Dear All –
This semester I am teaching an experimental Honors seminar course to
juniors/seniors titled /The Future of Human Civilization: Climate
Change, Population Growth and the Possibilities for Sustainability/.
I know the title may sound pretentious, but I purposely wanted to make
it provocative. The students are a mix of STEM and non-STEM majors.
I would welcome suggestions for ancillary materials for the course. We
have a large number of primary journal articles and a large cadre of
books, including the updated /Limits to Growth/, /2050/ and /2052/ (yes
those are two books about the future!), Al Gore’s /The Future/, Oreskes
& Conway’s /Collapse of Western Civilization/, and Ron Scranton’s /How
to Die in the Anthropocene/.
I almost included Diamond’s /Collapse/, which was high on the list, but
I didn’t think it had the proper perspective. I'm currently reading
David Biello's /The Unnatural World/.
I’d be particularly interested in any high quality videos that pertain
to the course subject, plus further suggestions for readings. We opened
with Nick Bostrom’s article “/The Future of Humanity/” to set the stage
for the rest of the course, then followed up with the Ehrlichs’ recent
PNAS article on whether global civilization can avoid a collapse. Then
we read Schramski et al.’s article in PNAS on the analogy of Earth as a
discharging battery.
Thanks!
Howie Neufeld
--
Dr. Howard S. Neufeld, Professor
Director, Southern Appalachian Environmental Research and Education Center
(SAEREC)
Chair, Appalachian Interdisciplinary Atmospheric Research Group (AppalAIR)
Mailing Address:
Department of Biology
572 Rivers St.
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
Tel: 828-262-2683; Fax 828-262-2127
Websites:
Academic: http://biology.appstate.edu/faculty-staff/104
Personal: http://www.appstate.edu/~neufeldhs/index.html
SAEREC: http://saerec.appstate.edu
AppalAIR: http://appalair.appstate.edu
Fall Colors:
Academic: http://biology.appstate.edu/fall-colors
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