Environmental Studies

This course is structured in two parts, theoretical and practical, and examines the diverging ontological, epistemological, and political frameworks to resolve the biosphere crisis to the human habitability of planet Earth. The first part of the course compares post-dualist approaches (advocating the abandonment of the society-nature distinction) with the theories that recognize a heuristic and epistemological value of the society-nature dualism. The second part of the course maps the range of policies, ideologies, and collective actions in response to the climate disaster: from neo-Malthusian eco-fascism defending a nationalist rootedness in the territory; to the liberal eco-modernism of green growth; as well as the socialist project of a Green New Deal and the agroecological peasant movement, La Via Campesina.

The course starts from the premise that climate change calls for new approaches to sustainable development that take into account complex interactions between climate, social, and ecological systems. This course focuses on experiences, actions, and approaches aiming at the production of services for a society that addresses both adaption and mitigation and promotes long-term climate resilience.

This course provides insight into the some of the most relevant social sciences and social scientific perspectives commonly used in global sustainability science. It introduces the field of social science – broadly the study of the relationship between individuals in their context within society – and its application to our understanding of environmental issues.This course discusses the skills needed to identify and apply some of the key social science concepts and theories that are commonly used in sustainability science. The first part of the course introduces the study of society, of society’s interactions with the environment, and of societal change, thus also demonstrating the specificity of a social scientific perspective on sustainability. The second part of the course examines various social processes of change in nature-society interactions, thus introducing and discussing a range of different, but often complementary theories that are commonly used to conceptualize change toward sustainability. The course is taught through interactive lectures and tutorials, and makes ample use of real world examples and case studies. The course involves diverse learning activities which include concept mapping, small group discussions, writing exercises, and hands-on critiques of students' own implicit assumptions about social processes that are critical for sustainability.

The International Internship course develops vital business skills employers are actively seeking in job candidates. This course is comprised of two parts: an internship, and a hybrid academic seminar. Students are placed in an internship within a sector related to their professional ambitions. The hybrid academic seminar, conducted both online and in-person, analyzes and evaluates the workplace culture and the daily working environment students experience. The course is divided into eight career readiness competency modules as set out by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which guide the course’s learning objectives. During the academic seminar, students reflect weekly on their internship experience within the context of their host culture by comparing and contrasting their experiences with their global internship placement with that of their home culture. Students reflect on their experiences in their internship, the role they have played in the evolution of their experience in their internship placement, and the experiences of their peers in their internship placements. Students develop a greater awareness of their strengths relative to the career readiness competencies, the subtleties and complexities of integrating into a cross-cultural work environment, and how to build and maintain a career search portfolio.

This course provides a geographical and critical perspective to global development, with a focus on energy transition processes in and in relation to the global South. It provides a fundamental understanding of the challenges related to sustainable development from the perspective of the global South by focusing on energy transitions. The course looks at historical transitions to fossil energies as well as the discussions on transitions away from fossil energies. It discusses how the systems and conditions for energy transitions are shaped by historical and uneven relations between the Global South and North. Core issues of energy and development and energy transitions are addressed from the perspective of the global South and placed in the context of global sustainability. The awareness of a spatial perspective to development problems and processes enable students to identify and understand the impact of regional and global processes on people’s lives in specific places.

This course introduces the general method and use of cost-benefit analysis with a particular emphasis on applications to resource and environmental economics. The course therefore deals with many crucial aspects of environmental cost-benefit analysis to provide the necessary background to assess the validity of practical environmental cost-benefit analyses, as well as to formulate how current guidelines can be improved based on the latest economic research. The course consists of a lecture block that provides an overview and introduces students to key concepts. Assessment is based on a presentation and written assignment on a topic of the student’s choosing.