Globalism and the Ethic of Place

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Globalism and the Ethic of Place

• The watershed is the first and last nation,
  whose boundaries, though subtly shifting, are
  unarguable. Races of birds, subspecies of trees,
  and types of hats or rain gear go by the
  watershed. The watershed gives us a home, and a
  place to go upstream, downstream, or across in.
• Gary Snyder, Coming into the Watershed.

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We can know the needs of any particular place
only by participating in its specificity by
becoming more familiar with the natural
community. Freeman House, Totem Salmon (2000).
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The Importance of protecting Cultural and
Ecological Values of Specific Places and Locales
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The Loss of the Small Family Farm and Healthy
Soils

• An agrarian economy requires a healthy
  urban-rural interface. This means that
  small-scalefarms (around 1-1000 acres or so) are
  part of a healthy regions community.

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Culture Meets Nature
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• Think Globally, but Act Locally
• Our planet is so diverse, from all points of
  view, that its problems can be tackled
  effectively only by dealing with them at the
  regional level, in their unique physical,
  climatic and cultural contexts.
• -Rene Dubos, Celebrations of Life 1981

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US Leadership in CO2 Emissions
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How Others See US Views of the US Role in
Environmental ProtectionPercent Positive and Net
Negative (Positive - Negative)
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George W. Bush Public Approval on Management of
the Environment
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The Growth Machine Creation of the Suburb
Perhaps more than any other city, Los Angeles is
a creation of the imagination.
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How Eden Lost its Garden
A recent survey by the Pew Center found that
suburban sprawl ties with crime as a top local
concern for most Americans. Its not hard to
figure out why Americans are fed up with losing
parks to pavement, breathing polluted air and
spending an average of 55 workdays in traffic
every year.
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• Defining Place
• The Relationship between Nature, Agriculture and
  the Urban Landscape

Agriculture
Where does your water come from? Name 5 native
plants to your region Where does your waste
go? Where does your food come from?
Globalism
Urbanism
PLACE
Nature
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Our urban areas are expanding at about twice the
rate that the population is growing.
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Lewis Mumford

• The Natural History of the City
• Example Early Rome
• Rice, Wheat, Corn Cities
• The separation of the city from nature and
  agriculture land

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Overuse of Resources of Particular Places
The artificial separation of the land from global
economic consumption and production
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-Trends in the Urban Growth Machine- Growth
is a liability financially and in quality of life
for the majority of local residents.

• In in many areas, at many historical moments,
  growth benefits only a small proportion of local
  residents.
• Growth almost always brings with it the obvious
  problems of increased air and water pollution,
  traffic congestion, and overtaxing of natural
  amenities.
• Growth and increased density inevitably bring
  about social pathologies (see Fischer,
  Baldassare, and Ofshe 1974) -- growth makes such
  pathologies more difficult to deal with.
• Growth often costs existing residents more money.
  Evidently, at various population levels, points
  of diminishing returns are crossed such that
  additional increments lead to net revenue losses.
  A study of Santa Barbara, California,
  demonstrated that additional population growth
  would require higher property taxes, as well as
  higher utility costs (Appelbaum et al. 1974).
• Growth is a liability financially and in quality
  of life for the majority of local residents.
  Under such circumstances, local growth is a
  transfer of quality of life and wealth from the
  local general public to a certain segment of the
  local elite. To raise the question of wisdom of
  growth in regard to any specific locality is
  hence potentially to threaten such a wealth
  transfer and the interests of those who profit by
  it.

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PG
Thinking Like a Watershed
Watersheds
Counties of CA
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• Ecosystem-based planning
• Precursors Idea of preserving biotic
  communities
• core reserve and buffer zones (1930s)
• biosphere reserves (1970s)
• Regional scale approaches, often focusing on
  river basins (1970s)

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Ecosystems management Around 1993

• Ecosystems define relevant boundaries
• Ecological integrity and sustainability as
  management goals
• Systematic monitoring and data gathering
• Interagency cooperation
• Humans as embedded in, not separate from, nature
• Stakeholder participation
• collaborative planning

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Ecosystems Management Titles, UCSB, Web of
Science
The Closing Window of Opportunity
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Coastal Watershed Protection
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New Urbanism - definition
A perspective, method, and goal for managing the
growth of a community. It focuses on the
long-term implications of growth and how it may
affect the community, instead of viewing growth
as an end in itself. The community can vary in
size it may be as small as a city block or a
neighborhood, or as large as a city, a
metropolitan area, or even a region. New
Urbanism promotes cooperation between often
diverse groups to arrive at sustainable long-term
strategies for managing growth. It is designed to
create livable cities, promote sustainable
economic development, and protect open spaces,
ecosystems, the rural lands (e.g., the small
family farmer).
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Integrative Approach
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Watersheds with More than Two Activist Groups per
10000 population
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Number of Groups Per Watershed