Policy Press

Cities Demanding the Earth

A New Understanding of the Climate Emergency

By Peter Taylor, Geoff O'Brien and Phil O'Keefe

Published

Mar 25, 2020

Page count

164 pages

ISBN

978-1529210484

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Mar 25, 2020

Page count

164 pages

ISBN

978-1529210477

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Mar 25, 2020

Page count

164 pages

ISBN

978-1529210507

Dimensions

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Mar 25, 2020

Page count

164 pages

ISBN

978-1529210507

Dimensions

Imprint

Bristol University Press
Cities Demanding the Earth

This urgent book brings our cities to the fore in understanding the human input into climate change. The demands we are making on nature by living in cities has reached a crisis point and unless we make significant changes to address it, the prognosis is terminal consumption.

Providing a radical new argument that integrates global understandings of making nature and making cities, the authors move beyond current policies of mitigation and adaption and pose the challenge of urban stewardship to tackle the crisis.

Their new way of thinking re-orients possibilities for environmental policy and calls for us to reinvent our cities as spaces for activism.

“This synthetic treatise offers fresh perspectives on two fronts: the city and climate change. The key concept—co-evolutionary urban and natural ecologies— forcefully links the destinies of place and planet, for better or worse.” Paul D. Raskin, Tellus Institute

"This innovative synthesis of critical urban thinking and climate change goes right to the root causes of the current emergency to provide a crucial re-interpretation of our predicament." Simon Dalby, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Peter J. Taylor is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Loughborough and Northumbria University.

Geoff O’Brien is an Emeritus scholar at Northumbria University.

Phil O’Keefe (1948-2020) was Emeritus Professor of Economic Development and Environmental Management at Northumbria University.

Declarations: Root and Branch Unthinking

Alternate: Jane Jacobs’ Legacy

Inside Out: Twelve Antithesis Authenticating Cities

Reset: Anthropogenic Climate Change Is Urban Not Modern

Action: Can We Stop Terminal Consumption?