Mark Williams
Title: Cities frame our unsustainable relationship with the natural world in the Anthropocene
Abstract: In the 21st century humans have become a predominantly urban species for the first time in their 300,000 year history. Cities are foci of human activity, and positive environments for the exchange of cultural diversity. But they are also the places where most energy is consumed and most pollution is produced. Cities have become a driving mechanism of the degradation of the natural world that is a characteristic of the Anthropocene. How did cities come to detach themselves from the natural cycles that sustain Earth’s ecosystems and what might cities do to reconnect with nature in ways that enable both humans and all other species on this planet to thrive?
