SLE756 - Sustainability in the Anthropocene

Content

The Anthropocene is a new geologic epoch marked by the domination of the Earth system by humans. The expansion of the human population to around 13 billion people over the course of the 21^st century and the increasing consumption of food, energy, land, water, and materials is already exceeding multiple environmental limits. In many parts of the world, aspects of the social foundations such as levels of education, equity, nutrition, poverty, and health are also below where we would want them to be thereby exceeding the Earth’s safe and just operating space. The United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals specify targets for 17 broad areas of social, economic, and environmental development. In this unit we examine aspects of the human impact on the environment and look at the major ways of managing this impact through policy and planning for sustainability. Topics include this: climate change mitigation and adaptation; food systems and diet change; land-use change and deforestation; rapid urbanisation; liveable urban environments; material and resource consumption and trade; water resources management; planetary health; renewable energy and energy efficiency; regenerative agriculture and land degradation mitigation; biodiversity conservation; and recycling in the circular economy. We will cover the major policy responses to managing sustainability across these different dimensions ranging from global initiatives such as the UN's sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement, to national, state, and local policies.

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