How are environmental issues — and particularly water issues related to climate change — experienced, understood, studied, and managed in different ways depending on race, class, and gender? How are environmental impacts unevenly distributed? Who produces the knowledge to grapple with climate change and water stresses — and who doesn’t? Who gets to decide (and who is left out) of the solutions to climate change and water security? And what can we learn more broadly about issues of race, class, and gender when we study climate and water in particular? These are the kinds of questions this course will tackle. At the broadest level, it is a course in environmental justice and specifically climate justice. We will focus on water-related topics, and water in many different forms — from urban water contamination and sea level rise to glacier floods and water for farming and food. We will address these issues in the United States and internationally. While the course will examine theoretical and technical aspects of climate and water, the justice focus asks us to think also about ethics, morality, fairness and equity, and how inequality plays out within particular societies, globally, historically, and for future generations. Ultimately, this helps us reflect more profoundly on how we — and others — interact with and influence not only our planet but also each other.
This course is only open to Honors College students.