Lecture

History and Theory of the Environment: Introduction

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In course

AR-154: Environmental history and theories I

Le cours vise a familiariser les etudiants avec l'histoire de l'environnement et des paysages, et avec la maniere dont les preoccupations environnementales amenent a repenser aujourd'hui le sens et les principes de l'architecture et des disciplines de pr ...

Description

This lecture introduces the course 'History and Theory of the Environment' by the instructor Sébastien Marron, who explains the shift in teaching this subject from the third to the first year at EPFL. The lecture covers the importance of addressing environmental issues, the evolution of the discipline, and the relevance of studying landscapes and urbanism. The instructor also discusses the significance of understanding the past to shape a sustainable future, highlighting key figures in environmental history and the impact of human activities on the environment. The lecture delves into various philosophical and ecological perspectives, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to environmental studies and the exploration of alternative narratives for sustainable development.

Instructor

Sébastien Jacques Marie Marot

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Environmental issues

Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans (human impact on the environment) or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on the individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans.

Landscape architecture

Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for construction and human use, investigation of existing social, ecological, and soil conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of other interventions that will produce desired outcomes.

Environmentalism

Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. Ecologism is more commonly used in continental European languages, while environmentalism is more commonly used in English but the words have slightly different connotations.

Ecological economics

Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially. By treating the economy as a subsystem of Earth's larger ecosystem, and by emphasizing the preservation of natural capital, the field of ecological economics is differentiated from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment.

Socio-ecological system

A social-ecological system consists of 'a bio-geo-physical' unit and its associated social actors and institutions. Social-ecological systems are complex and adaptive and delimited by spatial or functional boundaries surrounding particular ecosystems and their context problems. A social-ecological system (SES) can be defined as:(p.

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