Climate change is an urgent and multifaceted challenge facing all of society.
Harvard faculty teach an expanding array of courses examining the many dimensions of this shared challenge. Explore courses in climate and sustainability ranging from economics and English to public health and climate science.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE SALATA INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABILITY
What does it mean to “think” the environment? How is the environment always already interpreted and infused with meaning? How are different interpretations of the environment intertwined with notions of racial, religious, and political identity? Given these interpretations, what does it mean to be in ethical relationship with the earth? Should we extend our sense of moral community to include land? Should natural objects have moral standing? What is our moral obligation to animals? Should moral standing be extended to all living beings? How has religion constructed how we imagine earth?
This course will focus on physical principles underlying semiconductor devices: electrons and holes in semiconductors , energies and bandgaps, transport properties of electrons and holes, p-n junctions, transistors, light emitting diodes, lasers, solar cells and thermoelectric devices.
The course is designed as an in-depth study of the place of Central Asia in Eurasian and global politics, and the policies of key external actors, such as Russia, the United States, China, the European Union, Turkey, Iran, Japan, South Korea and India, toward the region.
In response to climate change, some experts suggest the key to our survival is curbing mass consumption and working toward a “no-growth” economic model. Yet consumption levels continue to rise globally. We can’t stop ourselves from buying more stuff. To help us better understand why, this course traces the rise of mass consumer culture in modern Europe from the 19th century industrial revolution to the late twentieth century.
The aim of this course is to place human beings in a universal and planetary context. You will learn where we come from beginning with the Big Bang and ending with modern human civilization and our relationship to the planet from which we have evolved and on which we depend.
This course examines how natural and anthropogenic changes in the earth system are affecting the composition and the functioning of the world's land and ocean ecosystems.
This course examines key contemporary educational global challenges and debates, focusing on options to effect systemic change in public education systems.
Part 1: Intersection of environment/industry, including decarbonization of the materials industry. Chemistries for cement and steel production without carbon dioxide emission, the smelting industry for extraction of metals from ores, present-day and possible futures for chemistry of a hydrogen economy, and chemistry of emerging battery technologies.Part 2: Environmental processes of chemistry, such as alkalinity of ocean acidification, pH and pE as master variables for the chemistry of an ecosystem, drinking and wastewater treatment, and soil chemistry for agriculture.
We can define transportation infrastructure to comprise all the physical objects that provide mobility: including everything from trains, highways, and ports to sneakers, trails, and scooters. The amount and type of available infrastructure that is available to urban travelers depends very much on who is willing to pay for it and how.
This course will examine major issues of solid waste (i.e. production, management, storage, treatment, disposal, infrastructure costs and financing, policy) in the developing world at various geographic locations and scales across municipal, industrial, electronic, biological/medical, and radioactive waste.
Leaders and change agents of all kinds often must engage effectively with people whose worldviews are very different than their own. Conflicts involving deeply held values and other fundamental differences in perspective present special challenges and may require adjustments to approaches to negotiation we use in other situations. Through interdisciplinary readings, presentations, negotiation simulations, dialogue experiences, exercises, discussion, and reflective practices, this practice-focused, workshop style course aims to help participants become more aware of how their own and others’ worldviews influence conflicts involving identity-defining value differences and to help them become more effective negotiators.
