Geologic Column Riding the Rails to Omaha With Rudolf Clausius

Ward Chesworth

If someone points out to you that your At this point you may be yelling Hurtling across the prairie pet theory of the universe is in dis- “enough already.” The whole of human into blue haze and dark air go agreement with Maxwell’s equations history teaches the precise opposite. fifteen all-steel coaches holding ​a — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s Didn’t we create a complex civiliza- thousand people. equations. … But if your theory is found tion out of the mess and confusion of (All the coaches shall be scrap and to be against the Second Law of Ther- prehistory? Haven’t we tamed chaos rust and all the men and women modynamics, I can give you no hope; by inventing written language, social laughing in the diners and ​ there is nothing to do but to collapse in structures, great cities, art, science and sleepers shall pass to ashes.) deepest humiliation. technology? As for unscrambling an I ask a man in the smoker where – Sir Arthur S. Eddington egg, Myron Tribus, the MIT engineer he is going and he answers: who in 1962 coined the term “ther- “Omaha.” n its street clothes, the Second moeconomics,” told us how to do it: Law of Thermodynamics says that feed it to a chicken. Congress might We’re also rubbish at stoicism; we the mess in a pigpen tends to get just as well repeal the Second Law of believe in hope. In which case, maybe messier with time. It is a Stoic’s Thermodynamics, right? agronomist Wes Jackson, a founder Ilaw that tells you it’s no use crying over Wrong. Our civilization is a tiny, of sustainable agriculture, and his col- spilt milk. We hear it first in nursery gated community that we’ve tried to leagues at the Land Institute in Salina, school where the tragedy of Humpty wall off from the rest of an indiffer- Kan., are the collective messiah we’ve Dumpty teaches us that, despite the help ent universe. We suck up energy and been waiting for. Their hope for civili- of all the king’s horses and all the king’s materials from all around and flush the zation starts with a farming system that men, we can’t unscramble an egg. wastes away. “Away” gets ever messier, mimics nature as closely as possible. They It was the German physicist Rudolf with the total effect that chaos increases say that if we merge a mature knowledge Clausius who, in 1850, dressed the Sec- as the Second Law says it should. Ulti- of ecology and evolutionary biology and ond Law in a tuxedo to show us that mately, there’s no gate strong enough learn how the tall grass prairie sustained the pigpen was infinite. He said, “the to keep the chaos out. itself before we came along, we could entropy of the universe strives to reach a So, is there any joy at all for suffer- design a system that would produce food maximum.” That is a beautifully concise ing humanity? Not really, said Fred far more sustainably than industrial-scale vision of our fate with the clear message Hoyle, the English astrophysicist who agriculture does now. And greater sus- that in the grand scheme of things, there dismissed the notion of the “Big Bang” tainability in agriculture is the necessary is no escape. We’re all doomed and can while giving it its name. To the ques- prerequisite for greater sustainability in do nothing about it. All order in the uni- tion in hand he replied, “It has often other sectors of society. If we get it right, verse will degenerate into chaos. been said that, if the human species they say, we could possibly win another A far future when entropy would fails to make a go of it here on earth, 10,000 years of civilized life. reach this mandated maximum gave the some other species will take over the In the train’s parlor car, hurtling Victorians nightmares. There wouldn’t running. This is not correct. We have, towards Omaha, I raise a glass to the Land be enough usable energy left to do the or soon will have, exhausted the neces- Institute. They can’t negate the iron rule of work of maintaining order. The name sary prerequisites so far as this planet Rudolf Clausius completely, but they can they gave their worst dream — “The Heat is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, give humanity the hope of keeping chaos Death of the Universe” — sounds like a high-grade metallic ores gone, no spe- at bay for a few more millenia yet. blockbuster movie to modern ears. In cies, however competent, can make the the 1890s, H.G. Wells gave us a preview long climb from primitive conditions Chesworth is professor when he sent his time traveler to surf to high-level technology. This is a one emeritus at the Univer- across billions of years to witness the shot affair.” sity of Guelph, Can- actual event. On the verge of freezing in One kick at the can! We’re rubbish ada, and Fellow of the the dark, the hapless surfer reversed his at hearing that kind of message — our Geological Society of time machine and fled back to the safety ears don’t work in that register. We’re America. He thinks, Credit: Antonio of a gas-lit London and the warmth of like the man in the smoker car on poet therefore, he ham- Martinez Cortizas a coal fire. Carl Sandburg’s limited express train: mers. Email: [email protected].

page 64 • May 2014 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org