Earthly Order

Saleem H. Ali was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts but grew up in Lahore, Pakistan until his college years, receiving his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Tufts University, and his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in environmental policy and planning at Yale and MIT, respectively. He currently holds the Blue and Gold Distinguished Professorship in Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware(USA) and is Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland (Australia). Dr. Ali's laurels include being a National Geographic Explorer (having travelled for research to over 150 countries); being chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and serving on the seven-member science panel of the Global Environment Facility (the world's largest multilateral trust fund for the environment held in trusteeship by the World Bank). His earlier books include Treasures of the Earth: Need Greed and a Sustainable Future which was hailed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as providing"welcome linkage between environmental behavior and poverty alleviation." Professor Ali was profiled in Forbes as "The Alchemist" and Bookseller called his earlier work "a pioneering exploration of human wants and needs and the natural resources we consume." He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art sand the Royal Geographical Society in the United Kingdom and also serves on the boards of Adventure Scientists and Mediators Beyond Borders International. Along with his wife Maria and sons Shahmir and Shahroze, the family are citizens of Australia, Pakistan and the United States.

In making his arguments Ali draws from the work of Nobel prize-winning scientists and his own deep knowledge of philosophy and history. Anyone anxious about the future of the planet will benefit from Ali's carefully considered, well-argued insights.

• PREFACEIntroduction: 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 OrderThe 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 AnthropoceneClosing the Loop on Global Order CONCLUSION: Reconciling Orders Coda: Chromatic Order ENDNOTES