Delegating, not returning, to the biosphere: How to use the multi-scalar and ecological properties of cities

Our aim is to theorize the shifting relationship between cities and the biosphere in ways that can incorporate vanguard scientific, technical and social innovations. We specify that the city (a) generates third natures – specific new environments – such as heat islands, that today are destructive of the biosphere, and (b) that the city has systemic properties that correspond to those of the biosphere, but today are mostly flattened out of action through the ruptures that dominate today's articulation between cities and biosphere. That is to say, our specific project agrees with the problematizing of the category “nature,” which pertains to our presence in the biosphere. But we do not take Harvey's more absolute statement that the city itself is nature nor do we confine our analysis only to Latourian natures–cultures. Our analysis is less centered in the work of correcting a false binary, as is the case with both Latour and Harvey, notwithstanding their different objects of study. We focus on the complex in-between space that is the site of both the transactions between city and biosphere, as well as the site of the ruptures that characterize these transactions.

► Delegating back to the biosphere frames an analytics that can take us beyond an emphasis on mitigation and adaptation, today's two dominant approaches.
► Central to this analytics is minimizing rupture, today's dominant mode of human transaction with the biosphere.
► One key component of delegation uses scientific knowledge and pertinent technologies to amplify the biosphere's capacities, e.g. using a reactor to amplify the capacity of algae to clean up a toxic water body.
► A second key component aims at mobilizing the multi-scalar and ecological properties of cities to take the work of delegating to a more complex plane.