Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it. Thus, they delude the public about the underlying influence of energy costs and constraints on economic policies that address such pressing contemporary issues as income inequality, growth, debt, and climate change. To understand why, Carey King explores the scientific and rhetorical basis of the competing narratives both within and between energy technology and economics. Energy and economic discourse seems to mirror Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every narrative there is an equal and opposite counter-narrative. The competing energy narratives pit "drill, baby, drill!" against renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Both claim to provide secure, reliable, clean, and affordable energy to support economic growth with the most benefit to society, but how? To answer this question, we need to understand the competing economic narratives, techno-optimism and techno-realism. Techno-optimism claims that innovation overcomes any physical resource constraints and enables the social outcomes and economic growth we desire. Techno-realism, in contrast, states that no matter what energy technologies we use, feedbacks from physical growth on a finite planet constrain economic growth and create an uneven distribution of social impacts. In The Economic Superorganism, you will discover stories, data, science, and philosophy to guide you through the arguments from competing narratives on energy, growth, and policy. You will be able to distinguish the technically possible from the socially viable, and understand how our future depends on this distinction.

Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it. Thus, they delude the public about the underlying influence of energy costs and constraints on economic policies that address such pressing contemporary issues as income inequality, growth, debt, and climate change. To understand why, Carey King explores the scientific and rhetorical basis of the competing narratives both within and between energy technology and economics. Energy and economic discourse seems to mirror Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every narrative there is an equal and opposite counter-narrative. The competing energy narratives pit "drill, baby, drill!" against renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Both claim to provide secure, reliable, clean, and affordable energy to support economic growth with the most benefit to society, but how? To answer this question, we need to understand the competing economic narratives, techno-optimism and techno-realism. Techno-optimism claims that innovation overcomes any physical resource constraints and enables the social outcomes and economic growth we desire. Techno-realism, in contrast, states that no matter what energy technologies we use, feedbacks from physical growth on a finite planet constrain economic growth and create an uneven distribution of social impacts. In The Economic Superorganism, you will discover stories, data, science, and philosophy to guide you through the arguments from competing narratives on energy, growth, and policy. You will be able to distinguish the technically possible from the socially viable, and understand how our future depends on this distinction.

The honeybee (Apis melli/era L. ) is one of the better studied organisms on this planet. There are plenty of books on the biology of the honeybee for all, the scientist, the beekeeper, and the layman. In view of this flood of publications one is tempted to ask: why does it require another one? The answer is simple: a new one is not required and we do not intend to present a new book on "the honeybee". This would really just add some more inches to the already overloaded bookshelf without sub stantial new information. Instead, we intend to present a book on the honeybee colony. This of course immediately releases the next question: so what is the difference? Although the difference may look insignificant at first glance, we try to guide the reader with a fundamentally different approach through the biology of honeybees and eusocial insect societies in general. The biology of individual colony members is only addressed when it is necessary to explain colonial mechanisms, and the colony as a whole, as a biological unit, which is the main focus of this treatise. Both of us felt that all current textbooks on bee biology put too much emphasis on the individual worker, queen or drone in the colony. Often it is com pletely neglected that the colony is a very significant (if not the most significant) biological structure in bee biology.

Society is an ultrasocial superorganism whose requirements take precedence over individuals. What does this mean for humanity's future?

Looks at the importance of cooperation in human beings and in nature, arguing that this social tool is as important an aspect of evolution as mutation and natural selection.

Combining commercial success with philanthropy and social activism, ‘Quakernomics’ offers a compelling model for corporate social responsibility in the modern world. Mike King explores the ethical capitalism of Quaker enterprises from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, testing this theory against those of prominent economists. With a foreword by Sir Adrian Cadbury, this book proves that the Quaker practice of ‘total capitalism’ is not a historically remote nicety but an immediately relevant guide for today’s global economy.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of "The Ants" render the extraordinary lives of the social insects--ants, bees, wasps, and termites--in this visually spectacular volume. 110 color and 100 black-and-white illustrations.

This book traces the interacting histories of the disciplines of ecology and economics, from their common origin in the ancient Greek concept of oikonomia, through their distinct encounters with energy physics, to the current obstruction of neoliberal economics to responses to the ecological and climate crisis of the so-called Anthropocene. Reconstructing their constitution as separate sciences in the era of fossil-fuelled industrial capitalism, the book offers an explanation of how the ecological sciences have moved from a position of critical collision with mainstream economics in the 1970s, to one of collusion with the project of permanent growth, in and through the thermal crisis of the biosphere.

Out of Control chronicles the dawn of a new era in which the machines and systems that drive our economy are so complex and autonomous as to be indistinguishable from living things.

After decades studying creatures great and small, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson had an epiphany: Darwin's theory won't fully prove itself until it improves the quality of human life in a practical sense. And what better place to begin than his hometown of Binghamton, New York? Making a difference in his own city would provide a model for cities everywhere, which have become the habitat for over half of the people on earth. Inspired to become an agent of change, Wilson descended on Binghamton with a scientist's eye and looked at its toughest questions, such as how to empower neighborhoods and how best to teach our children. He combined the latest research methods from experimental economics with studies of holiday decorations and garage sales. Drawing upon examples from nature as diverse as water striders, wasps, and crows, Wilson's scientific odyssey took him around the world, from a cave in southern Africa that preserved the dawn of human culture to the Vatican in Rome. Along the way, he spoke with dozens of fellow scientists, whose stories he relates along with his own. Wilson's remarkable findings help us to understand how we must become wise managers of evolutionary processes to accomplish positive change at all scales, from effective therapies for individuals, to empowering neighborhoods, to regulating the worldwide economy. With an ambitious scope that spans biology, sociology, religion, and economics, The Neighborhood Project is a memoir, a practical handbook for improving the quality of life, and an exploration of the big questions long pondered by religious sages, philosophers, and storytellers. Approaching the same questions from an evolutionary perspective shows, as never before, how places define us.