“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 →
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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.

Continue reading →

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 →

Pathogens and the Anthropocene: Germs, Genes, Geography, Part 2

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[This is the continuation of the post from last week.]

To speak of an “Anthropocene for pathogens” is to imagine the ways that human transformation of the environment has shaped the ecology and evolution of infectious microbes. In other words, it is to imagine Continue reading →

Pathogens and the Anthropocene: Germs, Genes, Geography, Part 1

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The smallpox virus

We welcome our colleague Kyle Harper to the blog; his bio is on the OU contributors page. His book, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, is now available from Princeton University Press. 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 →

Urban Ecology

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The male showed up with breakfast.

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As we get started with our series on the urban Anthropocene, I’d like to approach the topic as a biologist, and think of cities as places filled with various kinds of life.
Continue reading →

“The Politics”

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CITATION:
Aristotle. 1981. Tr. T.A. Sinclair, rev. T.J. Saunders. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
Internet Classics Archive version (tr. Jowett) at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html
ABSTRACT:

In The Politics Aristotle addresses the questions that lie at the heart of political science. How should society be ordered to ensure the happiness of the individual? Which forms of government are best and how Continue reading →