Climate,Energy,and the Politics of Change

This course explores the problem of climate change, the economic and
political challenges in addressing it, and the success or failure of
attempts by both individual countries and the international community
to do something about it. We begin from a consideration of the natural
and social basis of the climate problem itself, before turning to the
mainstream discussion of the politics and economics of climate
change mitigation policy. We then step back to consider climate change
as a problem of large-scale transitions in social and technological
systems, and look to other examples from history to understand how we
should expect the climate change problem and its solutions to
evolve. Finally, we consider three radical set of critiques of
climate change and mainstream climate policy, that together point out
a set of unique political and economic problems.