In the era of the Anthropocene, cities are facing significant social, economic and environmental changes that, unlike previous historical periods, are occurring extremely rapidly. The acronym b.e.t. - included in the title - refers to the word bet, whose definition is closely linked to the concepts of unpredictability and risk. But the word bet also refers to the notion of opportunity understood positively as the possibility of success. The challenge that the cities of the 21st century have to face concerns the overcoming of the limits and rigidities of the current urban planning, which seems inadequate to manage the new dynamics in action. The term resilience has been introduced in the lexicon of urban planning and architecture to support a new approach to the management of the contemporary city, capable of implementing the attributes of diversity, variability and redundancy of the urban system. The structure of this research wants to retrace the holistic nature of the theme and is proposed as a mosaic of projects, tools and strategies that have the potential to assemble each time in a different way. The objective is to emphasize the importance of triggering in the urban system a plurality of actions, capable of acting simultaneously on multiple levels to ensure processes suitable for change and multifunctional. This research does not intend to trace a defined path, the assumptions of flexibility and adaptability related to the definition of resilience do not allow to define a new urban planning technique based on a model to be followed for the management of the territory, but proposes an open framework of possibilities to guide the cities towards the ecological transition and make them increasingly livable, comfortable, happy, vibrant and beautiful.

Better integration of human cultures and ecological communities is needed to sustain the health of people and the land. The inherent difference between concepts and things themselves, and the cultural disconnection between intellectual-conceptual and physical-material work, are implicated in environmental problems. Landscape designbuild is an opportunity to reconnect words, actions, and the land, to set convincing, practical examples for clients to follow, and to foster a mutually beneficial 'culture of habitat' (Nabhan).A collaborative home and landscape design project was undertaken with a family of three. Fieldwork involved a variety of interactive design techniques combining dialogue AND direct experience. The project ended with the completion of a conceptual design but did not reach construction stage before the close of fieldwork.'Embodied conversation' describes the design process, characterized by alternating modes of interaction, turn-taking, negotiation of differences, and emergence of meaning and purpose. This approach heightened participants' awareness of their environment and generated a variety of useful design ideas, but better procedures were needed for moderating the pace of interaction and for making durable decisions. By balancing dialogue and direct experience, a 'conversational' approach to ecological designbuild work can help participants make sense of and use of their habitat in a way that reconciles human needs with ecological functions. / Master of Landscape Architecture

In this dissertation, I make a theoretical exploration into the mass communication of ecological issues, a phenomenon bound to become increasingly important through the on-going dual process of economic-cum-ecological globalization and information revolution. Such an exploration is warranted, first, because, despite the highly visible coexistence of global warming and the digital divide on the same world-stage, sociohumanistic research generally has continued to focus on ecology and (mass) communication in their mutual separation. Since interconnections of ecology and communication have received attention from only a limited number of media analysts and environmentally sensitive journalists, mass communication of ecological issues is as yet an under-examined theme. Secondly, the scarce research on the topic - though it has occasionally been done and shared under the generalized rubric of environmental or ecological communication (EC) - actually amounts to little more than disparate case studies and empirical reports related to risk and hazard communication, disaster communication, environmental journalism, or science journalism. In other words, mainstream research on communication of ecological matters falls short of a theoretical exploration into the probable interfaces between ecology and communication, pointing to the research community's overall complacency with uncoordinated and narrowly-framed case studies. Furthermore, the majority of existing EC accounts represent a positivistic, solution provider's ideology, even though they are invested in the progressive cause of environmentalism. They generally accept the media as a probative solution to ecologically suspect acts of the State or corporate sector, and are not particularly invested in the speculative realm of possible silences that may characterize the communicative landscapes of global ecologies. I contend that the issues neglected by EC researchers have already been delved into independently - even though to unrelated ends - by thinkers from other more mature discourses such as communication systems theory, development studies, philosophy and sociology of technology, political theory, and cultural and literary theories. Engaging with selected contributions from the above discourses, and drawing from the approaches of critical traditionalism on one hand, and semiotics, on the other, I attempt to go beyond EC's erstwhile media focus by theorizing EC critically. As part of that effort, I postulate and develop upon the following analytical and theoretical axes: (1) technology; (2) the nation-state; and (3) and development. I devote exclusive sections to two of the above components: against the general background of development. / Ph. D.

We develop statistical methods for evaluation of regional variation of ecological stressor-response relationships, and regional variation in temporal profiles of water quality, for application to data from monitoring stations on bodies of water. To evaluate regional variation in regression relationships, we use model-based clustering procedures with class-specific regression models. Units for clustering are taken to be basins, or combinations of basins and ecoregions. We rely on a Bayesian formulation and sample the posterior distribution using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. Two general approaches to the label-switching problem are considered, each leading to procedures that we apply in data analyses. Two applications are presented. We explore some relationships among priors with a Dirichlet distribution for class probabilities. We compare two rank-based criteria for grouping stations according to similarities in temporal profiles. The two criteria are illustrated in a hierarchical cluster analysis based on measurements of a water quality variable. / Ph. D.

Ecological networks are complex systems forming hierarchical structures in which energy and matter is transferred between the network’s compartments. Predicting energy flows in food webs usually involves complex parameter-rich models. In this thesis, the application of the principle of maximum entropy (MaxEnt) to obtain least biased probability distributions based on prior knowledge is proposed as an alternative to predict the most likely energy flows in food webs from the network topology alone. This approach not only simplifies the characterisation of food web flow patterns based on little empirical knowledge but can also be used to investigate the role of bottom-up and top-down controlling forces in ecosystems resulting from the emergent phenomena based on the complex interactions on the level of species and individuals. The integrative measure of “flow extent”, incorporating both bottom- up and top-down controlling forces on ecosystems, is proposed as a principle behind ecosystem evolution and evaluated against empirical data on food web structure. It could be demonstrated that the method of predicting energy flow with the help of MaxEnt is very flexible, applicable to many different setting and types of questions in ecology, and therefore providing a powerful tool for modelling the energy transfer in ecosystems. Further research has to show in how far the most likely flow patterns are realised in real-word ecosystems. The concept of flow extent maximisation as a selection principle during ecosystem evolution can enhance the understanding of emergent phenomena in complex ecosystems and maybe help to draw a link between thermodynamics and ecology.

The socio-religious regulations of Leviticus offer little-explored perspectives from which to reflect on the relationship between humanity and the non-human creation. The cosmological framework upon which the worldview expressed in Leviticus is constructed places humanity at the fragile interface between creation (order) and chaos (destruction), ever struggling to discern, define and delineate the sacred and the profane. Several texts in Leviticus portray the land as an active character; capable of vomiting, resting and maintaining a ritualistically demanding relationship with God. Not only does the land appear to have a distinct relationship with YHWH, but in fact that relationship predates YHWH’s commitment to Israel. When the people sin, they risk not only the retreat of YHWH’s presence from the sanctuary, but also the land ejecting them in order that it might fulfill its ritual obligations. Each member of the community is responsible for maintaining the well-being of the lived-in world as expressed through obedience to teachings concerning the body, the social group, and cultic behaviour. Within this system, the manifested symbols of created order are those essential elements which enable the sustenance of the whole community: the people, the land, its vegetation and its animals. Responsible human care for this divinely-established ecology is thus ingrained in, and carefully detailed through, the regulations in Leviticus. Important examples include prescriptions for a sabbatical year for the land to rest and to restore its fertility; the Sabbath day as a space of economic disruption and regeneration; agricultural festivals as cultic boundaries of the life of the community; and dietary and cultic laws regulating the killing of animals for humans (as food) or for God (as sacrifice). Disobedience, or sin, renders both the human community, and the land upon which it lives, polluted and unclean. A particularly significant measure of controlling or cleansing the resulting pollution, of both the community and the land, is animal sacrifice – the killing of a perfect animal for God has the potential to restore the delicate balance between chaos and creation. Given these observations, Leviticus' conceptions of the land, animal sacrifice and ritualized rest can be perceived as a fruitful biblical locus of reflection from which to engage contemporary ecological ethics and praxis.

This thesis lies in the overlap of environmental political theory and environmental ethics. More specifically, it focuses on the intersection between distributive ecological justice (justice to nature), and environmental justice (distributing environmental goods between humans). Against the backdrop of the current sixth extinction crisis, I address the question of what constitutes a just usage of ecological space. I define ecological space as encompassing environmental resources, benefits provided by ecosystems and physical spaces and when considering its just usage I not only take into account claims to ecological space held by other humans but also the demands of justice with regards to nonhuman living beings such as animals and plants. In order to address my overall research question, I look at three areas of inquiry in particular. My first area of concern is questions around how environmental justice can be made compatible with a theory of ecological justice. Here I defend a specific definition of ecological space and provide a critique of theories of justice that are based on the view that humanity has an original ownership of the Earth. Secondly, I defend a biocentric approach to distributive ecological justice based on all living beings constituting together a community of fate, and I additionally clarify the relationship between justice and biodiversity loss. Lastly, considering that the current situation of life on Earth does not resemble the circumstance of moderate scarcity where all needs could theoretically be met (as usually assumed by the most influential theories of justice), I inquire into how demands of environmental and ecological justice differ in different circumstances of scarcity, and what could be considered a just compromise between these two domains of justice. I then apply these last considerations to the Half-Earth proposal for creating large protected areas for nonhuman species, which has been advocated by E. O. Wilson and other ecologists as a means to slow the current rate of anthropogenic species extinctions. In essence, the Half-Earth proposal might be ambitious, but I argue there are good reasons to consider it as one building block of a (distributively) just future for life on Earth.

<p>In the following C-Level Thesis, the geographically isolated consumer society that has evolved in the developed world is examined through discourse analysis. This research frames the issue of material consumption in a historical context and then interrogates the modern task of sustainability. Through review and analysis of current discourse in the sociopolitical field of sustainable consumption, this paper critically analyzes the development of modern consumer culture. The concept of ecological citizenship is presented and inspected as an effective strategy for the realization of sustainability and is viewed as a unifier of the many conflicting discourses on sustainable consumption. The dominant institutional discourse of ecological modernization is presented through a review of UK policy documents, and the opinions as well as alternative solutions touted by critics is noted. This paper finds that ideal of ecological citizenship has not yet been reached, but positive steps have been taken to achieve the goal of sustainability through curbing consumptive habits. In this presentation of sustainable consumption discourse it is important to recognize that there may be no absolute answer or right way to live on this planet, but rather, many ways which can, together, bring about a sustainable society.</p>

In the following C-Level Thesis, the geographically isolated consumer society that has evolved in the developed world is examined through discourse analysis. This research frames the issue of material consumption in a historical context and then interrogates the modern task of sustainability. Through review and analysis of current discourse in the sociopolitical field of sustainable consumption, this paper critically analyzes the development of modern consumer culture. The concept of ecological citizenship is presented and inspected as an effective strategy for the realization of sustainability and is viewed as a unifier of the many conflicting discourses on sustainable consumption. The dominant institutional discourse of ecological modernization is presented through a review of UK policy documents, and the opinions as well as alternative solutions touted by critics is noted. This paper finds that ideal of ecological citizenship has not yet been reached, but positive steps have been taken to achieve the goal of sustainability through curbing consumptive habits. In this presentation of sustainable consumption discourse it is important to recognize that there may be no absolute answer or right way to live on this planet, but rather, many ways which can, together, bring about a sustainable society.

The students of PLAN 587B Introductory Urban Design Studio, under the instruction of Dr. Maged Senbel, worked in collaboration with developer Wayne Allen to create 3 sustainable designs for the redevelopment of an amalgamated site in the Big Bend area of Burnaby BC adjacent to Willard Park. Concurrently, through a research-based directed study project Jeca Glor-Bell conducted research on green design principles and technologies to aid the design students in achieving a high level of sustainability in design. This book brings together the research on green design principles and application of green technologies with the final designs. The purpose of this effort is to offer a resource for the developer, other urban planning students as well as interested practitioners seeking to apply green design principles and technologies to future sites. The book begins by explaining the green principles and features which have informed and influenced these designs and then presents the three completed site designs. The first site design, Fenwick Village, was created by Jennifer Fix, Bronwyn Jarvis and Chani Joseph. The second design, Willard’s Eco-Village, was created by Brian Gregg, Lang Lang and Sawngjai Manityakul, and finally the Sprout: The City is the Country Design which was created by Kaitlin Kazmierowski, Jeff Deby and Andrew Merrill. Each of these designs sought to combine three elements: the client’s vision, ecological development principles, and green design features. Finally the book includes several appendices with greater detail on the application of green energy technologies, including calculations for the capacity of different green technologies.