ABSTRACT
There has been a historic divorce between the economists' approach to energy as just one sector of the economy, and a "socio-metabolic" view of the economy in terms of the study of the flow of energy and materials. In the 1970s, a physical point of view, emphasizing the flows of materials and energy, emerged among coherent research groups studying human society and economy. Podolinsky emphasizes the difference between using the flow of solar energy and the stock of energy in coal. He then wrote a memorable phrase: "Podolinsky had studied the energetics of life and tried to apply his findings to the study of the economy". Unfortunately, economists— whether of the liberal or Marxist variety— failed to adopt a "socio-metabolic" view of the economy. In the so-called Socialist Calculation debate, Otto Neurath's Naturalrechnung introduced the idea of incommensurable values in the economy. Poverty causes deforestation because the poor are not able to ascend the hierarchy of domestic fuel use.
