Environmental Policy
To address complex environmental problems, sustainability professionals are most effective when they understand not only what needs to be done, but how it might be implemented. This requires an awareness of the processes by which environmental laws, regulations, and policies are designed, implemented, permitted, and enforced at various levels of government. Students in this multidisciplinary focus area will learn from instructors who also work in a range of environmental governance positions, and will come away prepared to apply ecological, political, regulatory, social, and economic lenses to complex issues like climate change, biodiversity, water quality, energy sources, agriculture, and related systems, and most importantly, how to design effective response strategies.
Takeaways
- Understand how we are (and should be) constructing legal regimes and effective political institutions to conserve Earth’s endangered forms of life across multiple levels (ecosystem, landscape, species, population, and genetic diversity).
- Examine U.S. legal and political responses to biodiversity loss, with a focus on the Endangered Species Act, as well as the role of international laws and treaties.
- Review institutional responses to climate change at the international, national, and sub-national levels, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and U.S. climate policymaking under the Clean Air Act and state and regional initiatives.
- Analyze the economic, ecological, and social dimensions of food and farming policy on contemporary urban and rural issues, such as climate change, land use and livelihoods, biotechnology, national security and political instability, trade and subsidies, and human health.
Courses
Conservation biologists warn that we are in the midst of a great “extinction crisis,” with millions of species threatened due to habitat destruction, climate change, and other anthropogenic factors. This course focuses on examining how we are (and should be) constructing legal regimes and effective political institutions to conserve Earth’s endangered forms of life across multiple levels (ecosystem, landscape, species, population, and genetic diversity). We will examine U.S. legal and political responses to biodiversity loss, with a focus on the Endangered Species Act, as well as the role of international law, especially treaty regimes. We will look at how law is(n’t) succeeding in preserving life on Earth, and pay particular attention to the most effective legal practices to conserve biodiversity.
This course focuses on institutional responses to climate change at the international, national, and sub-national levels, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and U.S. climate policymaking under the Clean Air Act and state and regional initiatives. Both mitigation and adaptation approaches will be addressed, as well as climate geoengineering.
This course explores the structure of a globalized food landscape, with a focus on public and private decision-makers from government and industry to relief and development organizations. Students analyze the economic, ecological, and social dimensions of food and farming policy on contemporary urban and rural issues, such as climate change, land use and livelihoods, biotechnology, national security and political instability, trade and subsidies, and human health.
Water and marine policy spans a wide range of management applications. In this context, “policy” begins with setting goals and objectives that connect to the laws and regulations established to support these aims. There are commonalities across the globe despite differences based on geography, scale, climate, economics, politics, and other factors. The tension between data-driven science and the compromises inherent in policymaking is also a critical dynamic for all environmental professionals to understand, especially as the Earth’s changing climate is increasingly front and center in virtually all environmental policymaking conversations. This course will use case studies to explore specific aspects of water and marine policy, allowing opportunities for comparing and contrasting policies, laws, and regulations, the factors influencing them, and the outcomes.