GEOG 225 - Environmental Politics

This course examines the development of environmental governance, with a primary focus on the United States.  It explores how we conceive of the environment, multiple approaches to environmental governance and protection, and the many dimensions of environmental politics.  It reviews both the history of environmental movements and regulation, and contemporary issues and debates in environmental governance, with particular attention to issues of scale, justice, institutional forms, and the effects of social movements. Each iteration of the course will focus on a specific example, after building a common historical and analytical foundation (e.g., climate change, genetically modified organisms, pollution control, conservation of biodiversity, etc.). In spring 2013, the course will focus on the example of climate change.