Climate Change and Climate Justice

Climate change is many things: a complex scientific phenomenon, a powerful, collective challenge for humanity, as well as a window into many of the biggest questions about what it means to live as humans on our planet today. This course combines key concepts in environmental science necessary to understand climate change, as well as opportunities to think together about some of those big questions about our past, present, and future. Throughout, we will employ frameworks of power analysis, questions of justice, and systems thinking to this content.

During this first half of the course we’ll learn the basics of climate science, including the greenhouse effect mechanism, the role of human impacts in anthropogenic climate change, and local and global effects of climate change while considering the guiding questions: What do we know now and why do we think it's true? What different sources of knowledge can we draw on to understand climate change? How can systems thinking and the concept of feedback loops help us to understand both the science of climate change and the possibilities for responding to it? 

In the second half of the course we will consider more closely what response, agency and imagination can look like in the face of these crises: from adaptation, mitigation, and collective action in the present, to revisiting our histories in order to re-imagine our futures.

We will have at least two guest speakers.

Prerequisites: None

Instructor: Anna Mudd

DETAILS:

Suggested age range: 13+

Outside work: In most weeks there will be one documentary to watch and some short case studies to read.

When & where: Fridays on Zoom from 11:00-12:00 Eastern Time, Jan. 10 - March 28, 2025.

Fee: $250 ungraded/$300 graded; this includes a non-refundable registration fee of $10. We offer discounts for groups, siblings, and students who enroll in multiple classes. (Discount information.) Payment plans available. Fees waived for families with financial need.  (Waivers and payment plan information.) Questions about how classes work? Read our course FAQ.

Photo credit: Laura Fokkena