2019-2020 Academic Catalog

Nov 26, 2024

2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

IDCE 30701 - Beyond the Population Bomb: Rethinking population and the environment in an era of climate change

Population, or “overpopulation,” has long been blamed as a primary reason for environmental problems, including climate change. In this class, we will examine the gendered and racialized ways that environmental thinkers have framed population in relation to resource scarcity, food insecurity, conflict and violence, environmental degradation and climate change. Starting from the 1948 bestsellers Our Plundered Planet and Road to Survival to the 2014 coffee table book, Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot, we will analyze environmental discourses that call for population reduction to address environmental issues. We will explore how these discourses influence environmental activism, impact sexual and reproductive health policy, and fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric, while obscuring the complex contributors to environmental problems. In the class, we will look to reproductive, environmental and climate justice movements to find frameworks that propose action on environmental issues while fighting for social justice.

Concentrations

Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation - Gender and Identity - Conservation and Development - Youth Development - Health Equity - Healthy People, Healthy Planet

Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall