Metropolitics

How to Defend the Planet in Law

Valérie Cabanes & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-04-19T09:26:51Z

In the face of a growing raft of evidence that increasingly points to an imminent global catastrophe—the very self-destruction of humanity, even—one means of taking concrete action, as opposed to fatalism and denial, is to promote new legal frameworks that can structure debate and action on this issue. Valérie Cabanes shows that defining the concept of ecocide is the first key step along this road.
The destruction of the Earth's ecosystem by industrial technologies that show no respect for

- From the Field / international law, environment, global warming, climate change, anthropocène, law, NGOs, ecocide, environmental protection, ecology, nature, mobilization

Global Climate Crisis and the City: An Interview with Ashley Dawson

Ashley Dawson & Maura McGee — 2019-04-03T09:58:34Z

An interview with Ashley Dawson, professor of English at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, CUNY, about his most recent book Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change. He talks with Maura McGee about the global convergence of urbanization and climate change, strategies to confront climate chaos, and how communities and social movements can act.
Cities are the defining social and ecological form of the 21st century. They are home to the

- Interviews / global warming, environment, anthropocène, climate change, sustainable development, Global South, Global North, sea-level rise, crisis, environmental justice, just transition

After Fukushima: The Silence of Environmental Organizations on Nuclear Catastrophe

Michael Dreiling & Nicholas Lougee & Tomoyasu Nakamura — 2015-09-22T05:00:00Z

The nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima plants in Japan in 2011 raised global awareness of the massive dangers inherent in nuclear energy and led to the shutdown of almost all reactors in the country. Today, Japan is reopening reactors despite public opinion against it. In this article, the authors show that the silence of most environmental organizations reveals their widespread co‑optation by a political and industrial establishment that has, since the Kyoto Protocol, promoted nuclear energy

- Essays / catastrophe, disaster, environment, energy, nuclear, Japan, global warming, mobilization

The Horseshoe Crab, our Environment and our Health

Lisa Jean Moore — 2014-12-15T05:50:00Z

Will we erase all animal diversity in the name of modernity, or will we follow the hints given by the study of the horseshoe crab? The entanglements of this ancestral animal with human activity point to the urgent need to accept the collective responsibility that comes with the Anthropocene era.
In North America, the ocean-dwelling horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus), a maroon prehistoric creature, crawls along the ocean floor with its helmet-like hard-shelled top and multiple appendages

- From the Field / health, environment, New York, global warming, sea-level rise, human animal, wildlife, Featured

The Violence of Sustainable Urbanity

Erik Swyngedouw — 2014-11-10T05:50:00Z

If Nature is an ideological construction that separates us from the environment, the contemporary search for technical solutions is only business as usual. How then can we face the environmental disasters that human consumption and pollution bring upon us? Erik Swyngedouw advocates for a politization of the environment around the idea of equality.
Anthropocenic Urbanity
In May 2013, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million, roughly equivalent to the

- Debates / sustainable development, environment, nature, global warming, anthropocène