Category Archives: Readings

Posts about scholarly articles–in top menu or sidebar use “Bibliography” to view a list by author or “Disciplines covered” to view by academic field (mobile users see bottom of page)

“Toxic Masculinuty: California’s Salton Sea and the Environmental Consequences of Manliness”

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CITATION:
Traci Brynne Voyles. 2020.  Environmental History 26, no. 1, pp. 127–141.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
In 2018, two military aircraft flew over the Salton Sea, California’s largest inland body of water occupying the desert area of Imperial and Riverside Counties. Midair, the pilots decided to pull a prank: they used their planes to draw Continue reading →

“The Dialogue between Voltaire and Rousseau on the Lisbon Earthquake: The Emergence of a Social Science View”

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CITATION:
Russell R. Dynes. 2000. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 97-115.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
Preliminary version, published by University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
ABSTRACT:
Disasters are usually identified as having occurred at a particular time and place, but they also occur at a particular time in human history and within a specific social and cultural context. Consequently, it is appropriate to call the Lisbon earthquake the first Continue reading →

“A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None”

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CITATION:
K. Yusoff, 2019, University of Minnesota Press.
 
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
Page to purchase e-pub.
 
ABSTRACT:
Kathryn Yusoff examines how the grammar of geology is foundational to establishing the extractive economies of subjective life and the earth under colonialism and slavery. She initiates a transdisciplinary conversation between black feminist theory, geography, and the earth sciences, addressing Continue reading →

“Socio-energy systems design: A policy framework for energy transitions”

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[This is first in a set of posts coordinated with Dr. Clark Miller’s (virtual) visit to OU’s Climate Change in History Dream Course. The video of Dr. Miller’s talk will appear here Friday, followed next Wednesday by Dr. Grady’s response.]

CITATION:
Clark A. Miller, Jennifer Richter, & Jason O’Leary. 2015. Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 6, pp. 29-40.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
In the context of large-scale energy transitions, current approaches to energy policy have become too narrowly constrained around problems of electrons, fuel, and carbon, the technologies that provide them, and the cost of those technologies. Energy systems are deeply enmeshed in broad patterns of social, economic, and political life and organization, and significant changes to energy systems increasingly are accompanied by Continue reading →

“The Floral Archive”

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Anton Kerner von Marilaun

Anton Kerner von Marilaun

CITATION: Chapter 10 of Coen, D. R. 2018. Climate in motion: science, empire, and the problem of scale. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
ABSTRACT: Chapter 10 introduces the reader to Anton Kerner von Marilaun (1831-1898), who is known for documenting the flora of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In addition to compiling a list of the plant species that occurred within the empire’s sprawling borders, Kerner also Continue reading →

“Emotional impacts of environmental decline: What can Native cosmologies teach sociology about emotions and environmental justice”

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CITATION:
Kari Marie Norgaard and Ron Reed. 2017. Theory and Society, vol. 46, pp. 463-495.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This article extends analyses of environmental influences on social action by examining the emotions experienced by Karuk Tribal members in the face of environmental decline. Continue reading →

Current Biology: The Anthropocene Special Issue

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CITATION:
Current Biology. 2019  Vol. 29, No. 19: R942–R1054.
ABSTRACT:
This special issue of Current Biology includes a collection of Features, Reviews, Primers, Essays and Quick guides on a wide range of topics surrounding various detrimental impacts of human activity on the biosphere.

For most biologists, inhabiting the Anthropocene also means working in it. There are very few topics in the life sciences that are not confronted with Continue reading →

“Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use.”

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CITATION:

ArchaeoGLOBE Project*. 2019 Science 365(6456):897–902.

ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:

Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.) to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by Continue reading →

“Elysium”

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CITATION:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 1997.  Part IV, Letter XI (pp. 386-401) of Julie, or the New Heloise. Tr. Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché. In Collected Writings of Rousseau (Volume 6). Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
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ABSTRACT:
Julie is an epistolary novel set in mid-eighteenth century Switzerland. The plot involves the relationship between St. Preux, a young man who is hired as a tutor to the title character. They become lovers, but he is Continue reading →

“Contrasting the effects of natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow on urban evolution in white clover (Trifolium repens)”

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CITATION:
Marc T. J. Johnson, Cindy M. Prashad, Mélanie Lavoignat, Hargurdeep S. Saini. 2018.  Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 285, no. 1883, published on-line July 25, 2018: pp. 8-33.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Urbanization is a global phenomenon with profound effects on the ecology and evolution of organisms. We examined the relative roles of natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow in influencing the evolution of white clover (Trifolium repens), which thrives in urban and rural areas. Continue reading →

“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 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 →

“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 →

“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 →

Early Cities and Other Urbanisms

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Galata bridge in Istanbul, bridging east and west, old and new. By Moyan Brenn [CC BY 2.0)]

Urban landscapes provide useful spaces for thinking through the complexities of the Anthropocene. They are hybrid locations in which the social and ecological Continue reading →