Social, behavioral and natural scientists will converge at Linfield College Jan. 14-16 to examine trends in energy and implications for the future of key resources on which industrial humans depend.
A keynote lecture by Charles Hall, professor emeritus of biology and environmental science at the State University of New York, Syracuse, “Net Energy and our Food-Energy-Water Future,” will be open to the public Thursday, Jan. 14, at 6 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall at Linfield. The rest of the workshop is limited to invited participants.
The workshop, “Implications of Net Energy for the Food-Energy-Water Nexus,” is funded by the National Science Foundation. Invited participants will explore the state of scientific research on net energy and its implications for the food/energy/water nexus. Net energy is the amount of “surplus” energy delivered to society from energy producing sectors.
Industrial agriculture is heavily dependent on affordable fossil fuels to power every step of the food supply chain including cultivation, fertilization, irrigation, harvest and distribution. That power is also required for the preparation and consumption of the products as well as managing the waste. With water supplies affected by climate change, energy production and land use practices, agriculture increasingly competes with and affects other users.
The conference will bring together academics from a wide array of disciplines. The main goal will be the production of white papers to inform the development of larger funding priorities of the National Science Foundation’s INFEWS (Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems) program.
For more information, contact Tom Love, Linfield professor of anthropology, at 503-883-2504, tlove@linfield.edu, or go to http://www.linfield.edu/nsf-workshop.html.
