Climate courses a rising trend

A new trend has arisen in college curricula of educating students about various aspects of the climate crisis.

According to a poll from Gallup, 57 percent of Americans believe man-made pollution is responsible for the increase in average global temperature over the last century. While the tide is certainly turning in terms of public acceptance of the phenomenon, academics have sought ways to instruct students about the looming dangers of climate change. At universities across the country, professors have found ways to blend literature, legal studies and science.

For example, a new graduate course offered this winter quarter at the University of Oregon taught by Stephanie LeMenager, “The Cultures of Climate Change,” views climate change through the arts, rather than science.

According to LeMenager, students study a genre of speculative scientific claims called climate fiction, or cli-fi, that anticipates how the phenomenon could shape their future lives. Works include novels by Nathaniel Rich and Daniel Kramb, according to the class description. Students also studied cultural theory that addresses how the arts can galvanize political sentiment and action and read cultural and sociological writings about climate change denial.

LeMenager discussed the benefits of using fiction and art to understand the possible scenarios for the future because of climate change.

“I think fiction and imaginative works, in general, offer us a safer place to try on these scenarios. Because it’s fiction, we feel like we can try it on, then go back into the everyday. That kind of roleplay and imagining is often very transformative,” LeMenager said.

The course has been offered to only graduate students so far, but LeMenager said the course and the climate change literature, Internet art and community building stemming from the course could be a helpful medium  for teaching undergraduates.

For LeMenager, instructing students about climate change through academia reminds them that one must create the world in which he or she wants to live.

“There’s nothing more important than reminding students of their power to co-create a future, and it seems to me that the emphasis on our agency to create a world we want to live in has gone out of education,” she said.

While Pitt doesn’t have a course that fuses arts and the climate crisis, the University offers courses that follow the trend of studying climate change.

Jennifer Smokelin, a professor in Pitt’s law school, teaches a class offering a legal perspective on climate change. “Climate Change and the Law” deals with the science of global warming, as well as the law of climate change and the interactions between business and the climate crisis.

The course has been offered to law school students every spring semester since 2009.

Smokelin said understanding climate change will be crucial to students’ professional lives.

“I think it’s imperative for students who are looking at 20 years in the workforce to have a solid understanding of climate change. I think that it’s a fundamental underpinning of a pillar of knowledge that lawyers need to have,” Smokelin said.

Smokelin hopes a course in this vein can be offered to undergraduate students in the future. She added that a course for undergraduates should focus on other aspects of global warming aside from the law.

Smokelin feels that understanding climate change law has importance for students.

“[‘Climate Change and the Law’] has to do with understanding this emerging area of law and understanding the risks and opportunities of this area and being able to capitalize on the opportunities and avoid the risks,” she said.

In addition to this different perspective on the climate crisis, Josef Werne, a professor in Pitt’s geology department, offers an undergraduate course called “The Atmosphere, Oceans and Climate.” This course provides a scientific view and understanding on general climate change, as well as anthropogenic climate change, which is climate change caused by increased emissions of greenhouses gases, or global warming.

Werne said the course focuses on helping students understand all aspects of the climate.

“The basis of the course is understanding how the earth’s climate works. We spend the vast majority of the course learning about different aspects of the Earth system and how that drives the climate, and then we talk in the last few weeks about what humans have done that have affected the climate,” Werne said.

For Werne, climate change is a “key factor that influences the lives of college students” who may be affected by limitations on food and water as a result of the crisis.

“A lot of the cities on coasts are affected by rising sea levels. It’s going to be a big issue,” Werne said. “It may become the dominant factor in the lives of students.”

He also added that without proper education, students can’t fully understand the impact of global warming.

“It’s a hideously complex thing,” Werne said. “If you don’t understand how it works at a fundamental level, you won’t know how our activities as humans affect it.”

Editor’s Note: In an article published on Friday, April 11 titled, ‘Climate courses a rising trend,’ The Pitt News reported that Josef Werne said, “We spend the vast majority of the time learning about different aspects of the course.” This information is incorrect. The quote should read that Werne said, “We spend the vast majority of the time learning about the different aspects of the Earth system.” The Pitt News regrets this error.