Technological Revolutions and Environmental Change

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

How should we address the environmental impacts of new and emerging technologies such as Bitcoin, artificial intelligence, or electric cars? To answer this question, and others like it, we must first remember that technology does not exist in a vacuum; just as technologies impact the environment, social systems shape and are shaped by technological development. In this course, students will gain an understanding of these interrelated systems by reading a variety of historical and scientific sources with an emphasis on the impacts of technology upon the environment during history's three Industrial Revolutions (i.e., the rise of the steam engine, the emergence of mass production, and the development of computing technologies). These revolutions were times of rapid technological development with especially dramatic impacts on politics, economics, the environment, and society. Discussions of these readings in conjunction with individual research projects will allow students to incorporate the lessons of the course into a critical analysis of the impacts of rapid technological change, culminating in a discussion of what the future (and present state) of technological change may be. By the end of this course, students will have developed writing, research, and communication skills which will help them craft well-developed research questions and present evidence-driven arguments in their respective fields of study.