Environmental Governance

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Environmentalism is defined as "concern about and action aimed at protecting the environment". But what environment are we talking about? Whose environment? How do people become concerned about the environment? Who informs people about environmental problems? What kinds of action are taken in the name of protecting the environment? And, perhaps most importantly of all, why does widespread environmental degradation continue despite all the scientific evidence, media coverage, and environmental awareness campaigns? This module explores these questions by examining how and why different understandings and attitudes to the environment have emerged at different times and in different places. By understanding how and why particular forms of environmentalism have emerged historically and geographically, students will learn that the environment is not just an external, physical backdrop to be measured, valued or managed. How people come to understand and relate to the environment is fundamental to the kinds of action (or lack of action) they may take to protect it. This has important implications today as the worsening state of our environment and the lack of meaningful action demands new ways of understanding what it means to be environmental.