Teaching Assistant
Zachary Zevitas and Tracy Stamos
  
Lectures & Class Sessions - Wednesdays, 3:30 - 6:00 pm - 53 Church Streem - Room L01
Class Schedule
Course Readings
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.

Climate Change Headlines
[via moreover.com]

 

     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.

Course Schedule

Week 1
25 June
  The Physical System - The Components and Their Evolution
  The History of Climate Science & The Science of Climate History
  "I'll believe it when I see it..., maybe." - Knowledge, Belief and Behavior
   

Week 2
2 July

  Characteristices of the hydrological cycle as more heat is absorbed at the surface in the tropics and moves through Earth's liquid and gaseous fluids toward the poles.
   

Week 3
9 July
  Ice comes and goes
  Mountain Glaciers
  Polar Sea Ice
  Antarctica
 

Greenland
Hour Examination this week.
("Take Home" exam. To be "posted" on Friday, 11 July; to be , completed by Monday, 14 July)
+
Paper Topics Due in class
on Wednesday, 9 July
   

Week 4
16 July
Climate Change and Agriculture - Local and Global Dimensions
  Human's most intimate and sustained link to the ecosystem
  Patterns and trends in agricultural systems -- in the face of new climate realities.
   

Week 5
23 July
Rethinking Agriculture - Redesigning Local Food Systems
   Thinking through the principles of sustainable agriculture
   What will our food systems have to look like if we expect to survive?
   

Week 6
30 July
Climate Change: Public Health, Safety and National Security
  Climate Chaos, Infrastructure and the Built Environment
  Climate Chaos and New and Resugent Disease Patterns
  Climate Chaos as a National Security Issue
   

Week 7
6 August
The International & Corporate Responses to a Global Problem
  Origins, Rationale & Functioning of the IPCC
  What Happens When Governments Fail Their Citizens?
    WBCSD and Corporate Initiatives
    The Climate Group
   

Week 8
13 August

Individual and Collective Initiatives to Address Climate Change
   Global Citizen Action Networks
   State and Regional Action

Hour Exam
+
Final Paper Due

Summer School 2008

Course Requirements

Requirements for the course include completing

1) a mid-term examination - "Take Home" - the week of 9 July - [ Distance learning students will be able to complete this mid-term exam online] This exam counts for approximately 20% of the final grade;

2) a final exercise - 13 August – (to count approximately 20% of the final grade);

3) class participation - (including classroom participation, where possible AND completion of all online class assignments, lecture feedback forms, quizzes, etc)

and

4) A "Statement of Research Intention" & Final Research Term Paper - to be submitted in writing, in class on or before Wednesday, 9 July and Wednesday, 13 August respectively . [That is, a brief 1 page "Statement of Research Intention" for this paper must have been submitted by 9 July, while the term paper itself is due on Wednesdy, 13 August ]. The "Statement of Research Intention" and the Research Term Paper will together account for approximately 50% of the final grade.

Further guidelines on the Midterm Exam, Final Exercise and Research Paper will be given in class and posted online when appropriate. But Nota Bene: Distance Learners who will not be taking the "Final Exercise" in class are required to make arrangements for a Proctor. Instructions for "Proctored Examinations" are available in the Extension School Catalogue, and you must complete an online proctored examination form for this Final Exercise -- just as in the case of the mid-term.

N.B. The final grade for the course will be assessed on approximately the following basis:

1) Mid-term examination - 20% of the final grade
2) Final hour exam exercise - 20% of the final grade
3) Completion of Lecture Feedback forms throughout course- 10% of final grade
4) Statement of Research Intention - 10% of the final grade
5) Term Paper - . 40% of the final grade

Assigned Reading for the Course are drawn from:

Spencer Weart
 
2003
 The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2003) [with support material.]
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC)
  2001 Climate Change 2001: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC, 2001).
  2007 Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers [Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (This Summary for Policymakers was formally approved at the 10th Session of Working Group I of the IPCC, Paris, February 2007.)], (Geneva, Switzerland, IPCC, 2 February 2007).
  2007 Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Summary for Policymakers: Working Group II Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007 [ IPCC WGII Fourth Assessment Report ], (Geneva, Switzerland, Brussles, Belgium, 6 April 2006).
  2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group III - Summary for Policymakers, (Bangkok, Thailand, 4 May 2007).
  2007 IIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report—Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report— Summary for Policymakers. UNFCCC. (17 November 2007)
National Assessment Synthesis
  2000 Climate Change Impacts on the United States The Potential Consequences of
Climate Variability and Change: Overview Report (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2000)
 Shaw, Jonathan
 
2002 
 "The Great Global Experiment," Harvard Magazine.(November-December 2002) [or the HTML version ]
Elizabeth Kolbert
 
2006 
 Field Notes from a Catastrophe (New York, Bloomsbury USA, 2006).
Jeremy K. Leggett
  2001 The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era (N.Y., Routeledge, 2001).
Ross Gelbspan
  2004 Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis--And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster (New York, Basic Books, 2004).
Stephen H. Schneider (Editor), John O. Niles (Editor), Armin Rosencranz (Editor)
  2002 Climate Change Policy: A Survey (Washington, D. C., Island Press, 2002).
Athanasiou, Tom & Paul Baer
  2002 Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming (New York, Seven Stories Press, 2002).
James Lovelock
  2006  The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity (Basic Books, 2006).
 
Recommended
Tony Blair (Foreword), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Editor), Wolfgang Cramer (Editor), Nebojsa Nakicenovic (Editor), Tom Wigley (Editor), Gary Yohe (Editor), Rajendra Pachauri (Introduction)
  2006 Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006).
[PDF version]
 
     
The Unassigned, Required Reading & Listening/Viewing
The New York Times
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