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The Covid-19 Pandemic has brought forth global anxiety about linkages between the environment and society at a fundamental structural level. Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life provides an accessible exposition of the latest foundational knowledge on how natural and social systems science can inform planetary crises. Humanity has either tried to conquer or capitulate to natural order, whereas we should be seeking to understand latent structures and patterns that permeate all systems and develop an "earthly order," that is socially functional and sustainable.
Current debates in politics often present what should constitute a "world order" while scientists have wrestled with what are fundamental conditions of "natural order." Author Saleem H. Ali provides a readable synthesis of these debates with practical guidance for the public with a host of current examples around environmental decision-making by consumers, the government and industry. Twitter: @saleem_ali
PREFACE
Introduction: The Limited Logic of Order?
Two's Company
Chemical Chaos
Functional Order
Part I: NATURAL ORDER
Chapter 1 - Seduction of Structure in Nature
Molecular "Magic"
Quantum Order
Phases and Crystalline Order
Constancy and Hybrid Natural Order
Chapter 2 - The Elements of Earthly Order
The New Carbonic Order?
Nuclear Order
Magnetic Order
Chapter 3 - Circularity, Cyclicality and Sustainability
Hydrological Order
Orders of Gaia and Medea
Organismic Order
Bounded Natural Order
PART 2: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ORDER
Chapter 4 - The Orders of Economic Harmony
Urbanism and Resilience in Socioeconomic Order
Scales and Speeds of Economic Order
Currencies of Sustainable Economic Order
Chapter 5 - Elusive Orders of Economic Equilibrium
Orders of Price and Quantity
Consumer Ecology and Varieties of Equilibria
Towards and Optimal Economic Order for the Planet
Chapter 6 - Mindful Errors and Social Order
Lonely Crowds and the Greening of the Shared Economy
Environmental Risk, Uncertainty, and Precautionary Disorder
Gaining from Disorder: Immunity, Intelligence and Religion
The Conspiratorial Conundrum of Cause
Chapter 7 - Sex, Population and Sustainability
From Tragedy to Comedy of the Commons
The Age Beyond Ageing
Gender, Culture and Reconciling Anomalies
PART 3: POLITICAL ORDER
Chapter 8 - Empires and Edens
The Dragon and the Wild Goose
Resource Nationalism
Great Powers Concerts and Radical Salvations
Chapter 9 - Borders and Functional Political Order
The Ambivalence of Ecological Borders
The Order of Environmental Peacebuilding
Identity, Borders and Order
Chapter 10 - From International to Global Order in the "Anthropocene"
Confederations of Peaceful Ecological Order
Networks and the Realignment of Global Order in the Anthropocene
Closing the Loop on Global Order
CONCLUSION: Reconciling Orders
Coda: Chromatic Order
ENDNOTES
Description
The Covid-19 Pandemic has brought forth global anxiety about linkages between the environment and society at a fundamental structural level. Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life provides an accessible exposition of the latest foundational knowledge on how natural and social systems science can inform planetary crises. Humanity has either tried to conquer or capitulate to natural order, whereas we should be seeking to understand latent structures and patterns that permeate all systems and develop an "earthly order," that is socially functional and sustainable.
Current debates in politics often present what should constitute a "world order" while scientists have wrestled with what are fundamental conditions of "natural order." Author Saleem H. Ali provides a readable synthesis of these debates with practical guidance for the public with a host of current examples around environmental decision-making by consumers, the government and industry. Twitter: @saleem_ali
