomics, econophysics, and others)
- 7.1. Storage, emergy, and transformity
- 7.2. Information and entropy, by Alan McGowan
- 7.3. The entropy concept in biology, by Alan McGowen
- 7.4. Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia: second law of thermodynamics
- 7.5. Summary of energy and the US economy
- 7.6. Conclusion
- Chapter Eight. Gibbs “paradox” in modal multivalued logic of experimenter
- 8.1. Measuring technological information and entropy
- Chapter Nine. United Nations sustainable development goals
- 9.1. Energy infrastructure
- 9.2. Energy security
- 9.3. Access to energy
- 9.4. Renewable energy and energy efficiency
- 9.5. Targets for 2030
- Chapter Ten. Final thoughts on approaching the future
- Index
- No. of pages: 350
- Language: English
- Edition: 1
- Published: June 19, 2024
- Imprint: Elsevier
- Paperback ISBN: 9780443299698
- eBook ISBN: 9780443299704
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Ionut Purica
Prof.Ionut Purica is a corresponding member of the Academy of Romanian Scientists (AOSR), and a senior researcher in econophysics. He had worked in the World Bank, ENEA Rome and ICTP Trieste, Italy and RENEL Romania developing nonlinear models for energy systems development and economic decisions. He holds two PhDs: one in energy systems and the other in economics.
Affiliations and expertise
National Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania