Environmental Studies

This course offers an in-depth analysis of the multidimensional social challenges that are embedded in the global food systems, utilizing the Sicilian foodways as a case study. Immigration from Africa and the Middle East, recent food quality discourses and fair-trade practices intersect in Sicily, at the center of the Mediterranean, offering a rich landscape of NGOs and businesses that lead the social change towards a more equitable and just system of food production, distribution, and consumption. The course discusses the experiences of the migrant agricultural labor force, seeking to create a better life for themselves far from their homelands; and the course explores the agricultural system into which they find themselves inserted. Combined with an in-depth introduction to the new regimes of food quality that have influenced the emergence of prestigious and innovative food brands and labels in Sicily, students use their new understanding of the trends of the recent past to map the possible developments that Sicilian cuisine may take in the future.

This course examines resources & management systems; sustainable development - history, concepts & applications; framework & process of planning with a focus on local & regional levels; integrated landscape conservation; protected area planning and management; land tenure & property rights; and communicating conservation.

This course familiarizes students with renewable energy resources and technologies for their utilization. The topic covered include, renewable energy resources, their advantages and limitations; the solar energy potential of Botswana; the utilization of solar energy for power generation: photovoltaic and solar thermal electric plants; solar cells, modules, arrays, and storage batteries; stand-alone and grid-connected photovoltaic plants; solar collectors; solar plants for thermal applications such as water heating, space heating and cooling, and refrigeration; technologies for the utilization of wind, biomass and geothermal energy, hydro-power, ocean and tidal energy; renewable energy system design and economics; and socio-economic and environmental aspects f renewable energy.

This course examines our changing environment, driven largely by our linear economy (take-make-dispose). Particular emphasis is given to the ‘carbon currency’ and how carbon drives environmental change. There is an emphasis on developing solutions to environmental issues, especially to climate change adaptation and development of a circular economy. Tikanga Maori aspects of environmental change will be covered.

This course provides a systematic overview of the key topics of environmental ethics. It focuses on three protracted and heated debates at the interface of environmental ethics and ecological restoration. The first debate is about the value of ecological restoration (including ‘nature development’). The second debate is about the moral status of animals within ecological restoration projects. Here the course distinguishes between (complementary) two cases: the first one is about the (re)introduction of indigenous species that were once pushed out of their native environment; the other one is about the elimination or eradication of exotic and alien species that have invaded and degraded ecosystems. Both cases show that there is considerable tension between environmental ethics and animal welfare ethics. The third debate is about the role of human intervention in the Anthropocene. Old-school conservationists want to restore and protect pristine nature and call for an attitude of humility. Ecomodernists, on the other hand, see the Anthropocene not as an ecological disaster, but as an opportunity to increase human welfare and protect nature with the use of technology.

This course teaches the usage of R for the analysis of ecological data. It introduces several different analysis options for biological or ecological data (focusing specifically on community-level data) using the free and open-source statistical, mapping, and graphing platform R. Broad topics covered will include: introduction to R language and basic functions / graphics; basic mapping options; diversity measurement; univariate, multivariate, parametric and non-parametric analysis and their basis; functional diversity; and ecological time series analysis. Students will require a laptop for sessions. Schedule is subject to changes according to student progress.

The extraction, production, distribution and use of energy sources has significant environmental, social, political and economic impacts. Impacts are multi‐scalar, ranging from global climate change to socio‐cultural disruption at local, national and regional scales. This module exposes students to these impacts and related energy geopolitics with detailed case studies. The module also gives students a comprehensive background of the development and use of promising future post-carbon alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and biofuels. It discusses how to build the energy-efficient architecture of a low carbon economy and develop sustainable energy system design for the future.