Sustainability

E144U – Urbanization and Social Change

SustainabilityGuest Lecturer

Montgomery Norton

University of California, Irvine

Spring 2006

What kind of world do we want to live in?

Remarks by Bill Moyers

UCI – November 14, 2005

Sponsored by the School of Social Ecology

“The city is first a holy place.” – Lynch & Mumford

“Urban Constellation”

– Lewis Mumford (pp. 566, ¶ 2)

Using satellite images of city lights at night, NASA scientists are mapping the

spread of urban areas around the globe and

monitoring their impact on our planet's ecosystem.

Fu-chen Lo and Yue-man Yeung

• Globalization (pp. 9)

• Food supply. (pp.11)

• Sustainable Development can be achieved. (pp. 12)

Peak Oil, Post Carbon Cities, Powerdown

• “Peak oil production and the arc of depletion that follows”

• The loss of Fossil Fuels and what that means…

(Colin Campbell – the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas)

Possible Futures National Intelligence Council

(Special Advisory Board to the CIA)

• Davos World

• Pax Americana

• A New Caliphate

• Cycle of Fear

Millenium Ecosystem Assessment

• “Considers the intrinsic value of species and ecosystems.”

• Plausible Scenarios:– Global Orchestration– Order from Strength– Adapting Mosaic– TechnoGarden

Scenarios for the 21 Century

Hammond, A. (1998).

• Market World

• Fortress World

• Transformed World

Growing awareness and demand for organics and a

greener evolution…

The Organic

Revolution“Organic revolution – it’s not just for hippies anymore”

The Food System

• Relocalization (Community Organic Gardens)

• Free-Range• Organic• Biodiversity• Natural (Less processed

foods)

Localized Energy Production

• Wind Energy

• Solar Power

• Micro-Turbine Generators (Methane/Natural Gas)

• Fuel Cells (Methane/Natural Gas)

SimCity

• Localization of resources, production, and services.

Case Study: Finland

“Finland Tops Environmental Scorecard at World Economic Forum”

Opportunities

• The end of the Cold War.

• The Iraq Wars/the “War on Terror”

• America’s infrastructure.

Cycles of Civilizations

The Collapse of Complex Civilizations, Joseph Tainter

(Eco-Economy, pp. 14)

Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed, Jared Diamond

ResponsibilityChallenges

Solutions Paradigm Shift

Global Issues Paper