Cultural Biogeochemical Energy

Vernadsky's name for the second form of biogeochemical energy: where ordinary biogeochemical energy is the free energy living matter creates through reproduction, respiration and nutrition (a fixed "species characteristic"), cultural biogeochemical energy is the energy of human societies directed by reason — present in trace form in any organism with a nervous system (habitat-building, displacing other organisms), but in humans a growing quantity tied to social organization and above all scientific knowledge. It now exceeds ordinary biogeochemical energy in the migration of atoms it drives, and it is what "creates at the present time the noösphere." The Long L and Infinity Mirror reuse the term verbatim as the engine of the technosphere/planetary intelligence.