Winning the Climate-Change Battle

Course Times & Enrolment

This course is currently unavailable.

Course Summary

Climate change is viewed by many as humanity’s greatest challenge, by others as a hoax. Still, by choosing to mitigate or geo-engineer climate change, humankind has the power to profoundly regulate Earth’s future habitability. Come and learn about recent advances in global warming and in potential solutions from a leading Geoscience expert.

Course Details

Pre-requisites for enrolment

No previous knowledge is required.

Content of Course

1. How the climate system works. The basic climate-change problem.

2. Global signals of a changing climate and environmental impact. Why do so many sceptics doubt climate?

3. Economics of climate change. Fracking? Nuclear? Renewables? Peak Oil? Peak Coal?

4. Can science fix climate change? Staving off catastrophic climate change.

Teaching method(s)

Lecture-based with class discussion. Illustrated PowerPoint presentations. Short videos and a film screening.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

Calculate their carbon footprint.
Develop an understanding of the key underlying social and scientific concepts associated with climate change.
Assess state-of-the-art projections of future climate change and environmental impact.
Judge the importance, in climate policy and governance, of basic economic themes such as market failure, mitigation and carbon pricing.

Sources

Core Readings

Recommended:

Maslin, M. A. (2014) Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press. [Widely available, inexpensive, pocket-sized paperback.]

Web Sources

Science: http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/thompson/Blog

Politics: Global Climate Change: A Challenge to Policy. KJ Arrow [A good, simple summary] http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/annet/sum/SUM4015/h08/Arrow.pdf

Class Handouts

Handouts and journal article reprints will be made available on a course webpage.

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email COL@ed.ac.uk or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.