Week 1

Date	Topic
WEEK 1	Rapid urban-demographic growth and resource-intensive industrialism have become large-scale biogeophysical forces on earth.
Jan. 9	Overview of course content and objectives: City-regions in a globalizing world. "Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy." Introduction (3.5m ppt ).
Jan. 11	The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital; Cities, slums and the Millennium Development Goals. AppleDemo (ppt); Week 1 (ppt)

Assigned Readings

Costanza, R., R. d'Arge, et al. (1997). "The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital." NATURE 387: 253-260. (pdf). (jump to notes below)

Wackernagel, Mathis, Niels B. Schulz, Diana Deumling, Alejandro Callejas Linares, Martin Jenkins, Valerie Kapos, Chad Monfreda, Jonathan Loh, Norman Myers, Richard Norgaard and Jorgen Randers. 2002. "Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy." PNAS 99:9266-9271. (pdf)
(jump to notes below).

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2006). The State of the World's Cities 2006/2007: The Millennium Development Goals and Urban Sustainability, 30 Years of Shaping the Habitat Agenda. Sterling, Va., Earthscan. Overview; 1.1-1.2.(jump to notes below)

Topic introduction

Human Activity is significantly altering many of the planet’s life support systems and material cycles including the atmospheric system and the carbon, nitrogen, sulpher, biologic and hydrologic cycles. There has been a five-fold increase in the scale of human economic activity in the post-WWII period. A recent study of Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the US documents the immense volume of natural resources required to run a developed economy; it is in the range of 45 to 85 metric tons of material per person each year (WRI, et al. 1998: 161). Much of this material flow—including mine tailings, eroded soil, logging debris, and excavated earth and rock—does not end up in final products, nor does it ever enter into public view. We will refer to these as "invisible flows" in class. According to the World Bank, if present productivity and population trends continue, the economic output of Third World countries would rise by 4-5 percent a year between 1990 and 2030. By 2030, Third World economic output would be about five times what it is today. The output of countries in the First World would rise more slowly but would still triple over the same period. Total world output by 2030 would be 3.5 times what it is today. Analysts at the World Bank warn that if environmental pollution and degradation were to rise in step with such a rise in output, the environmental pollution and damage would be devastating.

Roughly half the world's population lives in urban areas--from small towns to sprawling megacities. This historic shift to a predominantly urban-global population has been occurring with dramatic speed and consequence. In today's capitalist world economy, cities have become increasingly interlinked. They are centers of production, communication, and culture in a highly interdependent global network. People living in this urban world system now face complex and interlocking challenges on multiple fronts: social, economic, political, and ecological. USP 2: Urban World System examines these global interdependencies and challenges.

USP 2 examines urbanization and the environment in an historical and global context. Cities and regions of the world are increasingly interlinked in the world economy and the earth's ecology. This point cannot be overemphasized. Over the past four decades, governments have been preoccupied with economic interdependence--the coupling of local and national economies into a global system. But the world has now moved beyond economic interdependence to ecological interdependence.

While the world's economy and the earth's ecology have become increasingly intermeshed, they remain separate in our institutions and in the minds of policy makers. The result has been a wide range of both domestic and international policies that have begun to seriously deplete or degrade the earth's natural capital--including its rivers, lakes, and oceans; its soils and forests; its flora and fauna; and its ozone shield. This course thus draws attention to the material and ecological bases that enable the expansion of cities.

Costanza, R., R. d'Arge, et al. (1997). "The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital." NATURE 387: 253-260. http://www.esd.ornl.gov/benefits_conference/nature_paper.pdf

Abstract:
The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocksthat produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth’s life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet.We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies and a few original calculations. For the entire biosphere, the value (most of which is outside the market) is estimated to be in the range of US$16–54 trillion (1012) per year, with an average of US$33 trillion per year. Because of the nature of the uncertainties, thismust be considered a minimum estimate. Global gross national product total is around US$18 trillion per year.

Costanza, et al. (1997) argue that "The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the funcitoning of the Earth's life-support system." (p. 253). Explain what they mean by this, and cite some of the evidence they provide. According to Costanza, et al.'s calculations, how does the value of the world's global gross national product compare to the value of the ecosytem services they examined? Be able to define these key terms:natural capital, ecosystem services.

Estimates of various Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services	Value (trillion $US)
Soil formation	17.1
Recreation	3.0
Nutrient cycling	2.3
Water regulation and supply	2.3
Climate regulation (temperature and precipitation)	1.8
Habitat	1.4
Flood and storm protection	1.1
Food and raw materials production	0.8
Genetic resources	0.8
Atmospheric gas balance	0.7
Pollination	0.4
All other services	1.6
Total value of ecosystem services	33.3
Source: Adapted from R. Costanza et al., "The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital," Nature, Vol. 387 (1997), p. 256, Table 2.

Valuation of ecosystem services
http://www.ecosystemvaluation.org/index.html

EarthTrends: Featured Topic
Wasting the Material World: The Impact of Industrial Economies
Author(s): Staff of World Resources Program
Source: Updated material from World Resources 1998-99; excerpts from Resource Flows:
The Material Basis of Industrial Economies and The Weight of Nations: Material Outflows from Industrial Economies. Date written: 1998, updated April 2001

Abstract: Sustainability requires living within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere. In an attempt to measure the extent to which humanity satisfies this requirement, we use existing data to translate human demand on the environment into the area required for the production of food and other goods, together with the absorption of wastes. Our accounts indicate that human demand may well have exceeded the biosphere's regenerative capacity since the 1980s. According to this preliminary and exploratory assessment, humanity's load corresponded to 70% of the capacity of the global biosphere in 1961, and grew to 120% in 1999.

Foreword (pdf)
Introduction (pdf)

1.1. "City-zens" of the World: Urban Trends in the 21st Century
1.2. Putting Slums on the Map:" A Global and Regional Overview
Urbanization: A Turning Point in History, select details in pdf
Mega and Meta Cities, New City States? select details in pdf
Slums: Some Definitions, select details in pdf
Slums: Past, Present and Future, select details in pdf

Link to UN Millennium Development Goals : http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

The Millennium Declaration was adopted by Member States of the United Nations in September 2000 (pdf file). It contains eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ranging from eradicating extreme poverty to combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

The MDGs detail out 18 specific development targets, each of which has a target figure, a time frame, and indicators designed to monitor the extent to which the target has been achieved.

United Nations Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the Millennium Development Goals Indicators and United Nations Millennium Indicators Database http://millenniumindicators.un.org. The reports and composition of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group may be accessed at the Millennium Indictors Database Internet site under Key documents and sources, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_links.asp.

Global Facts and Figures (UN Habitat 2006)

The year 2007 marks a turning point in history. One out of every two people will be living in a city.
Between 2005 and 2030, the world’s urban population is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 1.78 percent, almost twice the growth rate of the world’s total population
By 2030 there will be 5 billion people living in cities
Cities of the developing world will account for 95% of urban expansion in the next two decades and by 2030 will be home to 80% of the world’s urban population (4 billion people).
One out of every three city dwellers lives in slum conditions.
More than 53 per cent of the world’s urban population lives in cities of fewer than 500,000 inhabitants, and another 22 per cent of the global urban population lives in cities of 1 to 5 million inhabitants.
By 2020, Mumbai, Delhi, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, New York, Dhaka, Jakarta and Lagos all will have achieved metacity status.
The vast majority of slums, more than 90 per cent, are located in cities of the developing world, where urbanization has become virtually synonymous with slum formation.