Nathan Phillips - The Ecology of the City

Carbon Farming and Urban Metabolism

Nathan Phillips1, Lucy Hutyra1, David Foster2, Mark Friedl1, Joe Ferreira3 Peter Furth4, Suchi Gopal1, David Hollinger5,

Robert Kaufmann1, Steve Wofsy2

1Boston University 2Harvard University and Harvard Forest 3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

4Northeastern University5US Forest Service

Beacon Hill

2

Urban BioMimicry

First do no harm

3711 leaks > 2.5ppm; range: 1.80 - 28.6 ppm; mode = 2.07 ppm

13David Macaulay, Underground

“How Boston Works”

Unleash carbon services(direct and indirect)

Or, about 3-4X annual carbon storage at Harvard Forest

Value Carbon Farming as “Adaptigation”.

Galveston, TXPhoto credit: UCS

Carbon Farming: Recoupling with Nature for

a Healthy Urban Metabolism

Thanks Adrian Down, Rob Jackson, Jon Karr, Kaiguang Zhao, Lucy Hutyra, Max Bronfield, Suchi Gopal, Chris Rella, Shanna Cleveland, Margaret Hendrick.

Picarro Barr FoundationConservation Law FoundationNational Science Foundation ULTRA-ex

Boston University: Sustainable Neighborhood Lab, Urban Metabolism Team