FEATURED COURSES · FALL 2017
Environmental Studies: The Social Perspective
Envir St 112
Mon / Wed + various discussion times
11:00-11:50 AM
3 credits
Instructor
Associate Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology and Environmental Studies
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
We now know that environmental problems are fundamentally social problems; they result, at least in part, from human interactions with nature. The ways we organize and conduct ourselves in the economy, in politics, and in our daily lives result in the environmental problems we suffer from and determine the ways we respond to them.
Because of that, the argument goes, we cannot fix the most demanding environmental challenges through science and technology alone. We now recognize that social studies of the environment, including economics, anthropology, sociology, political science, history, and geography, are critical to understanding and solving environmental issues. This course focuses our attention on the social origins of environmental problems, their social impacts, and the different responses they engender.
The class will survey some of the most important environmental problems (e.g., climate change, climate refugees, extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, population change, and deforestation) and some of the tools needed to analyze, understand, and respond to those problems (e.g., precautionary principle, market-based solutions, political economy, radical democracy, global treaties, and deliberative approaches).
One important focus of the course will be on what we call environmental injustice: the unequal distribution of environmental goods and bads on the local and global levels. In this regard, we will study how these environmental factors are unequally distributed along race, gender, class, and space.
OTHER FEATURED COURSES
Green Screen: Environmental Perspectives through Film
M / W
1:20-2:10pm + film screening 4-6pm Wed + various discussion times
3 credits
