Machine generated contents note: Part I The Approaching Summit -- 1 Introduction to the Way Down -- 2 The Present Condition -- 3 Intellectual Views of the Future -- Part II System Principles -- 4 The Ways of Energy and Materials in All Systems -- 5 Pulsing and the Growth Cycle -- 6 Real Wealth...

This world system -- Systems networks and metabolism -- Energy laws and maximum power -- Energy hierarchy and natural value -- Energy and planet earth -- Energy and ecosystems -- Empower basis for society -- Structure, information, and evolution -- Energy and economics -- Energetic organization...

Principles that appear to govern all systems including human societies were used to consider the time of economic descent ahead. These include the energy laws, the emergy concept, the maximum empower principle, the universal energy hierarchy, the conservation and hierarchical distribution of...