On April 19, 2018, Stephanie Pincetl, of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, presented her ideas on coupled urban metabolism at a Continue reading
Category Archives: Urban Metabolism
“A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene: Modes of subsistence, population size and human impact on Earth”
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
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
The Party for Degrowth, rally in Lyon, 2007. © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0.
Urban Metabolism and Degrowth, part 1
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”
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”
CITATION:
Moore, Jason W. 2000. Organization & Environment, vol. 13: pp. 123-157.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
doi: 10.1177/1086026600132001; at author’s website
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
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.
Inhabiting the Anthropocene 