Course Description:

     This introductory course will give students an integrated overview of the science of climate change and an analysis of the implications of this change for patterns of daily life in their own circumstance and around the world.

     Humankind is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis of global proportions. Scientists from across the world have issued stark warnings about the potential disruption and destabilization that changes in Earth’s climate will most likely cause in the near future for the life systems upon which modern civilization depends. The social and political implications of climate change have begun to become apparent as local communities in widely different parts of the world struggle to adapt to new patterns of excessive rainfall, prolonged droughts and severe weather events. Internationally, nation states have endeavored to forge diplomatic agreements to help humankind cope with both the causes and consequences of global climate change.

     This course has three principal objectives. First, it will introduce students to the science of climate change, drawing attention to the latest research and evolving pattern of scientific data that has emerged on climate in recent years. Second, emphasis will be given to analyzing the social changes and adaptations that human communities have already made and those they will most likely to have to make as the Earth’s climate continues to change in the coming years. Finally, specific attention will be given to the diplomatic efforts that have been launched since the creation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) during the first world-wide Earth Summit on the environment in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992.