Environmental Studies

This course discusses global environmental problems, with special attention to the Arctic, and international tensions that exist in the Arctic. Topics include: polar exploration; the Artic-- location and characteristics; climate change and its effects in the Arctic-- resource extraction and navigation of Arctic waters; Arctic states and the extension of their sovereignty over marine areas; Greenland and its historical and legal situation; the Arctic Council; indigenous peoples of the Arctic; the 2030 Agenda in the Arctic; security and defense; the EU; China; Arctic science as a tool for cooperation.

This is an advanced course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. There are three versions of this course; this course, “GEOGRAPHY OF DEVELOPMENT,” UCEAP Course Number 176 and Bologna course number 19695, is associated with the LM in Local and Global Development degree programme. One of the other versions, “GEOGRAPHIES OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES,” UCEAP Course Number 177A and Bologna course number 81952, is associated with the LM in History and Oriental Studies degree programme. The final version “GEOGRAPHY OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES,” UCEAP Course Number 177B and Bologna course number 95931, is associated with the LM in Local and Global Development degree programme.
Climate change offers the opportunity for a multidisciplinary analysis. The course discusses various aspects of the topic through a primarily geographical approach. The course is structured into three parts. Part one introduces climate change as a global phenomenon, with its natural and anthropogenic root causes. Students discuss and reflect on the socio-spatial inequalities inherent in the climate crisis. Part two analyzes climate governance, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Post Kyoto adaptation and mitigation strategies. In addition to the policy-making process, the course critically examines theoretical frameworks of adaptation, notions of climate justice, and intersectional approaches to addressing the climate crisis and its colonial roots. Part three concerns climate change and mobility. The course examines the complex interconnections between climate change and (im)mobility. Empirical examples are drawn from the #ClimateOfChange [https://climateofchange.info/publications-press/] interdisciplinary research project to contextualize the climate crisis as it is manifested, resisted, and understood from diverse locations across the globe. At the end of the course students show understanding of some of the global challenges the population of the planet has been facing since the second half of the twentieth century. Among these, the critical relation with the natural resources and with the concept of development and, above all, climate change, with its connections to territorial development, ecological risk, food security, and the consumption of natural resources. At the end of the course, the students have acquired the theoretical and empirical tools to critically analyze the global strategies of climate resilience and cooperation and the relation between climate change and tourism.

This is an interdisciplinary course that addresses sustainability, climate change and how to combine economic development with a healthy environment. Students explore greening the economy and the sustainable development goals on four levels – individual, business, city, and nation, and look at the relationships between these levels. Practical examples of the complexities and solutions across each level are discussed. A particular focus is placed on examples from Scandinavia, but the course also features examples from Europe and around the world.

What is the evidence for anthropogenic climate change? How can we generate low-carbon electricity from nuclear and renewable sources, and how can we make our transport infrastructure greener? If we fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently rapidly, will we need to intervene directly in the climate system through so-called “geoengineering”? This course covers all of these topics, with a strong emphasis on the underlying physical principles and deriving simple estimates of the potential contribution of various low-carbon energy sources. In addition to attending lectures, students research one particular aspect of climate & energy in depth and present their findings in an essay and associated short presentation.

This course is tailored towards three of the major environmental domains: water, energy, and food systems which are crucial for human subsistence and of major environmental relevance. This course reviews the major transformations (transitions) that are needed within these three intersecting systems to reach sustainability. The core concepts of "Sustainability" and "Transitions" are critically discussed from the perspectives of policy, history, and technology. The multi-disciplinary perspectives on "Sustainability" and "Transitions" are applied to the analysis of past and future transformations in food, water, and energy systems in the domains of production, supply, distribution, and consumption. In this course, the concept of transition as it relates to sustainability is used to analyze systems-based transformation processes in which sectors in society change in a fundamental way over one generation (25 years) or more. The course adopts a historically situated and contextual analysis. It considers major changes these systems have undergone in the past as a crucial prerequisite to discussions on the present and future transitions. The course begins with a foundational week of historical and theoretical lectures on the key concepts of sustainability and transition (management) underpinning the course. Following this foundational week, the course progresses to offer three thematically structured weeks focused on the topics of energy transitions, food transitions, and water transitions. Each of these thematic areas is explored from the angles of environmental history, environmental policy/sociology, and environmental technology. Through this thematic approach, an interdisciplinary perspective of past, present, and future transitions in the intersecting domains of food, water, and energy through which conceptual, historical, and present issues are discussed through Dutch and international cases and examples. The course also includes an excursion to innovative sustainability projects in The Netherlands.

This course offers a study of state-of-the-art research within the field of environment, society, and development with a specific focus on understanding theoretical approaches to development geography and coupled human-environment systems in the Global South. It provides the theoretical and historical foundations for understanding contemporary sustainability agendas, including approaches to sustainable development. The first part of the course focuses on societal transformation processes in urban and rural areas and discusses how contemporary scholars theorize and explore urbanization and rural transformation processes in the Global South. The second part of the course focuses on the dynamics of coupled human–environmental systems and the multiple conceptual models that have been proposed to understand this complex relationship, including cultural, human, and political ecology; land use intensification; land system science; sustainability science; and resilience and vulnerability approaches. The course discusses approaches that relate to interactions between the human and environmental spheres.

This course explores various energy-related issues through an interdisciplinary lens drawing on literature from the environmental sciences, communication science, psychology, and sociology. In drawing together the links between energy and society, students explore the role of greenwashing within the energy sector, the socio-political and environmental impacts of energy infrastructure development (drawing on case studies such as the Shale Gas boom in the US, and oil extraction in the Arctic), and explore questions such as can we engineer our way out of the climate crisis? As an overarching frame for the course, students explore how energy and climate issues are communicated to the public, and in doing so draw on the field of science communication.