Technology, Environment and Society

Undergraduate

In this first-year seminar, we examine the intersection of technology, societal change, and environmental problems. We explore a range of promising and/or controversial, environmentally significant technologies, including AI data centers, biotechnology, gene drives, geoengineering, nuclear and renewable energy, not only in terms of risk and feasibility but also in ethical terms, reflecting the values we place on human-nature relationships. From new energy and agricultural technologies to the latest large language models and data centers that feed them, technologies promise to make lives longer, easier and more productive. Yet over the course of the last century there has been a growing awareness of technology’s downsides, from rising carbon emissions to nuclear waste, soil and water depletion, and species destruction. The byproducts of technological advancement have altered the Earth in a geological epoch increasingly referred to as the “Anthropocene.” In this new era, it is impossible to separate technology’s impacts on earth systems from human choices about the kinds of worlds we wish to live in. Technologies we design and deploy therefore need to be reconsidered as sites and instruments of politics. We consider how technology, like legal or political systems, incorporates human assumptions, choices and desires—liberating individuals and societies from constraints while also steering possibilities for future action. Enrollment limited to first-year students. TTh 1:05pm-2:20pm