Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Planet.
67
The number of written works of this nature multiplied from the 1960s,
including Rachel Carson
s Silent Spring,
68
published in the United States in 1962
and rapidly translated in many countries. These works did not speci
'
cally criticize
solid waste, but opened the way for environmentalism and an awareness of the
Limits of the Earth, the title of another topic by Fair
eld Osborn published in
1953.
69
A little later, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference of Experts on
the Scienti
c Basis for Rational Use and Conservation of the Resources of the
Biosphere, which became known as the Biosphere Conference, was held in Paris in
1968,
70
reopening and expanding these arguments. Both unity and uniqueness, and
the idea of a Spaceship Earth, were stressed. As well, the observation that
“
the
rationalization on a planetary scale of the utilization of the biosphere
s resources is
critical if one desires to ensure satisfactory living conditions for future generations
[translation]
'
was emphasized at the conference. The 1972 publication of the
American topic, The Limits to Growth,
71
which also received international acclaim,
con
”
rmed the worries expressed by many stakeholders.
Works such as, The City in History by Lewis Mumford, in which he denounced
,
72
and
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs,
73
both published in
1961, added a violent criticism of industrial cities to these general considerations.
Engineers like Abel Wolman and his famous article
the
“
Paleolithic Paradise: Coketown
”
and the
“
The Myth of Megalopolis
”
74
published in Scientic American in 1965, and ecologists such as Eugene Odum in
the United States or Paul Duvigneaud in Europe agreed with historians and urban
planners. They all emphasized how the management of cities and their absurd
metabolism had created an impasse. They argued that because these heterotrophic
systems not only imported their food and most of the resources they needed, but
also, through their use, transformed these materials into solid, liquid or gaseous
waste, they would damage both urban and natural environments. In particular,
Duvigneaud went further by linking the social crisis to the environmental crisis.
75
The former, according to him, was a consequence of the latter. It is possible to
discern here the move from a hygienic approach
“
”
The Metabolism of Cities
whose defenders considered the
removal of waste the answer to the problem of urban salubrity
—
to the environ-
mentalist approach that, while often remaining anthropocentric, revealed the limits
of the
—
rst approach in view of the inseparability of human societies from the
biosphere that supports them.
67
Osborn (
1948
).
68
Carson (
1962
).
69
Osborn (
1953
).
70
UNESCO (
1969
).
71
Meadows et al. (
1972
).
72
Mumford (
1961
).
73
Jacobs (
1961
).
74
Wolman (
1965
).
75
Duvigneaud (
1980
).
