Tributes to Howard T. Odum
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This is a part of the Howard T. Odum Collection
Tribute by Mark T. Brown (1)
Howard T. Odum
(1924 – 2002)
Honorary Doctor of Science Degree - Posthumous
Truth is a state of mind in which there is no contradiction. A person perceives his idea as true because he has heard no contradiction. The less one knows, the easier it is to be dogmatic and to be sure that what one knows is true. We tend to defend dogmatically as true the things we are taught, whereas the things we learn from experience and experiments tend to be properly couched in sometimes-contradictory reality.—H.T. Odum
The University of Florida is honored to award the late Dr. Howard T. Odum, graduate research professor emeritus, the honorary degree of Doctor of Science, posthumously, in recognition of his extraordinary career as a leader in the field of environmental sciences.
Howard T. Odum was one of the most creative minds in the fields of ecology, environmental science, systems ecology, environmental policy, and energy studies. The fact that it is difficult to pin down his field is testimony to his creative genius.
Odum served during World War II as a meteorology instructor in the U.S. Air Force at the Tropical Weather School in Panama. HT, as his close friends and associates called him, often said it was the time he spent in the tropics that initiated his intense interest in the energetics of systems. He left Panama upon completion of his term to earn his BS in zoology from the University of North Carolina and later a doctorate in zoology from Yale University.
In 1950, HT came to UF as an assistant professor in biology. He undertook his seminal research on Silver Springs in which he evaluated the energetics of the spring’s food web, publishing the results in Ecological Monographs. This study, and a companion study of the coral reefs of Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, are now “standard” in most texts on ecology. The Ecological Society of America recognized his Silver Springs publication with the George Mercer Award. Also during the 1950s, he collaborated with his brother, Eugene Odum, a distinguished ecologist at the University of Georgia, on the authoritative text, Fundamentals of Ecology.
After spending four years at UF, in quick succession over the next 11 years, Odum was a faculty member at Duke University, the director of the University of Texas’ Marine Sciences Center, and chief scientist at the University of Puerto Rico’s Nuclear Sciences Center. It was during this time that he published an impressive quantity of research on whole ecosystem studies of the Texas Gulf Coast and the effects of radiation on tropical rainforests. Both collections of papers are widely quoted and considered some of the most important contributions to understanding the fundamental processes of these ecosystems.
Odum left Puerto Rico for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the late 1960s. While holding joint appointments and teaching in the departments of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Zoology, and Botany, he wrote Environment Power and Society. It was in this book where Odum first observed that all wealth stems from the environment and its myriad of systems and processes and that the value of services and commodities should be based on the energy and resources required to produce them, rather than on what someone is willing to pay for them.
HT returned to UF in 1971 where he remained, with the exception of visiting appointments elsewhere, until his retirement in 2002. Appointed as graduate research professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, in 1973, he founded and directed UF’s Center for Wetlands. In 1991, he also founded and was director of UF’s Center for Environmental Policy.
It was at Florida, during his 31-year tenure, that the ideas generated from the study of many systems during his earlier career began to mature into a generalized approach to energy systems. He pioneered research on the recycling of wastewaters in wetlands, developed the concepts of “net energy” of renewable and non-renewable energy sources, and created the field of “emergy” analyses. He also initiated two separate academic fields of study – Ecological Economics and Ecological Engineering. HT and his graduate students embarked on a series of studies of south Florida, the Everglades, and Lake Okeechobee that resulted in recommendations for fixing many of the problems, nearly a quarter century prior to Congress allocating billions for the same tasks.
In 1983, HT published Systems Ecology his textbook introduction to ecological and general systems. Sometimes called the “Odum Bible” by his students, Systems Ecology was a tour de force of systems thinking focusing on bringing the concepts of systems into general education.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s he collaborated with Jacques Cousteau, participating as consulting scientist on numerous expeditions around the world aboard Calypso, the research vessel of the Cousteau Society.
While at UF, Odum was awarded numerous honors, including the 1976 Institute de la Vie Prize, Paris; the 1976 University of Florida Presidential Medal; distinguished service awards from the Universities of North Carolina and Puerto Rico; the Distinguished Service Award from the American Institute of Biological Sciences; an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from The Ohio State University, election to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the prestigious Crafoord Prize – the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in ecological sciences – from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Odum published 14 books, 11 of which were written during his tenure at UF.
Throughout his career, HT took his examples and analogies from the ecological world, saying that since it had millions of years of self-organization and “testing” we could learn a lot about systems from observing nature. The concepts of steady state, pulsing, and hierarchical organization were never far from Odum’s lexicon of properties used to compare systems of widely different composition and function. His last paper outlined in some detail the concept of a cosmos composed of a hierarchy of processes connected in ever increasing cycles of convergence of energy and matter yet held together by recycle pathways. His view of the cosmos was conceived with the creative energy he brought to everything he addressed.
There is no telling what might have been in store in the coming years. Those of us who were lucky enough to have spent time with him and studied his concepts in more than a cursory way understand his genius and wish to pay tribute. HT, your creative genius and vision of how systems work will be sorely missed.
Tribute by Mark T. Brown (2)
One of the most creative minds in the fields of ecology, environmental science, systems ecology, environmental policy, and energy studies died September 11, 2002. H.T. Odum was Graduate Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida’s Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences and a member of the editorial board of ENERGY. The fact that it is difficult to pin down his field is testimony to his creative genius. He had hundreds of publications in scores of different journals. Subjects run the gamut from global strontium cycles to energetics of food webs in Silver Springs, Florida, to net energy analysis of fossil fuels, power plants, and renewable energies including OTEC systems for electrical energy generation.
HT, as his close friends and associates called him, began his teaching career in 1950 as an assistant professor at the University of Florida, teaching biology after completing his Ph.D. under G. Evelyn Hutchinson at Yale, where he studied the global strontium cycle. Prior to his studies at Yale, he served in the Air Force as a tropical meteorologist. He often said that it was the time spent as meteorologist in the tropics that initiated his intense interest in the energetics of systems of all scales. Watching the tropical weather patterns with their constant impulses and changing conditions, he began to form concepts of energetic causality.
At Florida with NSF funding, he undertook his seminal research on Silver Springs in which he evaluated the energetics of the spring’s food web, publishing the results in Ecological Monographs (Odum, 1957). At about this same time, HT and his brother EP Odum published another study of a complete food web, the Eniwetok Atoll, in the Marshall Islands (Odum and Odum, 1955) demonstrating the important energetic subsidy provided by ocean currents and tides to overall productivity. The Silver Springs study is a “standard” in most texts on ecology used to illustrate energy and material flows in ecosystems.
Also while at Florida in the early 1950’s, HT wrote one of his most important papers “Time's speed regulator: the optimum efficiency for maximum power output in physical and biological systems” with R.C. Pinkerton (Odum and Pinkerton, 1955, see also Odum 1983b). This paper was modest in size but drew much attention and was often quoted. Following on the ideas of A.J. Lotka, a mathematical biologist, Odum and Pinkerton suggested that the optimum production of useful energy was in principle at 50% power loading and that real systems perform even lower than that. Odum continued from that first publication to suggest that the “Maximum Power Principle” should be the fourth law of thermodynamics (as did Lotka…see Lotka, 1922a, 1922b, and 1925).
Leaving Florida after 4 years, he spent two years at Duke and then became director of the University of Texas’ Institute of Marine Science at Port Aransas, and then Chief Scientist at the Puerto Rico Nuclear Center at the University of Puerto Rico. During these 11 years Odum published an impressive quantity of research on whole ecosystem studies of the marine ecosystems of the Texas Gulf coast and the effects of radiation on tropical rainforests. Both collections of papers are widely quoted and considered some of the most important contributions to understanding the measurement of fundamental processes in marine and tropical ecosystems (see for instance Odum and Hoskin, 1958 and Odum and Pigeon, 1970). It was during this time that HT developed his energy circuit language and wrote extensively about the use of systems languages and simulation in education.
In 1966, Odum returned to North Carolina, with teaching appointments in the Departments of Environmental Science and Engineering, Botany, and Zoology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was here that HT began his first explorations into concepts of Ecological Engineering, building large mesocosms at UNC’s Marine Lab at Moorehead City. Using treated effluent from the city’s waste treatment plant, Odum and students studied the marine ponds as they self-organized under the influences of the fresh, nutrient rich, effluent waters (Odum, 1985).
While in Chapel Hill, HT published “Environment Power and Society” (Odum, 1971), a book that changed the lives of many who read it -- altering their world view and heading them off on a quantitative, systems oriented path, toward shaping the debate concerning the importance of energy and environment to economic well being. Odum observed that all wealth stems from the environment and its myriad systems and processes and that the value of services and commodities should be based on the energy and resources required to produce them, rather than on what someone is willing to pay for them. This is counter to the view of neoclassical economists, who believe that willingness to pay is an appropriate method for pricing and thus valuing the environment.
HT returned to the University of Florida in 1971 initiating his program in Systems Ecology in the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences. It was at Florida, during his 31-year tenure as Graduate Research Professor, that the ideas generated from the study of many systems began to mature into a generalized approach to energy systems. The concept of energy quality emerged (see Odum, 1973, 1974, 1976a) and was at first vigorously resisted by many but is now widely accepted. His concepts of valuing the environment had been enunciated many years earlier in Texas and North Carolina, but began to coalesce in his call for an “ecological economics,” as he taught the first graduate level classes on the subject in the mid 1970’s (Odum, 1973, see also Odum, 1994b). Ecological engineering, or the management of self-organization of systems for the benefit of both humanity and environment, began to take shape and resulted in nearly a decade of research into wetland systems for wastewater treatment (Ewel and Odum, 1978). In the early 1970’s in response to the sharp rise in energy prices and increased interest in alternative energy supplies, Odum testified in Congress that alternative sources should be evaluated as net energy not just gross. This prompted Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon to introduce a bill in 1975 for a federal law that made net energy analysis a requirement of proposed alternative energy systems. (See Odum, 1976b, and Odum et al. 1976)
The decade of the 1970’s also saw investigations in regional science especially studies of the complex networks of humans and environment in southern Florida where major ecological crises were brewing. With funding from the US Department of Interior and the Florida Division of State Planning, HT and his graduate students embarked on studies of South Florida, the Everglades, and Lake Okeechobee that resulted in recommendations for fixing many of the problems, nearly a quarter century prior to Congress allocating billions for the same tasks.
In 1983, HT published “Systems Ecology” his textbook introduction to general systems based on his graduate courses given at UNC during 1966-1970 and at the University of Florida during 1970-1981 (Odum, 1983a). HT described the objective of the book as follows:
“If the bewildering complexity of human knowledge developed in the twentieth century is to be retained and well used, unifying concepts are needed to consolidate the understanding of systems of many kinds and to simplify the teaching of general principles.”
It is in this book that Odum’s systems language, the energy circuit language, was fully explained and the kinetics and mathematical underpinnings given, as well as its interface with computer simulation. The second edition was titled “Ecological and General Systems” probably a more fitting title as the book was striving to teach general principles that applied to all systems (Odum, 1994a).
Often his new ideas and concepts were met with resistance. In some cases the resistance waned as more and more people gained understanding , but some still garner sharp criticism and resistance today. Probably his most creative and least understood concept was that of energy quality termed Emergy Accounting and based on Transformity (see Odum, 1984; Odum, 1986; Odum, 1988a; Odum, 1994c.). A powerful mixture of common sense, ecological energetics, and thermodynamics, the conceptual framework and principles of emergy were developed during the 1980’s and early 1990’s and led to publication of his book "Environmental Accounting"(Odum, 1996). It was at this time that Odum suggested the Maximum Power Principle should more correctly be the Maximum Empower Principle as he pointed out that systems did not tend to maximize power, but instead, empower (emergy per time). His rational was that power maximization would favor high power, low transformity processes, which in evolutionary terms would not prevail in competition with more complex systems of low power but high transformity. Thus systems that maximize empower are favored in the evolutionary context.
In 1987 HT and his brother EP were recognized with the Crafoord Prize for ecology, awarded by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Crafoord prize is one of the largest scientific prizes in the world. It is awarded annually within one of the subject areas; mathematics, astronomy, geo-science or, bioscience . In his acceptance speech, HT stated …
"The study of ecosystems suggests principles by which energy flows generate hierarchies in all systems. From these it was clear that energy laws controlling self-organization were principles of open systems quite beyond classical energetics, involving a generalization of concepts of evolution in energy terms. During the trials and errors of self-organization, species and relationships were being selectively reinforced by more energy becoming available to designs that feed products back into increased production." (Odum, 1988b)
While many see the concepts and principles of emergy as a means of evaluating energy systems, they are far more, for they provide a quantitative framework for a generalized model of system energetics that can be applied at all scales, from the nano-environment to the cosmos. The theory is deeply grounded in hierarchical organization, which HT proposed as a fifth law of thermodynamics. By proposing maximum empower and hierarchical organization as the fourth and fifth laws, Odum was suggesting "dynamic systems principles" that can be used to understand and explain the organization of complex system networks using higher order mathematical representations (simulation models) as a complement to and an extension of the simpler equations and models that are generally used to investigate and understand the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd laws.
In the 1990’s and leading into the millennium HT increasingly focused on the concept of the pulsing dynamic behavior of systems and suggested that pulsing maximized empower. His pulsing paradigm paralleled the then fashionable landscape ecology concepts of patch disturbance and dynamic equilibrium that challenged classical theories of ecological succession. As a consequence of his belief in pulsing systems and as an outgrowth of his grounding in ecology and systems ecology, Odum recognized that all systems, including western capitalist economies cannot grow forever, and that dwindling energy supplies would eventually require western economies to contract. His book, written with his wife Elisabeth Odum, and titled “The Prosperous Way Down” (Odum and Odum, 2001) was aimed at helping humankind make the transition to a lower energy future in a prosperous way, essentially leading the way to the promised land on a “low energy cruise.”
HT Odum always spoke of the “Systems Approach,” a top down approach to understanding that required a systems language (other than words), a quantitative means of evaluating multiple scales at the same time (emergy), and principles of organization (maximum empower etc.) He took his examples and analogies from the ecological world, saying that since it had had millions of years of self-organization and “testing” we could learn a lot about systems from observing nature. The concept of steady state is an intrinsic property of ecological systems and was never far from Odum’s lexicon of properties used to compare systems of widely different composition and functioning. He once stated:
“With the use of the common system structure for energy systems networks that we find whenever we look, a different perspective on a steady-state universe is found. It is not one of explosion and contraction but is more of an ecosystem of hierarchical stars and galaxies, one where dispersed low-energy Kelvin radiation and distributed matter converges stepwise to the intense centers of highest transformity, energy and matter recycling to form a closed loop, as it does on a much smaller scale where there is a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution in a gas at equilibrium.” (Odum 1995)
His last paper outlined in some detail this concept of a cosmos composed of a hierarchy of processes connected in ever increasing cycles of convergence of energy and matter yet held together by recycle pathways (Odum, 2003). His view of the cosmos was conceived with the creative energy he brought to everything he addressed.
There is no telling what might have been in store in the coming years. Those of us who were lucky enough to have spent time with him and studied his concepts in more than a cursory way understand his genius and wish to pay tribute. HT, your creative genius and vision of how systems work will be sorely missed.
Selected works of Howard T. Odum:
- Ewel, K.C. and H.T. Odum. 1978. Cypress swamps for nutrient removal and wastewater recycling. In Advances in Water and Wastewater Treatment: Biological Nutrient Removal, M.P. Wanelista and W.W. Edkenfelder, Jr., eds. Ann Arbor Sci. Publ., Inc., Ann Arbor, MI. pp. 181-198.
- Lotka, A.J. 1922a .Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution. Proc. National Academy of Sciences, 8:147-150.
- Lotka, A.J. 1922b .Natural Selection as a Physical Principle. Proc. National Academy of Sciences, 8:151-155.
- Lotka, A.J. 1925. Elements of Physical Biology, Williams and Wilkins, Inc. New York. 465 pp.
- Odum, H.T. 1951. The stability of the world strontium cycle. Science 114:470-411.
- Odum, H.T. 1957. Trophic structure and productivity of Silver Springs, Florida. Ecol. Monogr. 27:55-112.
- Odum, H.T. 1971. Environment, Power and Society. John Wiley, NY. 336 pp.
- Odum, H.T. 1973. Energy, ecology and economics. Royal Swedish Academy of Science. AMBIO 2(6):220-227.
- Odum, H.T. 1974. Terminating falacies in national policy on energy, economics and environment. pp. 15-19 in Energy - Today's Choices, Tomorrow's Opportunities, A.B. Schmaltz, ed. World Future Society. 301 pp
- Odum, H.T. 1976a. 'Energy quality and carrying capacity of the earth. Response at Prize Ceremony, Institute de la Vie, Paris. Tropical Ecology 16(l):1-8.
- Odum, H.T. 1976b. Energy analysis and net energy. In Proceedings of NSF Workshop on Net Energy, Stanford, Cal. Institute for Energy Studies, Stanford Univ. and TRW. pp. 90-115.
- Odum, H.T. 1983a. Systems Ecology: An Introduction. John Wiley, NY. 644 pp.
- Odum, H.T. 1983b. Maximum power and efficiency: a rebuttal. Ecol. Modelling 20(1983):71-82.
- Odum H.T. 1984. Energy Analysis of the Environmental Role in Agriculture. From: Stanhill, G. (ed.), 1984. Energy and Agriculture. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 24-51.
- Odum, H.T. 1985. Self Organization of Ecosystems in Marine Ponds Receiving Treated Sewage. UNC Sea Grant SG-85-04. 250 pp.
- 0dum H.T., 1986. Emergy in Ecosystems. In: Ecosystem Theory and Application (Edited by Nicholas Polunin). John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 1986, pp. 337-369.
- Odum H.T., 1988a. Self-Organization, Transformity, and Information. Science, 15 November 1988, Vol.242, pp. 1132-1139.
- Odum, H.T. 1988b. Living with complexity. pp. 19-85 in The Crafoord Prize in the Biosciences, 1987, Lectures. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. 87 pp.
- Odum, H.T. 1994a. Ecological and General Systems: An Introduction to Systems Ecology. (Revised edition of: Systems Ecology, 1983, John Wiley, 644 pp.) Univ. Press of Colo., P.O. Box 849, Niwot, CO., 80544. 644 pp.
- Odum, H.T. 1994.b Ecological economics. pp. 159-161 in The Encyclopedia of the Environment, R.A. Eblen and W.R. Eblen, eds. Houghton-Mifflin, NY. 846 pp.
- Odum H.T., 1994c. The Emergy of Natural Capital. In: Investing in Natural Capital. A.M. Jansson, M. Hammer, C. Folke, and R. Costanza, Eds.. Island Press, Covelo, CA. Pp. 200-214.
- Odum, H.T. 1995. Self-organization and Maximum Power, in CAS Hall (ed) maximum Power: The Ideas and Applications of H.T. Odum. University Press of Colorado. Niwot, CA
- Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting: EMERGY and Decision Making. John Wiley, NY. 370 pp.
- Odum, H.T. 2003. Energy Hierarchy and Transformity in the Universe. Ecological Modeling. [submitted]
- Odum, H.T. and C.M. Hoskin. 1958. Comparative studies of the metabolism of Texas Bays. Pubi. Inst. Mar. Sci., Univ. Tex. 5:16-46.
- Odum, H.T. et al. 1976. Net energy Analysis of Alternatives for the United States. In U.S. Energy Policy: Trends and Goals. Part V - Middle and Long-term Energy Policies and Alternatives. 94th Congress 2nd Session Committee Print. Prepared for the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives, 66-723, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Wash, DC. pp. 254-304.
- Odum, H.T. and E.C. Odum. 2001. The Prosperous Way Down. Univ. Press of Colorado, Boulder. 375 pp.
- Odum, H.T. and E.P. Odum. 1955. Trophic structure and productivity of a windward coral reef at Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands. Ecol. Monogr. 25:291-320
- Odum, H.T. and R.F. Pigeon, eds. 1970. A Tropical Rain Forest. Division of Technical Information, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. 1600 pp
- Odum, H.T. and R.C. Pinkerton. 1955. Time's speed regulator: the optimum efficiency for maximum power output in physical and biological systems. Am. Scientist 43(2):331-343.
