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
Africa is the world’s most youthful continent and by the end of this century its 54 countries will be home to one in three people on Earth. This course examines contemporary African policy trends – challenges and opportunities – through the prism of national, sub-regional and international politics.
What does it mean to be alive and to be human right now? To what should we devote our lives?
The world is on fire. War, faltering growth, huge investments in artificial intelligence, increasing political polarization, accelerating inequality and a global move towards populist authoritarianism are undermining economies and political systems across the planet. Meanwhile ecosystems are collapsing and global temperatures continue to increase, driving floods, droughts and fires, and threatening to make a significant fraction of the earth’s surface uninhabitable.
How did we get here? How can we bear the feelings of grief, rage and powerlessness that opening ourselves up to what is happening often entail? Are we looking at collapse, or could this moment be laying the foundation for opening towards something new?
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 course explores the intersection of real estate and the critical environmental and social challenges shaping cities and markets today. As the world rapidly urbanizes and climate pressures mount, real estate has become a frontline sector in the pursuit of sustainability. This course enables students to understand and evaluate the role of the built environment in promoting (or hindering) sustainable outcomes.
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 winter session travel course will introduce students to the intersections of climate change, air quality and health for populations in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Students will apply epidemiological tools to examine environmental exposures and health vulnerabilities that are unique to this region.
The seminars consist of student presentation of plans for collection and analysis of data, with discussion by students and faculty. Preparatory work is done under tutorial arrangements with members of the faculty. The emphasis is on conceptual issues necessary for the development of a feasible and informative study.
Confronting vexed historical meanings and present-day uses of the past is the special charge of public historians. This course explores the theme of slavery in environmental context through the lenses and methods of public history, a field of historical inquiry and applied knowledge production that stresses past-present connections, community engagement, collaborative work, and audiences beyond the academy.
