James H. Brown
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico
Charles A. S. Hall
Professor Emeritus, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Speaker Biographies:
Charles A.S. Hall received his Ph.D. in Systems Ecology under Howard Odum at UNC in 1970. He was professor at Cornell University, Univ. Montana and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He is now very active as Professor Emeritus in Southern Oregon. He is author or editor of 14 books and 330 scholarly articles, and has been awarded the Hubbert-Simmons Prize for Energy Education and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of BioPhysical Economics. He is best known for his development of the concept of EROI, or energy return on investment, and a new field, BioPhysical Economics.
James H. Brown is an ecologist and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico. His work has focused on 3 distinct aspects of ecology: 1) the population and community ecology of rodents and harvester ants in the Chihuahuan Desert, 2) large-scale questions relating to the distribution of body size, abundance and geographic range of animals, and 3) the Metabolic Theory of Ecology. He has been awarded over $18.4 million in grants for his research and received the Robert H. MacArthur Award by the Ecological Society of America in 2005.
Abstract:
Both natural and human dominated ecosystems share many similar characteristics when viewed from an energy and material perspective. Each has requirements to invest energy into deriving the additional energy required to maintain their respective structures against the forces of entropy, and to contribute to success in the Darwinian world they each face. These issues will become increasingly important to understand over the next decades as humanity's primary sources of energy are increasingly depleted and as the energy cost of energy continues to increase.
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