300. Saleem Ali — Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2022
⏱️ 129 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shermer and Ali discuss: • the search for structure in nature • order and randomness • economic laws • natural laws • natural orders: molecular, quantum, crystals, carbonic, nuclear, magnetic • hydrological, organismic, Gaia and Medea • reductionism and holism • Islamic economics • the origin of wealth • Is there an optimal economic order? • how mining rights work in the U.S. and elsewhere • the voter's paradox • Pareto optimality and why we can't achieve it • resource nationalism • the resource curse • why India and Pakistan have not used their nukes on each other • social orders • population and sustainability: neo-Malthusianism • How many people can the Earth hold? • why we need nuclear power for sustainability • internationalism and globalism • Trekonomics.
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 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. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and 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.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Michael Sherman Shower Show. Hi everybody, it's Michael Sherman and it's time for another episode of the Michael |
| 0:17.9 | Sherman Show. |
| 0:19.5 | This episode is brought to you by W-R-E-N. W-R-E-N. W-N, W-R-N, what is R N. R N is a startup that's making it easy |
| 0:28.6 | for everyone to make a meaningful difference in the climate crisis. |
| 0:32.8 | I mean, most of this feel like, what can I do, right? |
| 0:35.9 | You can join Wren, and when you do, they plant trees. |
| 0:40.3 | Their goal is to unlock the collective action of millions of individuals to drive the kind of change needed to end the climate crisis. |
| 0:48.0 | And they do so by getting you to lower your carbon footprint, they'll actually do the calculation for you. |
| 0:54.1 | I've done it, it's pretty cool. |
| 0:55.4 | How much carbon do you use? |
| 0:58.5 | What is your footprint? |
| 1:00.2 | Then based on your lifestyle, of course everybody varies. And then they'll offset that by planting trees, which ultimately protects the rainforest, |
| 1:08.5 | it sequesters, CO2 gases, and so on. |
| 1:11.4 | So when you sign up through this show they will plant ten extra trees in |
| 1:16.1 | your name so here's how you do it you go to Wren.co slash Shermer that's W-R-E-N-D-S-Shermer. That's W-R- It's free to sign up and then you can |
| 1:35.2 | upgrade from there for different programs that they have. But right off the bat |
| 1:39.0 | ten trees in your name. I already did that and that was pretty cool. And you know collectively |
| 1:43.8 | of course that makes a tiny tiny tiny bit of difference when I get 10 trees |
| 1:48.0 | planted in my name but if enough of us do it it starts to make a difference |
| 1:52.0 | right so this is a collective action |
| 1:54.0 | problem as they call it in economics you know no no one of us can make a |
| 1:58.1 | difference but together if we have enough of us working on it we can make a |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.