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

Entry into the Anthropocene

André Micoud & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-11-20T05:55:00Z

Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, backed up by an impressive amount of data, trace the history of our entry into the Anthropocene, an era characterised by the impact of human activities on the earth's physical and biological systems. These historians of science make a stand against the deliberately mystifying narrative that suggests that the major changes at play were practically unknown until recent decades. In doing so, they highlight the conflicts between asymmetric forces and

- Reviews / environment, history, biodiversity, climate change, anthropocène

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