Trashed! Waste and Our Planetary Predicament

Catalog description

We are what we eat, but we are also what we waste. Yet that aspect of our selves (and our planet) is rarely discussed, meaning we all need an education in waste. That need becomes ever-more urgent as humans turn the planet inside out, digging vast quantities of materials out of the ground and spreading them across land, water, and air. The mass of everything ever made now exceeds that of all living things. Waste accounts for mounting proportions of this anthropogenic mass. In our epoch, waste has become the main event. But what does it mean to designate things, places, or people as waste? How does the meaning of waste change, and how does it reflect value systems? In exploring such questions, this course takes you on a historical world tour that ranges from human excrement to greenhouse gases, and from southern Africa to the Norwegian Arctic. It encourages you to begin your Stanford education by reflecting on how each of us contributes to the worlds of waste we create and inhabit.