International Relations

  Read Oreskes and Conway’s bleak dystopian global prediction regarding climate change (a future all the more possible in the Age of Trump and widespread climate change denial in the U.S.). Let’s now turn the tables. Reflecting on and using as evidence (where appropriate) lectures, readings, notes, and class discussions, etc., what would a global society without disastrous climate change and acute environmental crisis look like? How would we get there? In other words, who would be the agents bringing about your new more environmentally ethical future and what obstacles would need to be overcome? What kind of polity (that is, government) would it require? How would people interact with their environment? How would people need to relate to one another? How would social relations be organized (for example, relations between, say, nations, classes, or ethnicities)? You might opt to be utopian or idealistic in your thinking, you might opt to be more pragmatic, or some synthesis of the two.