Climate Change, Power, and Global Inequality

Climate Change, Power, and Global Inequality

Climate Change, Power, and Global Inequality

Semester: Spring 2022

Course Number: Soc 1184

Instructors: Benjamin Bradlow

The course begins by considering the social basis for the production and distribution of carbon emissions. Which people, companies, and countries are responsible? On whom do the effects fall? We then examine the institutions that try to govern the production of carbon emissions. These exist at different scales — global bodies, nations, and cities. And we investigate who is trying to change these institutions, with a particular focus on different types of social movements, governments, and private firms. We consider how these actors are both similar and different across rich and poor countries. Since the age of the Anthropocene has been accompanied by the mass migration of humans to cities, we look at the role of urban sociology and politics in shaping carbon emissions. And finally, we debate recent proposed solutions that rely on many of the analyses and evidence that we have studied earlier in the course.