[Part 1 of this post appears here.]
A desolate, uncultivated countryside; a burning village; ruined houses; marauding soldiers—these are the first things visitors to the council chambers in 14th century Siena would have seen of Continue reading
Tag Archives: cities
The (civic) republican niche (Part 1)
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, “Allegory of Good and Bad Government” (1338-39), Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
Let me emphasize something from the start: I mean “small r” republican—this post (and another to follow) will have nothing to do with the “capital r” American political party. I’ll consider some ideas associated with Continue reading
Sensing High Water in Paris
Paris, Pont Alexandre III, January 18, 1910
In 1910 Paris suffered its second largest flood since 1658. Today the city is inundated by a public memory of that event of just over a century ago. Continue reading
“Contrasting the effects of natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow on urban evolution in white clover (Trifolium repens)”
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
Sensing High Water in Venice
Flood warning siren in Venice (from Sounds Like Noise)
Visiting Venice this summer suggested some intellectual bridges between cities (see our previous series on the Urban Anthropocene), and our new theme (Perceiving the Anthropocene). How do cities help us perceive the Anthropocene— Continue reading
Video of “Coupled Urban Metabolism” panel discussion
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
Video of “Cities and Our Future” panel discussion
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
Continue reading
“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 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
Reviving Municipal Housekeeping
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
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?
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
Cities in the Technosphere
Two recent special sections of the journal The Anthropocene Review offer a set of interdisciplinary reflections on the “technosphere.”[1] In this post, I will discuss several of the contributions in order to ask Continue reading
Outsourcing our thermoregulation to the city
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”
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
[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
Inhabiting the Anthropocene 
You must be logged in to post a comment.