Projects

Starting in the early 1970s, I began autodidactic raiding parties into general systems theory, cybernetics, and genetic structuralism, what is now often called nonlinear or complexity theory, seeking to understand complex interactive processes and systems. This project was influenced by such thinkers as Norbert Weiner, Ludvig von Bertalanffy, and especially Jean Piaget.  Over the course… Read More »

Part 5 of Save the Humans? explored the possibility of a “human preservation movement” specifically targeted against the threats to human survival.[1]   By pursuing our own individual, group, and institutional self-preservation, we are creating the very dynamics that are threatening to destroy the world and its people. It is as if each of us,… Read More »

I first became aware of the threat of global warming in the early 1970s from the writings of social ecologist Murray Bookchin.[1] In Common Sense for Hard Times, Tim Costello and I, citing Barry Commoner, warned that environmental degradation could destroy the capability of the environment to support a reasonably civilized human society.[2] In 1988… Read More »

In Global Village or Global Pillage, Tim Costello and I warned that “Global warming, desertification, pollution, and resource exhaustion will make the earth uninhabitable long before every Chinese has a private car and every American a private boat or plane.”  We maintained that the solution lies in “converting the system of production and consumption to… Read More »