ClassInfo

Global climate change poses perhaps the most significant environmental challenge of this generation. The response to climate challenge spans grassroots movements to coordinated international policy. As policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change continue to take shape, what do decision makers, advocates, and analysts need to know to take effective action? This course will investigate climate change policy from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, emphasizing economic logic, ethical principles, and institutional feasibility. It will focus on the energy transition, particularly in MN, as a way to provide context and action to the course.

This course will explore existing and proposed approaches to mitigate and adapt to climate change through policies that cross scales of governance (from the local to the global) and that impact a wide range of sectors (energy, transportation, manufacturing, water, agriculture, buildings, etc.). Students will have the opportunity to develop deep knowledge of climate change with respect to the energy transition to an economy with fewer GHG emissions. through a team final project. A key theme of the course will be how policy can be shaped in the face of a variety of competing interests to achieve commonly desired outcomes.

Primary Learning Objectives

• Students will understand major institutions that shape science, technology, and environmental policy.

• Students will understand the basics of climate change, sources of emissions, and related policies.

• Students will understand the key concepts of electrifying large elements of the economy.

• Students will understand and apply basic public policy theory and frameworks to select case study topics.

• Students will understand and apply policy implementation frameworks to select science or technology topics.

• Students will apply core concepts from readings and lectures to contemporary policy issues, even in cases where the scientific or technical dimensions may be unfamiliar.

Secondary Learning Objectives

• Students will synthesize knowledge from multiple sources.

• Students will develop a basic understanding of the concept of system thinking and stakeholders.

• Students will understand different paths to implementation and apply the appropriate path to their proposed intervention or solution.

• Students will discuss and identify key leadership traits as they create arguments for panels and debates.

• Students will defend in oral and written communications the various stages of select papers and positions..

• Students will understand cultural and societal implications of their proposed intervention.

• Students will work effectively in a team and with mentors.

• Students will create and deliver effective oral presentations.

Contribution to undergraduate student learning outcomes.

• Can locate and critically evaluate information

• Have mastered a body of knowledge and a mode of inquiry

• Can communicate effectively

• Apply the role of creativity, innovation, discovery, and expression across disciplines