ADAPTIVE SELF-ORGANIZATION

Restoring humanity's partnership with nature is essential if society is to transition to the coming lower energy age. In this paper, we describe general principles and fundamental concepts of ecological engineering for a lower energy future. Self-organization is the process by which the various parts (components) of systems become connected and interact so as to work together. Interactions of components that contribute to better use of available resources succeed because they are reinforced. Self-organization results in emergent properties of systems. Self-organization is rapidly adapting the environmental systems of the biosphere to our fuel-driven, high energy economy. The systems of atmosphere, oceans, and landscapes, including weather and global atmospheric circulation, ocean temperatures and global oceanic circulation, and the ecosystems of the landscape are self-organizing in rapid sequence to the accelerated growth of populations, fossil fuel use, and conversion of wild lands into developed lands. It is now more apparent than ever that our fuel culture cannot last forever. As it shrinks, environmental fit is likely to become society's next concern and humanity will need knowledge to refit society to renewable resources. New kinds of ecological systems and human dominated systems will be needed to fit human society to the environment of the future. New innovative combinations of plant an