In hmolscience, Kent Klitgaard (c.1957-) is an American economist noted for co-authoring, with Charles Hall, the 2011 textbook Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the BioPhysical Economy, wherein the attempt to interject on a loose conceptualized thermodynamics-based economics model, of the Roegen-Daly school variety.
Energy | Philosophy
Klitgaard, in his 2011 author excerpt, states the following: [1]
“Klitgaard is interested in the outdoors in general: from hiking to beach walking to the occasional round of golf, despite the high energy use of golf courses.”
The half-joking assertion here that golfing is fundamentally "wrong" because it wastes a limited supply of fossil fuels, belies a well-meaning, albeit faulty, misaligned, and or off-target energy philosophical foundation of the general Hall-Klitgaard energy ideology, particularly after he dedicates his book to his two children with hopes that the information presented in his book will make their world a "better place to live" and to "give life meaning". Golfing, in short, according to Klitgaard, is morally wrong because it wastes energy. This is evident in Hall's video lectures wherein he talks about how many barrels of oil went into the production of the cup of coffee he drinks; and both are thematic to Howard T. Odum's 1976 energy flow diagrams inter-stitched with energy retrograde cartoons: [2]
all of which derive, as Odum points out (1976 | pg. 15), from the experience of the "energy crisis" (Ѻ) that resulted when in 1973 the Arab countries withheld oil from the world for a time, as a result of which oil prices increase globally four-fold; the Odum-based Hall-Klitgaard ideology, accordingly, is a well-meaning albeit misaligned reactionary economic policy change philosophy to this event. The philosophy is misaligned per reason that they think of gas (or oil) as being a low entropy type of material entropy, aka type of mis-conceptualized bound energy, per teachings of the Roegen-Daly school, which is incorrect, and that according to the second law, this bound energy will tend towards free energy, i.e. waste fumes, as they see things; e.g. order will tend towards disorder, which is incorrect. Correctly, the 1973 Arab oil withhold worked to raise the activation energy barrier, which had nothing to do with the second law, according to the thermodynamic theory of affinity. If, e.g., Hall and Klitgaard had been keen to read Thomas Wallace (2009) on the energy in respect to the wealth nations, they would have been more aligned with reality.
Other
In 2015, Klitgaard, during his “Biophysical Economics” talk (Ѻ), states that he is teaching ecological economics, wherein he uses Herman Daly’s 1996 Beyond Growth as the course textbook.
Quotes | Employed
The following are quotes employed by Klitgaard:
“Anyone who believes that any economy can grow exponentially inside a finite planet is either a madman or an economist.”
— Kenneth Boulding (1973), attributed (Ѻ) during congressional hearings on the Energy Reorganization Act; listed at header of faculty page
Education
Klitgaard completed a BA in 1974 at San Diego State University, his MS in 1979 and PhD in 1987 both at the University of New Hampshire, and in 1991 became professor of economics and social science at Wells College, Aurora, New York.
References
1. Hall, Charles A.S. and Klitgaard, Kent. (2011). Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy (Klitgaard bio, pg. xiii; thermodynamics, 18+ pgs). Springer.
2. Odum, Howard, T. and Elisabeth, Odum, C. (1976). Energy Basis for Man and Nature. McGraw-Hill Book Company.
External links
● Kent Klitgaard (faculty) – Wells College.
● Kent A. Klitgaard – ResearchGate.net.
