SOC1911: Climate Change and Society

Over the past 150 years, the burning of fossil fuels to power industrial expansion has brought many benefits, but has also caused a terrible problem: global climate change (GCC). If humanity continues to emit large amounts of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it will get hit with intensifying disasters. From a sociological viewpoint, why has this situation come about and what can we do to solve it? Can we create a sustainable world with prosperity for all? This is the most important long-range question for our age. The course presents and discusses the most important social (including political, economic and cultural) problems involved in solving this huge problem. Work consists of mostly of discussing and writing paragraphs on each topic and reading, plus two class presentations, and a few quizzes and two exams.

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