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
Purpose: This course is the second of a two-module sequence in building technology (6121, 6122) and constitutes part of the core curriculum in architecture.
With the deepening of political divisions on societal challenges, policymakers must navigate increasingly tense environments to engage in constructive dialogues across political fault lines. They must be equipped with relevant personal competences interpersonal abilities to maintain productive relationships with difficult counterparts as they search for realistic compromises on programmatic options.
This lecture course surveys models of sustainable design, tracing each back to its historical and philosophical roots and forward to its implications in practice and the collective outcomes of urban architecture.
This course examines the economics of place. We study cities in their role as engines of modern economies. In part two of the course, we consider policies to address affordable housing, urban sprawl, traffic congestion, regional economic divides, persistent joblessness, climate change, and informal settlements.
As enterprise-level activities are increasingly scrutinized for their role in ecological degradation, social inequities, and economic disruptions, organizations must navigate a landscape where accountability extends well beyond financial performance. Students will examine how businesses can address material risks – from climate shocks and regulatory pressures to stakeholder expectations – while identifying opportunities to build resilience and competitive advantage through sustainability.
In this course, students explore an alternative theory of justice that places greater emphasis on democracy, and look at concrete examples of the application of this alternative policy-making framework to concrete domains like housing, good jobs and the economy, education, and climate.
Through the lens of the rapidly changing Arctic region, this module will give students an overarching understanding of these local and global challenges, as well as tools and experience in developing their own policy and social innovations to address complex issues in a sustainable way.
In the face of crises spanning pandemics, political turmoil, and the rapid degradation of the planet’s natural systems—all within a backdrop of myriad inequalities—the power of plants in shaping human experience has been proven. Erosive pressures associated with changes to climate have placed global ecologies and plant communities under assault, yet abundant and resilient life still adapts and flourishes in most places. This course will encourage students to observe these patterns and to learn from context so that we can place the healing and restorative qualities of plants, essential to sustaining life on this planet, in the foreground of our work as landscape architects.
Avoiding the most catastrophic impacts of climate change requires nearly a complete replacement of the world’s energy system. Although the timing and technology mix of this energy transition remain uncertain, it is clear that trillions of dollars in new investment will be needed for everything from wind- and solar-farms, to batteries and EV factories. This is far more than any government or international organization can spend, making the private sector critical to success. In this light, this module explores how policy can help the world to finance the energy transition by using the different financial instruments and institutions that exist.
This graduate level course examines the political and economic drivers that have and will continue to change the Earth’s environment and climate. We will examine scholarship that debates the sources of these changes and the proposed solutions.
