History and Ethics of the Global Climate Crisis

Catalog description

(HISTORY and EARTHSYS 79C are 3 units; HISTORY and EARTHSYS 179C are 5 units.) This course explores the ethical challenges of the climate catastrophe from historical, social, economic, political, cultural and scientific perspectives. These include the discovery of global warming over two centuries; the rise of secular and religious denialism toward the scientific consensus on it; the dispute between "developed" and "developing" countries over the timing and amount of national contributions per the 2015 Paris Accord; climate justice as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, gender, and nationality; and the "role morality" of various actors (scientists, politicians, fossil fuel companies, the media and ordinary individuals) in assessing ethical responsibility for the catastrophe and how to mitigate, adapt, or even geoengineer, it.