Video of “Coupled Urban Metabolism” panel discussion

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On April 19, 2018, Stephanie Pincetl, of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, presented her ideas on coupled urban metabolism at a panel discussion on the OU campus. The event was the culmination of a series of posts on the blog about papers Dr. Pincetl had suggested to us as “inputs” to the urban metabolism concept. The panel included Bryce Lowery, of the OU Department of Regional and City Planning, Katy Marshall, of the OU Department of Biology, and Peter Soppelsa of the OU Department of the History of Science, each of whom contributed posts to the series. We thank the Gibbs College of Architecture, the OU Department of Geology, the Oklahoma Biological Survey, the OU Department of Biology, and OU’s Headington College for supporting Dr. Pincetl’s visit to OU, and making this video possible.

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Video of “Cities and Our Future” panel discussion

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Earlier this spring, Cindy Simon Rosenthal offered a series of three posts on the topic of “Cities and Our Future: Governance in the Anthropocene.” On March 6, 2018 (rescheduled due to an ice storm), she presented her ideas
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“A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene: Modes of subsistence, population size and human impact on Earth”

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CITATION:
Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Fridolin Krausmann and Irene Pallua. 2014.  The Anthropocene Review, vol. 1, no. 1: pp. 8-33.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
We search for a valid and quantifiable description of how and when humans acquired the ability to dominate major features of the Earth System. While common approaches seek to quantify Continue reading →

Urban Metabolism and Degrowth, part 2

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THIS POST IS PART OF OUR SERIES ON URBAN METABOLISM.

It continues Part 1’s discussion of two readings: “Democracies with a future: Degrowth and the democratic tradition,” by Marco Deriu, and “De-growth: Do you realise what it means?” by Ted Trainer

Co-authored with Robert Bailey

Manif EPR Lyon Bellecour banderole décroissance

The Party for Degrowth, rally in Lyon, 2007. © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0.

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Urban Metabolism and Degrowth, part 1

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TITLE
Democracies with a future: Degrowth and the democratic tradition
CITATION:
Marco Deriu. 2012.  Futures vol. 44, pp. 553–561.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT (partial):
The interrogation of a possible connection between degrowth and democracy inspires some questions of political epistemology. Is degrowth a socio-economic project which can be simply proposed as an ‘‘issue’’ and a ‘‘goal’’ in the democratic representative system, without discussing forms and processes of the political institutions themselves? Continue reading →

“Urban Metabolism and the Energy Stored in Cities: Implications for Resilience”

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CITATION:
David N. Bristow and Christopher A. Kennedy. 2013.  Journal of Industrial Ecology, vol. 17, no. 5: pp. 656-667.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Using the city of Toronto as a case study, this article examines impacts of energy stocks and flexible demand in the urban metabolism on the resilience of the city, including discussion of Continue reading →

“Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective”

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CITATION:
Moore, Jason W. 2000.  Organization & Environment, vol. 13: pp. 123-157.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This article proposes a new theoretical framework to study the dialectic of capital and nature over the longue duree of world capitalism. The author proposes that today’s global ecological crisis has its roots in the transition to capitalism during the long sixteenth century. The emergence of capitalism marked not only a decisive shift in the arenas of politics, economy, and society, but a fundamental reorganization of world ecology, characterized by a “metabolic rift,” Continue reading →

Urban Metabolism

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Following our series on “Cities and Our Future,” I’m pleased to introduce the second of our special programs on the theme of the Urban Anthropocene. Starting today, and running through April, we will have a series of posts that take up the idea of “urban metabolism:” the analogy between cities and organisms that focuses attention on the systems by which cities obtain resources, and generate and dispose of wastes.

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Reviving Municipal Housekeeping

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This is the third in Dr. Rosenthal’s three-part series on “Cities and Our Future: Governance in the Anthropocene.” Here are links to the first, and second posts. She will present her ideas at a panel discussion on the OU campus on March 6, 2018; here is the poster for the event.

Roots of Municipal Capacity-Building

In the late 19th century, a movement for municipal reform gained prominence across the nation, led by the emergence of Continue reading →

Green Cities, Red States

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This is the second in Dr. Rosenthal’s three-part series on “Cities and Our Future: Governance in the Anthropocene.” Click for the first post.

Cities have variously been characterized as “limited” (Peterson 1981), “dependent” (Kantor 1995), and “ungovernable” (Ferman 1985.) Urban scholar Paul Peterson in his seminal work, City Limits, concluded that cities are seriously limited by Continue reading →

Who Will Lead?

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This is the first in Dr. Rosenthal’s three-part series on “Cities and Our Future: Governance in the Anthropocene.”

When President Trump proclaimed that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, he claimed to represent the “citizens of Pittsburgh not Paris.” Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was quick to respond, tweeting Continue reading →

“Moving from ‘matters of fact’ to ‘matters of concern’ in order to grow economic food futures in the Anthropocene”

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CITATION:
Hill, A. 2015.  Agriculture and Human Values, vol. 32: pp. 551-563.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Agrifood scholars commonly adopt “a matter of fact way of speaking” to talk about the extent of neoliberal rollout in the food sector and the viability of “alternatives” to capitalist food initiatives. Over the past few decades Continue reading →

Outsourcing our thermoregulation to the city

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The cold in Yakutsk, Russia. Courtesy of http://www.snowaddiction.org

In the middle of winter in Yakutsk, Russia, the average temperature is -34 °C–so cold that the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit is negligible.  Overnight dips to -42 °C are common.  For the 270,000 people who live there, time outside is to be avoided—eyeglasses freeze to your face, eyelashes freeze, your nose hairs freeze.  October to April is spent scurrying around from house to house and spending Continue reading →

“Cities in the age of the Anthropocene: Climate change agents and the potential for mitigation”

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CITATION:
Pincetl, S. 2017. Anthropocene, Vol. 20, pp. 74-82.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Cities are human creations where many of the emissions causing climate change originate. Every aspect of daily life in cities Continue reading →