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Call for papers for the Association of American Geographers (AAG), Annual Meeting, March 29 - April 2, 2016, San Francisco.
How much is enough? Facing up to the scale of the decarbonization challenge in urban mobility
There has been an upsurge of interest in environmental issues in general, and climate change mitigation in particular, across the social sciences since the turn of the 21st Century.
However, the majority of work related to urban mobility has neglected to comment on and explore the implications of the drastic scale of the cuts demanded by the latest climate science for urban mobility practices, technologies and infrastructures (McGlade
& Ekins 2014). The emerging evidence renders the majority of proven fossil fuel reserves as 'unburnable', making a transition away from fossil fuels during the 21st century a priority for the future of civilisation. This session invites abstracts that: a)
engage with the stark predictions of the latest climate science through radical forms of re-thinking urban mobility practices, technologies and infrastructures; b) examine how dominant political discourses that encourage incrementalist approaches to tackling
climate change can be challenged through theoretical, empirical and practice-based research; and c) provide positive visions of the future that promote human and ecological wellbeing, through examining how the urban can be re-configured for low carbon living.
In particular, we invite papers from researchers who are working on a range of projects that seek to radically reduce individual and collective reliance on carbon-based mobilities, which could be through the following lenses, at a range of scales, from the
individual to the city:
· Exploring forms of New Urbanism and a range of
localized responses to climate change that reduce the need for personal; mobility;
· Local economic initiatives for reducing the mobility
of goods and services;
· The use of Smart technologies for individual and
collective mobility;
· Initiatives to reduce personal mobility and modal
shift through behavioural change and wider changes to social practices;
· Attempts to radically re-vision cities for the
future.
Contributions from all branches of geography and mobility are welcome, including:
• Urban Geography
• Transport Geography
• Practice theory
• Geographies of Technology, GIS and modelling research
• Economic and Political Geography
This special session will include a presentation by Steve Melia, author of Urban Mobility Without the Hot Air, on the implications of climate science for Transport Geography and
Urban Planning. This session encourages geographies that are both outward-looking, focussing on how to best tackle the 'elephant in the room' of climate change and self-reflective.
Please send submissions up to 300 words in length to Robin Lovelace ([log in to unmask]) and Stewart Barr ([log in to unmask])
by October 21st 2015. Successful applicants will be notified on October 23rd and will be expected to pay and register online at the AAG website by October 29th.
Reference:
McGlade, C., & Ekins, P. (2014). The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature, 517(7533), 187–190.
doi:10.1038/nature14016
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Dr. Stewart Barr
Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences
University of Exeter
Amory Building
Rennes Drive
Exeter, EX4 4RJ
Tel: +44 (0)1392 723832
Fax: +44 (0)1392 723342
Web: www.exeter.ac.uk/geography