Over the course of the next few months, PR for People will publish each chapter of Dr. Corning's latest work Superorganism: Toward a New Social Contract for Our Endangered Species. A Preview of The Near Future is Chapter One of Dr. Peter Corning’s groundbreaking work. To purchase Superorganism in its entirety, go to Cambridge University Press or Amazon.
As the evidence of our global survival crisis continues to mount – with mega droughts, catastrophic floods, rampant wildfires, melting glaciers, devastating hurricanes and more, the expression “too-little-too-late” comes to mind. We live in an intensely interdependent world with an increasingly shared fate. Our ultimate fate is now in jeopardy. Going forward, we must either create a more effective global society (with collective self-governance) or our species will very likely be convulsed by mass starvation, waves of desperate migrants, and lethal social conflict. The greatest threat we may face is each other, and a regression into tribalism and violent conflict. This Element has a more hopeful prescription for a new global social contract. It is based on the many examples of superorganisms – socially organized species – in the natural world, and in evolution.
ENDORSEMENTS
“This is a remarkable book. Peter Corning is one of those rare scholars who can span both the social sciences and biology, to show the importance of our human capacities and natural environment in understanding and dealing with the huge challenges for our future. Against the simplistic solutions offered by the populisms of the left and right, Corning lays out a way forward with a deep understanding of the complexities involved. This is a clarion call for local, national and global cooperation to deal with urgent problems affecting the future of humanity. No one should ignore this message.”
-- Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Emeritus Professor in Management at Loughborough University London, Editor in Chief, Journal of Institutional Economics, President of the Darwin Club for Social Science, Founder of the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research (WINIR), Secretary of Millennium Economics Ltd. and author of many pathbreaking books, including the forthcoming The Wealth of a Nation (Princeton University Press, 2023).
“The mortal threat we face from climate chaos and ecological overshoot demands bold new ideas for transformative change. Peter Corning offers a sweeping vision of global self-governance and cooperation for deep sustainability that requires us to think (and act) outside the box. It may be our only hope.”
--Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution and host of “The Future is Calling us to Greatness.”
“Peter Corning offers a wealth of deeply researched ways of addressing our global environmental crisis. His approach includes many practical proposals for shifting economic markets away from their current destructive path, directing us instead toward renewable energy and the resources we track on our Green Transition Scoreboard®. He also proposes major changes in our global food system, along with a new “basic needs guarantee” that goes beyond the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and he proposes new international agreements and agencies to deal with challenges that can no longer be solved by any one country. An important addition that can help guide the many global initiatives needed to steer humanity toward survival and a sustainable common future.”
--Hazel Henderson, author of Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age and other books. CEO, Ethical Markets Media (a Certified B Corporation).
"Peter Corning’s new book, Superorganism, is very timely, insightful, and, given the Earth’s current challenges, proactively positive and hopeful -- an urgent message for us all!"
-- John Jeavons, Executive Director, Ecology Action
“A very thought-provoking book that brings a glimmer of light into this darkening world.”
-- Paul Ehrlich, Prof. Emeritus, Stanford University and co-author of Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic, among other books.
“This book is just what is needed for the global dialogue that we must have about how to navigate through our perfect storm of global crises. Dr. Corning is at the leading edge of evolutionary biology, sweeping away our focus on hostile competition and, instead, showing that synergistic cooperation is the route to the friendly collaboration that is necessary to build a caring, inclusive future.”
--Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., Living Systems Design consultant and author of EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution
Peter Corning is the author of, SYNERGISTIC SELECTION: HOW COOPERATION HAS SHAPED EVOLUTION AND THE RISE OF HUMANKIND (World Scientific, 2018), and THE FAIR SOCIETY: THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE AND THE PURSUIT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE (University of Chicago Press, 2011). He is also the director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, a one-time science writer for Newsweek and professor in Human Biology at Stanford University, and the author of several previous books.
Thoughts and comments? please email Dr. Peter Corning, pacorning@complexsystems.org