Areas of Expertise:

My research involves the global carbon cycle, world energy, the role of life and evolution in the biosphere, and general systems studies. Though I have published many papers and lectured around the globe, I am perhaps most proud of an integrative form of systems thinking developed in a number of books. In Metapatterns, I established general functional features of systems across scales. Some of these metapatterns come into play as I currently examine the challenge of planetary prosperity and the transitions in nations, for example: borders, centers, and nested parts, with attention to harmony with Earth’s biogeochemical cycles.

In Gaia’s Body, I developed the concept of the biosphere as a system of “organs” called biochemical guilds, and concluded by distinguishing humans as a special guild, because we have a unique, planetwide responsibility. In two related books (What Is Death and Death and Sex), I examined the intertwining of life and death on various scales, from bacteria to human psychology, which took me into covering frontier research in social psychology and consciousness. (Let me also note along these lines, an interest in religion, for example I ran a panel that assembled some of the world’s leading experts in religion and psychology of religion.)

In CO2 Rising, I brought the wonders and worries of the carbon cycle to the general public, with connections to global warming, energy consumption from present to future, interlocking trends with economics, and all woven into an analysis that drives home the ultimate challenge of reaching global prosperity without endangering climate. Most recently, in Quarks to Culture, I developed logic for twelve fundamental levels of merging and integration. The twelve end with the geopolitical state, which we are still in. Furthermore, numerous facts indicate that a new level of combination and integration might be emerging today.