Challenges in Sustainability

Abstract: Is urbanization a danger or a solution to global sustainability? What institutions need to change to make urban areas more sustainable? In examining urbanization rates in countries over time, we see that they are often more correlated to carbon dioxide emissions than per capital income [1]. This tells us that urbanization patterns of the last 100 years have contributed to the increase in carbon emissions. We therefore need to develop a new kind of urbanization in order to tackle global challenges. However, reports about global changes often portray urbanization as “a problem”. Cities are polluted and increasingly crowded; urban inhabitants consume proportionately more resources and are responsible for a large portion of carbon emissions ([2], p. 927). As a urban planner, when I read those reports it seems I am looking at the books of urban planning in the last century, particularly those on urbanization in the colonies, where urbanization was presented as an unwanted process that caused a lot of harms to the “civilization” [3,4]. We must therefore change the discourse on how we describe urbanization if we want to transform it, as it will not be stopped. We must stress the many benefits that urbanization has brought to society, which are the main reasons people want to come to the cities in the first place. A question to be considered is therefore how to make urban life compatible with global challenges? i.e., how can we continue implementing/developing urbanization and the benefits that come with it without disproportionally increasing carbon emissions, the destruction of ecosystems and unsustainable consumption. There are many opportunities for win-win strategies between global sustainability challenges and development in urban areas, or synergies, such as climate co-benefits, i.e., tackling climate change and promoting development, particularly in some developing countries where cities are still being built and the path of urbanization can be changed [5,6]. Nevertheless, despite all we have learned about urbanization and the possible co-benefits opportunities since the last century, we lack understanding of the contextual and institutional conditions that make those solutions emerge.

Abstract: This is a challenging book. It tests the reader on a number of fronts including a series of intensive theoretical discourses on the political economy of the green economy, a critique of the neoliberal green growth agenda, and the uncomfortable proposition that the trajectory offered by the green economy has significant implications for the equitable development of society. The ultimatum of the book suggests that the proposed solutions are politically difficult and involve radical social change.

Abstract: This paper summarizes the critical importance of the Cerrado savannah biome in Brazil and examines key ways in which large-scale agriculture, in particular large-scale soy farming, threatens water security and increases socio-ecological stress. It connects agribusiness expansion to the globalized meat industry by defining how complex economic relationships result in deforestation on a massive scale. It describes how this radical change in land cover has led to changes in rainfall patterns that are associated with extended drought periods and analyzes how these critical water shortages jeopardize socio-economic health beyond the immediate region. Further, it explicates how intensified transgenic soy farming and other pesticide-heavy crop production contributes to rising public health crises associated with carcinogen-contaminated water and food sources. Lastly, it identifies emerging trends that suggest how agribusiness corporations and governments may be legally ascribed moral responsibilities for maintaining socio-ecological health of the biome. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the human dimensions of environmental issues and their impacts and reframe conservation social science discourse in regard to protection of land and water resources in the region.