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09:26

Introduction: The Oceans and Sustainable Development

The global ocean connects us all and provides our livelihoods, the oxygen we breathe, and transportation, among other things. The ocean is included in SDG 14. This course will try to provide a deeper understanding of the complex understanding of the ocean, environment, and climate system. Humans receive resources from the ocean, as well as risks. There will be weekly lectures on different topics, including the basic physics of ocean circulation, the ocean ecosystem, how the deep ocean works,…

10:28

Transparency and Access to Information

This chapter examines the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and other efforts promoting transparency and public access to information as means of preventing and recovering from conflict. It considers how transparency and access to information can help prevent conflict by helping to fight corruption, manage expectations, encourage participatory monitoring, empower people, and promote open communications. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

08:44

Our Ocean: A Finite Resource

The ocean has always sparked human curiosity. In the mid-20th century, people began to realize that there are limits to what humanity should do to our planet before it cannot support life as we know it, limits known as the planetary boundaries. The human population of the planet has reached 7 billion people and will soon approach 11 billion people. We rely on the earth to support us with ecosystem services; the ocean provides these services by regulating the climate system. The oceans have a…

15:37

Aggregate Demand with Flexible Exchange Rate

In this chapter, Professor Sachs discusses international trade and how it is affected by the exchange rate, which is in turn affected by financial flows and the differences of interest rates at home and abroad. There are two ways to manage the exchange rates of a country, namely by supply and demand, or by the central bank setting the price. This is explained using the case of exchange rate of Renminbi to the US dollar, as managed by the People’s Bank of China. Countries have the right…

07:33

The Challenge of Urban Politics, Planning and Governance, Part II

Urban politics comes down to making decisions with short, medium, and long-term impacts in a context of scarce resources between competing priorities, making planning very important. Types of planning include spatial planning, strategic planning or growth management planning, spatial literacy planning, precinct-level planning, and other intersectional types of planning. This is considered through the case study of the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. Watch Part I This video is licensed…

19:44

Subsidiarity (Local Power, Participation, and Community)

This chapter looks at the differences between global capitalism and sustainable development in the realms of political jurisdictions and intergovernmental relations between different nations and cities. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

32:04

The Silk Road, Then and Now — Belgrade

From Belgrade, a city that has long stood between the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Byzantine worlds, we step back to survey the whole Silk Road system. The Silk Road was never a single road but a vast web of overland and maritime routes that for more than two millennia carried silk, spices, technologies, religions, and ideas. We then trace how that ancient web is being reimagined today through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Trans-Caspian corridor, the China–Europe Railway, and the new…

10:21

Cities: Challenges and Opportunities

This chapter is about the challenges and opportunities that urban centers face. Urban centers are expanding beyond traditional urban boundaries in a process called urban sprawl, which consumes a lot of land. While there are certainly megacities with populations of more than 10 million, a lot of population growth will occur in small and medium cities. There are even a few shrinking cities. Key challenges ahead include increased resources needed for growing, affluent populations. Local…

10:57

The Role of Universities and SDSN

In this chapter, Professor Sachs discusses the role of universities in contributing to global partnerships for achieving the SDGs. He explains the history and formation of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, as well as its work as a global framework of universities. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.