An Inconvenient Truth: The Human History of Climate Change

3 units

While climate change has become a hot-button issue in recent decades, it is by new means a new concern. Advisors to the king of France were warning against deforestation in the eighteenth century and nineteenth century. Scientific experiments revealed the arrival of acid rain in the industrial centers of Great Britain. This course will examine the longer history of climate change and how it has been addressed as a scientific, political and environmental issue. Students will be introduced to the field of environmental history and explore how the methods of this field of inquiry challenge traditional historical categories.