Global Environmental Challenges

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

HK - Hong Kong, China: This course seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of the environmental challenges at the global level, focusing particularly on the inevitable tension between social development and the physical environment throughout human history. This course also discusses and explains the socio-economic, geographic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. It aims to offer students with the basic knowledge and analytical tools for making sense of the current global environmental challenges. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach that integrates theories with relevant examples. This course will first introduce the key concepts and major theoretical perspectives in studying sustainable development. It then proceeds to illustrate the evolution of the environment-human nexus in human history, in which humans were originally the passive recipients of environmental changes, and now have become the primary agents in causing environmental changes. The key is the increasing capability of humans in mastering food and energy production. Finally, this course will be concluded with the discussion of the very nature of the global environmental challenges. Students will gain deeper insights into not only the roadblocks to sustainable development but also concepts that are useful for further studies in global sustainability.