Life-support: The Political Ecology of Urban Air (Presentation)

Life-‐Support:

The
Poli2cal
Ecology
of
Urban
Air

Stephen
Graham

Newcastle
University

‘City
air
makes
one
free’?

(The
words
carved
over
the
city
gates
of
the
Hansea2c
League,
a

network
of
trading
ci2es
in
medieval
Europe)

Introduc)on:
1915
and
the

“Defencelessness
of
Breathing”

(Elias
Cane),
1987)

“At
first
we
feel
nothing,
we
are
insensi2ve,
we
are
naturalized.

And
then
suddenly
we
feel
not
something
,
but
the
absence
of

something
we
did
not
know
before
could
possibly
be
lacking.

Think
of
the
poor
soldiers
on
the
front
line,
deep
in
their

trenches,
the
22nd
of
April
1915
near
Ypres.
They
knew

everything
about
bullets,
shells,
rats,
death,
mud,
and
fear—but

air,
they
did
not
feel
air,
they
just
breathed
it.

And
then,
from
this
ugly,
slow-‐moving,
greenish
cloud
lingering

over
them,
air
is
being
removed.
They
begin
to
suffocate.
Air
has

entered
the
list
of
what
could
be
withdrawn
from
us.
In
the

terms
of
the
great
German
thinker
Peter
Sloterdijk,
air
has
been

made
explicit;
air
has
been
reconfigured;
it
is
now
part
of
an
air-‐
condi2oning
system
that
makes
our
life
possible.”
Bruno
Latour

“An
implicit
condi2on
of

existence”
(Sloterdijk,
2009).

Anthropocenic
Atmospheres:
The
Machinic
Manufacture
of
Air

Where
is
the
Poli2cal
Ecology
of
Urban
Air?

“Urban
poli2cal
ecology
research
has
so
far
been
focused
on

natural
resources
for
consump2on,
produc2on,
and
recrea2on,

rather
than
on
environmental
pollu2on”
(Véron,
2006)

‘Technical’,
depoli2cised,

medicalised,
physical-‐geographic

and
public
health
policy
discourses

dominate

Raymond
Bryant

diagnosed
over

fieeen
years
ago
that

“the
exis2ng

literature
[on
changing
air
quality]

is
largely
devoid
of
poli2cal

analysis'',
a
problem
which

inevitably
works
to
obfuscate
the

ways
in
which

`ùnequal
power

rela2ons
are
[]
ìnscribed'
in
the

air”
(1998)

Some
Progress:

Environmental
Jus2ce

and
Medical
Anthropology.

But
These
Fail
to
Situate

the
Poli2cal
Ecology
of

Urban
Air
Within
Socio-‐
Natural
and
Techno-‐
Natural
Metabolism
and

the
Mul2scale
Poli2cs
of

Urban
Nature

“The
cars
burning
fuels
from
distant
oil-‐deposits
and
pumping
CO2

into
the
air,
aﬀec2ng
people,
forests,
climates,
and
geopoli2cal

condi2ons
around
the
globe,”
they
wrote,
“
further
complete
the

global
geographic
mappings
and
traces
that
ﬂow
through
the

urban
and
‘produce’
London
as
a
palimpsest
of
densely
layered

bodily,
local,
na2onal
and
global—but
depressingly
uneven

geographically—
socioecological
processes”(Erik
Swyngedouw
and

Nick
Heynen,
2003)

“Air
maqers
too
liqle
in
social
theory.
Aside
from

signifying
a
loss
of
grounding,
air
is
as
taken
for
granted

in
theory
as
it
is
in
most
of
our
daily
breaths.
[]
Air
is

lee
to
drie
[…]
neither
theorized
nor
examined,
taken

simply
as
solidity’s
lack.
There
seems
at
ﬁrst
to
be
no

reason
not
to
let
it”
(Tim
Choy,
2010)

Curiously
Ignored
by
Debates
on
Ci2es
and
Climate
Change,
a

Ver2cal
Turn,
‘Planetary
Urbanisa2on’,
Urban
Aﬀect
and

Atmosphere...

A
cri2cal
poli2cal
ecology
of

urban
air
needed
to
make

explicit
the
systema2c

anthropogenic
and
machinic

manufacture
and
material

condi2oning
of
both
‘good’
and

‘bad’
air,
through
design,

technoscience,
capitalist

industrialism,
militarism,

warfare,
commodiﬁca2on,

consumerism,
and
so
forth.

“This
is
Sloterdijk’s
explicitness.
You

are
on
life
support,
it’s
fragile,
it’s

technical,
it’s
public,
it’s
poli2cal,
it

could
break
down—it
is
breaking

down—it’s
being
fixed,
you
are
not

too
confident
of
those
who
fix
it.

Our
current
condi2on
merely
relies

on
our
more
explicit
understanding

that
this
tenta2ve
technological

system,
this
“life
support,”
entails

the
whole
planet—even
its

atmosphere.”
(Bruno
Latour,
2005).

“You
Are
on
Life-‐Support...”.

Eight
Themes...

(i)
links
between
global
warming,
urban
heat-‐island
eﬀects

and
killer
urban
heat-‐waves;

(ii)
urban
pollu2on
crises;

(iii)
paradoxes
of
urban
pollu2on;

(iv)
horizontal
movements
of
polluted
air

(v)
ver2cal
poli2cs
of
urban
air
and
the
construc2on
of

ver2cal
condominiums
structures
for
elites;

(vi)
vicious
circles
that
characterised
air-‐condi2oned

urbanism;

(vii)
heat-‐related
deaths
of
workers
building
air-‐condi2oned

structures
in
increasingly
hot
climates;
and,
ﬁnally

(viii)
growth
of
large-‐scale
air-‐condi2oned
environments.

(i)
Heat
Islands
and
Killer
Heat
Waves

“The
U.S.
Environmental
Protec2on
Agency
es2mates
that,

between
1979
and
2003,
heat
exposure
has
caused
more
than

the
number
of
mortali2es
resul2ng
from
hurricanes,
lightning,

tornadoes,
ﬂoods,
and
earthquakes
combined.”
(NASA,
2010).

Urban
Planet,
Warming
Planet..

Systema2c
inequality,
housing
policies,
poor
urban

design
and
hopelessly

inadequate
emergency

response
arrangements
can
combine
together
to

allow
urban
heat-‐waves
to
become
mass
killers
of

the
poor,
the
lonely,
the
old,
the
weak
and
the

vulnerable

.

Epidemiological
studies
have
shown
that
there
is
a

“signiﬁcantly
increased
risk
of
hospitaliza2on
for

mul2ple
diseases,
including
cardiovascular
disease,

ischemic
heart
disease,
ischemic
stroke,

respiratory
disease,
pneumonia,
dehydra2on,
heat

stroke,
diabetes,
and
acute
renal
failure,
with
a

10°F
increase
in
same-‐day
apparent
temperature”

due
to
urban
heat
waves
(Ostro
et
al,
2010).

By
Friday,
July
14,
“thousands
of
Chicagoans
had
developed

severe
heat-‐related
illnesses.
Paramedics
couldn't
keep
up
with

emergency
calls,
and
city
hospitals
were
overwhelmed.
Twenty-‐
three
hospitals—most
on
the
South
and
Southwest
Sides—went

on
bypass
status,
closing
the
doors
of
their
emergency
rooms
to

new
pa2ents.
Some
ambulance
crews
drove
around
the
city
for

miles
looking
for
an
open
bed.
Hundreds
of
vic2ms
never
made

it
to
a
hospital.
The
most
overcrowded
place
in
the
city
was
the

Cook
County
Medical
Examiners
Oﬃce,
where
police

transported
hundreds
of
bodies
for
autopsies.”
(Klinenberg,

2002)
.

Deaths
of
the
“Forgoqen”

Chambers
de
Bonne:
Hidden,

Ver2cal
Geographies
of
Vulnerability

(ii)
Toxic
Domes

“Air...from
Johannesburg
to
Tehran,
to
Delhi
to
Jakarta,
isn’t

about
aesthe2cs,
or
even
possible
climate
change
at
some
point

in
the
future:
it’s
about
life
and
death
now”

(Doyle
and
Risely,
2008).

Not
New:
Miasma,
‘Pea
Soupers’,

Industrial
‘Accidents’
etc..

But
Exponen2al
Growth:

7
Million
Deaths
in
2012
(WHO)

“The
risks
from
air

pollu2on
are
now
far

greater
than
previously

thought
or
understood,

par2cularly
for
heart

disease
and
strokes,

Few
risks
have
a
greater

impact
on
global
health

today
than
air
pollu2on;

the
evidence
signals
the

need
for
concerted
ac2on

to
clean
up
the
air
we
all

breathe.”
(WHO,
2014).

China
and
India
Dominate...

Trapped...Topographies
and
Inversions

‘Airquakes’

“Can
a
set
of
ontological
rights
—
such
as
breathing
—

actually
challenge
or
even
displace
economic

hegemony?”

The
unbearable
urban
air
within
many
Chinese
ci2es

works
to

“brings
the
elements
of
our
life-‐world
out
of

a
background
of
neglect
and
foregrounds
them
as
the

ontological
precondi2ons
of
human
existence.”
Albert

Pope
(2009)

As
an
Addendum...
Poli%cal
Airquakes....

(iii)
Pollu2on
Paradoxes:
City
Branding

Re-‐Engineering
Air
for
Urban
Spectacles

Propagandist
Pronouncements...

‘Nuclear
Winters’:
Interrup2ng

Urban
Poli2cal
Ecologies
of
Agriculture

Aesthe2c
and
Aﬀec2ve
Experiences
of
Ci2es

Giuditata
Vendrame:
the
thickening
haze
of
Shanghai’s

polluted
air
“oeen
imbue[d]
the
city
with
a
par2cular

sense
of
lightness,
suspension
and
fragility.”

“The
city
gains
visual
and
architectural
quali2es,”
she

writes.
“The
light
of
the
sunbeams
penetrates
this

foggy
layer,
giving
the
city
a
magic
and
fairytale
color.

However,
this
‘magical
haze”
is
harmful.
It
is
smog,
air

pollu2on.”
(Vendrame,
2012).

Oﬀshoring

Not
a
Complete

Insulator

Between
12
and
24%
of

the
sulphur
pollutants
in

the
Western
United
States

had
been
blown
there

from
industrial
and
urban

sites
on
China
by

atmospheric
wind
systems

(v)
Airy
Refuges,
Human
Sinks:
Ver2cal

Architectures
as
“Spa2alized
Immune
Systems”

“One
can
[…]

discern
a
poli2cal-‐economic

geography
of
air”
(Choy,
2010)

Ascension
of
the
Elites

“The
rich
have

access
to
good
air
while
the
poor
are

relegated
to
the
dregs,
to
the
smog
and
dust
under
ﬂyovers
or

on
the
streets”
`
(Tim
Choy,
2010)

“One
could
[..]
lament
the
splintering
of
the

atmosphere.”
(Caney,
1987).

“In
the
typical
street
canyons
of
Hong
Kong,
air
pollutants
tend
to
be

trapped
in
the
boqom
15
m.”
(Wong
et
al,
2012).

Massive
podium
blocks
between
the
streets
and
the
raised
walkways
in

Hong
Kong
“not
only
block
most
of
the
wind
to
pedestrians
(aﬀec2ng

comfort
and
air
quality),
but
also
minimize
the
“air
volume”
near
the

pedestrian
level
(aﬀec2ng
air
quality).”
(Ng,
2009).

(vi)
Fragmen2ng
Atmospheres:

Vicious
Circles
of
the
Air-‐Con
City

`’But
where
is
Utopia,
where
the
weather

is
64.4°F...?”
(Le
Corbusier,
1967).

Major
Urban
and
Demographic
Shies
are

Air-‐Condi%oned
Geo-‐Economic
Transforma%ons

Air-‐Con

Landscapes

Heat
Dumping
Further
Exaggerate

Heat
Islands
and
Heat
Emergencies:
Paris,
2003

Blackouts:
“Turning
buildings
into
refrigerators
burns

fossil
fuels,
which
emits
greenhouse
gases,
which
raises

global
temperatures,
which
creates
a
need
for
-‐-‐
you

guessed
it
-‐-‐
more
air-‐condi2oning”
(Hutchinson,
2010).

From
Comfort
to
Survival:
“Ownership
and
usage
of
air-‐
condi2oners
signiﬁcantly
reduce[s]
the
eﬀects
of

temperature”
on
the
wide
range
of
condi2ons,
diseases

and
ailments
that
can
become
killers
during
urban
heat

waves
(Ostro
et
al,
2010).

Inadequate
Public
Policies:
Market
Hegemony

Two
vicious
circles:

Heat
displacement
and

Power/Fossil
Fuels

(vii)
Citadels
of
Death
:

Hot
Bodies,
Cooled
Bodies,
Atmospheric
Apartheid

“As
many
people

are
killed
on

construc2on
sites

throughout
the

world
each
year
as

die
as
a
result
of

armed

conﬂict”
(Na2onal

Examina2on
Board

in
Occupa2onal

Safety
and
Health,

n.d).

880
migrant
construc2on
workers
died
in
the
UAE
in

2004
alone

“As
many
as
5,000
construc2on
workers
per
month

were
brought
into
the
accident
and
emergency

department
of
Rashid
Hospital
in
Dubai
during
July
and

August
2004”
(Human
Rights
Watch,
2006).

“Dream-‐

worlds
of

neoliberalism”

Aeer
the
UK’s
shadow
sports
minister,

Clive
Eﬀord,
expressed
revulsion
at
the

latest
revela2ons
of
worker
deaths
in

Qatar,

Maher
Mughrabi
wondered:

“
Where
exactly
has
this
man
been?”

Dubai,
Qatar
and
Bahrain
have
been

hos2ng
the
stars
of
golf,
tennis,

snooker,
formula
one
and,
of
course,

horse
racing
for
decades
now.
And
all

those
holidaymakers
in
Dubai
who

have
sampled
the
shopping
fes2val,

the
mall
with
the
indoor
ski
slope
or

zooming
up
in
the
lie
of
the
world's

tallest
building
should
also
know
that

all
this
was
built
through

the
same
system
of
labour
that
is

suddenly
so
appalling”
(2013).

(viii)
Climate
Capsules:

Echoes
of
Buckminster
Fuller

“The
air
starts
to
become

private”
(Vendrame,
2012)

“Let
us
not
forget
that
today’s
so-‐
called
consumer
society
was

invented
in
a
greenhouse
–
in
the

very
same
glass-‐canopied,

nineteenth
century
arcades
in
which

the
ﬁrst
genera2on
of
‘experience

customers’
learned
to
breathe
the

intoxica2ng
scent
of
an
enclosed,

interior-‐world
full
of

commodi2es”
(Dorrian,
2012).

“More
pure,
less
polluted,
and
hence
more

‘itself’
than
in
the
world
beyond,
albeit
now
as

commodity.”

(Dorian,
2012).

Machinic
Capsularisa2on

of
Urban
Natures
Within

Secessionary,
Elite
‘Bubbles’

Conclusion:
The
‘Right
to
the
City’

as
the
Right
to
Breathe!

•  ‘Poli2cs,
from
now
on,
will
be
a
sec2on
of
the

technology
of
climate-‐control’.
Peter
Sloterdijk

•  A
ver%cally-‐sensi%ve
and
cri%cal
poli2cal
ecology
of

urban
air
is
urgently
needed!

•  Cabin
Ecologies
and
elite
utopias:
Commodiﬁca2on,

life-‐support,
social
abandonment
within

post-‐natural

urban
ecologies
and
increasingly
inhospitable
‘techno-‐
natures’

•  The
poli2cal
ecologies
of
contemporary
urban
air

are

heavily
shaped
by
contradic2ons
between
the
mass

and
density
of
increasingly
hot
and
toxic
urban

atmospheres,

and
prolifera2ng
dreams
of
controlled

and
cooled
microclimates,
both
mobile
and
sta2c,
for

elites,
,
organised
around
neoliberalised
consump2on,

work
with
oeen
murderous
injus2ce.

“People
feel
very
strongly.”
writes
Giudiqa
Vendrame
(2012),

“that
their
private
construc2ons
of
immunity
are
endangered
by

the
presence
of
too
many
construc2ons
of
immune
spheres
which

are
pressed
against
each
other
and
destroy
each
other.”

Thus,
urbanites:
“feel
compressed
within
these
overcrowded

spaces.
We
feel
suﬀocated.
As
if
there
isn’t
enough
space.
As
if

there
isn't
enough
air
for
us.
On
one
side
the
fear
of
suﬀoca2on,

of
no-‐breath.
On
the
other
(out)side
the
fear
of
the
unknown,
the

invisible
[hazards
of
urban
air
pollu2on].”

“Which
is
and
which
will
be
our
rela2onship.
to
the
air?
”,

Vendrame
asks.
“What
sort
of
air
do
we
breath
on
the
inside
and

outside
of
our
spaces?”
(ibid.),

So
Far
Incremental
Explora2ons:
Geothermal
Air-‐Con

Planning

for

Heat
Emergencies

Vegeta2on
Roofs
and
Walls

Life-support: The Political Ecology of Urban Air (Presentation)

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Destaque

Destaque (15)

Semelhante a Life-support: The Political Ecology of Urban Air (Presentation)

Semelhante a Life-support: The Political Ecology of Urban Air (Presentation) (20)

Mais de Stephen Graham

Mais de Stephen Graham (20)

Último

Último (20)

Life-support: The Political Ecology of Urban Air (Presentation)