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Regulations & Requirements

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Amherst College Courses

Amherst College Courses

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Environmental Studies

Professors Clotfelter (Chair), López, Martini, Miller, Moore, and Temeles; Associate Professors Melillo* and Sims‡; Lecturer R. Levin; Visiting Assistant Professor Hejny.

* On leave 2016-17.

‡ On leave spring semester 2016-17.

For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by than they were shapers of the environment.  This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Hence, majors in Environmental Studies must take six core courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST 120) and senior seminar (ENST 498) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The remaining core courses include Ecology (ENST 210), Environmental History (either ENST 220 or HIST 105), Economics (ENST 230), and Statistics (ENST 240). Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the core requirements prior to their senior year.  The senior seminar, offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.

Beyond the required core courses, majors must take at least four courses from the list of electives. Elective courses must include at least one course from each of the two categories, which span different fields of environmental inquiry. The honors program in Environmental Studies is a two semester sequence. Majors electing to do honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Advisory Committee prior to enrolling in ENST 498. Following successful completion of ENST 498, students complete their thesis by enrolling in ENST 499. Students who wish to satisfy a core or elective requirement with a Five College course or a course taken abroad must petition the Advisory Committee in writing and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.

160 The Politics of Food

Food is a site of politics.  Eating is a social and political practice with repercussions for the relationships between people and between humans and the natural environment.  What we choose to eat, how we produce, process, market, sell, buy, consume, and discard food all involve political choices.  The formal politics of government regulation and legislation affect food in many ways.  Food policy and regulation shapes what we understand as food and how we engage with it.  But the politics of food extends beyond the formal institutions of the state to the spheres of everyday politics, ethics, and economics.  People, animals, and environments here in the U.S. and all over the world are affected by the food choices that we as American consumers make.  What are the consequences of these choices?  This course focuses our attention on our (often taken for granted) food practices and their political effects for the beings and ecosystems with whom we share the planet.  We will explore the politics of food through its life cycle—growing, selling, buying, eating, and discarding—as well as the politics of food legislation and regulation, global food politics, and food movements.  We will examine these issues through the lenses of ethics, economics, environment, and social justice, approaching our food practices with a critical eye. 

Limited to 25 students. Spring semester. Visiting Professor Hejny.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2019

220 Environmental Issues of the Nineteenth Century

(See HIST 104)

228 Environmental Philosophy

(See PHIL 225)

230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications

(See ECON 111E)

240 Introduction to Statistics

(See STAT 111E)

252 U. S. Environmental Policy

Why hasn’t Congress passed any major environmental laws since 1990? Why are Republicans and Democrats so far apart on environmental issues? What power does the president have to influence environmental policy? Why are environmentalists constantly suing the government? Where is environmental policy being made if not in Congress? What has Obama done for the environment?  These are some major questions that we will explore in this course.  This course provides a comprehensive introduction to U.S. environmental policy from a historical perspective.  After reviewing the political and institutional context of environmental policy-making in the U.S., we examine the development of federal environmental policy beginning with the rise of the environmental movement and the “golden era” legislation of the 1960s and 1970s.  We then turn to critiques of the command and control model of environmental regulation, the rise of conservatism and its effects on environmental policy-making, and the pushes for cost-benefit analysis and market-based mechanisms in environmental policy.  Since the early 1990s Congress has produced very little environmental policy, but environmental policy is being made in other venues.  We examine the executive branch, the courts, states, and local collaborative governance as alternative sites of environmental policy-making.  Over the course of the term, we will ask how and why these approaches to policymaking have changed over time, we will examine how politics affect environmental policy-making, and we will compare policy-making models and venues to determine which approaches allow the government to make policy most effectively and democratically.

Requisite: ENST 120 or permission of instructor. Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Hejny.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018

254 Varieties of Environmentalism

In this course, we will examine the origins, perspectives, and political strategies of environmental social movements. We take an in-depth look at the evolution of and perspectives within the American environmental movement that emerged in the U.S. in the 1960s. In the process, we will examine changes in the movement, critiques of the movement from within its ranks, and divergent perspectives within environmentalism. Throughout our exploration of the U.S. environmental movement, we will look at how different parts of the movement diagnose environmental problems, the solutions they propose, the tactics they employ, and how they interact with the government and policy-making. We will also examine conservative anti-environmental backlash movements in the U.S. In the second part of the course, we look at global environmental movements. We examine differences between Northern and Southern environmentalisms, the relationship of movements and organizations to states and the international system, the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and several cases of global activism. Throughout the course, we will explore how environmental social movements confront the state from both domestic and international positions, challenge corporate power and global capitalism, and imagine and enact visions of sustainability.

Requisite: ENST 120 or permission of instructor. Limited to 20 students.  Omitted 2016-17. Visiting Professor Hejny.

2023-24: Not offered

260 Global Environmental Politics

Our global environment as a subject of concern has emerged in recent decades with the rise of scientific and media attention to the ways ecological issues like climate change and biodiversity loss matter in the daily lives of global citizens. But are all “global environmental citizens” equally responsible for and influenced by what are currently considered global environmental challenges?  Why is it that some forms of nature are considered global while others are resolutely local? Are international agreements and development and conservation organizations effective at addressing the problems they intend to solve, or do they create new problems that should be accounted for in our understanding of global environmental politics? In this course, we will explore these questions and others by examining various ecological crises – climate change, deforestation, fisheries management, air and water pollution, hazardous waste disposal, among others – from critical perspectives that raise questions about key political issues, including markets, states, science, power, knowledge and social movements. This course is organized into thematic case studies, through which we will examine the production and negotiation of environmental problems by diverse social actors and institutions, including: producers and consumers, members of different socio-economic groups, actors of institutions and social movements, and citizens of diverse polities.

Limited to 35 students.  Omitted 2016-17. 

Other years: Offered in Spring 2023

310 Conservation Social Science

 “Conservation social science” refers to an emergent field of practice and scholarship that is working to expand conservation science beyond its traditional biological moorings towards the social sciences.  This shift in conservation is triggered by the realization that conservation practice must diversify its approach in order to secure financial backing and produce better conservation outcomes. As the lead social scientist at the World Wildlife Fund has framed it, there is a need to enact a form of conservation where “people are the solution” as opposed to just the problem.

The efforts to ‘retool’ conservation have fomented great debate within the conservation community, generating fundamental questions and disagreements about what conservation is for, what the metrics of success should be, and fundamentally how conservation science should proceed.  This class will examine what conservation social science is and what it ought to be.  By examining the foundations of conservation, the current debates, and the social dimensions of conservation, this course will examine the following questions: what are the tenets, goals and metrics of success in conservation?  How has conservation practice changed over the years?  What era of conservation are we currently in and what debates are ongoing at this time?  How might the social engagements of conservation be changed or improved moving forward?

Requisite: ENST 120, or permission of the instructor.  Limited to 24 students. Omitted 2016-17.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2023

330 Environmental Justice

Environmental harms are not distributed equally across either U.S. or global populations.  In the United States, low income communities and communities of color suffer disproportionately from environmental harms.  Globally, developing countries shoulder many environmental burdens while the benefits of environmentally destructive production often flow to developed nations.  What are the reasons for this?  How can we address environmental injustice and environmental racism?  What theoretical approaches can help us understand and conceptualize environmental justice?  How have communities engaged politically in the fight for environmental justice?  What does environmental justice look like in practice?  This course will explore these questions.  We begin the course with a look at two cases—in Louisiana and North Carolina—that spawned the environmental justice movement.  To gain analytical purchase on these and other cases, we discuss theoretical approaches to environmental justice from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including economic, social movement, legal, policy, and philosophical.  The next three substantive sections of the course focus on different themes.  In the first section, we look at the role of environmental justice in urban planning, and examine issues of space, place, and local knowledge.  The next section focuses on the relationship between gender, environmental justice, and sustainable development.  Here we look at empirical cases of protests against mountain top removal, women’s empowerment through tree planting, and dam construction in India.  We then focus on three recent cases of environmental injustice in the U.S. that revolve around water—Hurricane Katrina, Flint, and Standing Rock.  We close the course with a discussion of climate justice.

Requisite: ENST 120 or permission of instructor.  Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.  Visiting Professor Hejny.

 

401 Wine, History, and the Environment

(See HIST 402)

464 Seminar: Population Ethics

(See PHIL 464)

490 Special Topics

Independent reading course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2024

495 Senior Seminar

The Senior Seminar is intended to bring together majors with different course backgrounds and to facilitate original independent student research on an environmental topic. In the early weeks of the seminar, discussion will be focused on several compelling texts (e.g., Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring or Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us) which will be considered from a variety of disciplinary perspectives by members of the Environmental Studies faculty. These discussions are intended to help students initiate an independent research project which may be expanded into an honors project in the second semester. For students not electing an honors project, the seminar will offer an opportunity to integrate what they have learned in their environmental studies courses. The substance of the seminar will vary from year to year, reflecting the interests of the faculty who will be convening and participating in the seminar.

Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professor Temeles and Visiting Professor Hejny.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

498 Senior Honors

Fall semester. The Department.

Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

499 Senior Departmental Honors

Spring semester. The Department.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Core Courses

120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies

Life has existed on Earth for nearly four billion years, shaped by massive extinction events. In the short span of the last 10,000 years, humans have become important agents in shaping global environmental change. The question this course considers is straightforward: Have humans been modifying the environment in ways that will, in the not distant future, cause another worldwide extinction event? There are no simple, much less uncontested, answers to this question. We will have to consider the ways we have altered habitats and ecosystem processes. We will also consider the economic consequences of disturbed ecosystems and assess contemporary policy responses and solutions. One lecture and one discussion section per week.

Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Lecturer R. Levin.

Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Departmental Courses

210 Ecology

(See BIOL 230)

441 Seminar in Conservation Biology.

(See BIOL 440)

Departmental Seminars and Tutorials

250 Environmental Politics and Policies

Contesting values of and struggles over the control of “nature” are at the heart of environmental politics, and differently positioned political, economic, and social interest groups contend for and exert power through the U.S. environmental policy-making process.  In this course we will examine the politics of U.S. environmental policies, focusing on how local, regional, and national governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations and interest groups, and some publics (but not all) define environmental problems and actionable solutions. We will examine the relationship between science, policy and politics, and critically evaluate when and how "objective" scientific truths are mobilized for particular agendas--while not for others--and what "citizen science" means with respect to the U.S. environmental policy process.  The class will be divided into two parts: Part I will begin with key environmental writings, and move into an overview of the institutions, actors, and concepts that shape our policy process.  Part II will use a case study approach to ground our understanding of how multi-scalar interactions, plurality and uneven power relations influence how and why some issues and interests are validated in the policy process, while others are not. Case studies may include: fracking, Keystone XL pipeline, Endangered Species listings and New England cod fishery regulations.

Recommended requisite:  ENST 120.  Limited to 35 students.  Omitted 2016-17. 

Other years: Offered in Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

320 Knowledge, Politics and the Environment

What we know and how we know about "the environment" is influenced by cultural, political, historical and social contexts.  Why are some knowledges about the environment perceived to be more accurate, objective and true than others?  How might our collective understandings of environmental change shift if multiple forms of knowledge--"western" scientific, indigenous, etc.--were mobilized in the production, dissemination and application of environmental knowledge? These questions are both academic and policy-oriented and sit at the interface of political ecology and science studies scholarship on nature/society and conservation and development practice: environmental management contestations and outcomes are shaped by what counts as valid knowledge. In this seminar we will examine how attention to the politics of knowledge potentially shifts the current formations of environmental studies and policy–in theory and practice--towards more integrated and democratized engagements with social and environmental change. This course is anchored in the field of political ecology, which is a sub-field of geography that is concerned with the complex power dynamics of knowing and making claims on "the environment."  Our readings and discussions will examine critical perspectives on nature/society boundaries; the role of "western" scientific knowledge in the politics of conservation and development; and meaningful ways to integrate "western" scientific and indigenous environmental knowledges in environmental studies.

Requisite:  ENST 120; recommended requisite:  ENST 250.  Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2016-17.

2023-24: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Spring 2016

Related Courses

- (Course not offered this year.)ANTH-251 Anthropology of Natural Wealth (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-104 Food, Fiber, and Pharmaceuticals (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-181 Adaptation and the Organism (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-281 Animal Behavior with Lab (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-320 Evolutionary Biology (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-321 Evolutionary Biology with Lab (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-440 Seminar in Conservation Biology. (Course not offered this year.)BIOL-454 Seminar in Tropical Biology (Course not offered this year.)GEOL-109 Climate Change, Global Warming and Energy Resources (Course not offered this year.)GEOL-121 Surface Earth Dynamics (Course not offered this year.)GEOL-301 Hydrogeology (Course not offered this year.)HIST-265 Environmental History of Latin America (Course not offered this year.)LJST-235 Law's Nature: Humans, the Environment and the Predicament of Law (Course not offered this year.)PHYS-109 Energy (Course not offered this year.)POSC-231 The Political Economy of Petro States: Venezuela Compared (Course not offered this year.)SOCI-226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality (Course not offered this year.)SOCI-341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change:  Environmental Movements and Ideas (Course not offered this year.)SOCI-390 Special Topics (Course not offered this year.)