Charles Hall, professor emeritus of biology and environmental science at the State University of New York, Syracuse, will give the keynote address for an upcoming energy workshop at Linfield College.
Hall will present “Net Energy and our Food-Energy-Water Future,” Thursday, Jan. 14, at 6 p.m. in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall at Linfield. The lecture will be streaming live and can be accessed at http://www.linfield.edu/nsf-workshop.html.
Hall’s talk will launch a workshop of social, behavioral and natural scientists who will converge at Linfield Jan. 14-16 to examine trends in energy and implications for the future of key resources on which industrial humans depend. 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.
Hall received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His fields of interest are systems ecology, energy and biophysical economics, and he is author, coauthor or editor of 12 books and 270 articles that have appeared in such journals as Science, Nature, BioScience and American Scientist.
As a systems ecologist, Hall focuses on the application of integrative tools of science. He is best known for his development of the concept of EROI, or energy return on investment, which is an examination of how organisms, including humans, invest energy into obtaining additional energy to improve biotic or social fitness. Presently he is developing a new field, biophysical economics, as an alternative to conventional neoclassical economics.
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.
