Environmental Science, Technology & Society (Dumfries Campus)

Course abstracts

Students on the E-STS programme can choose from among the following courses:

Environment, Technology and Society
Convenor: Prof Sean Johnston

Technology has great power to affect the environment and human activities within it.  This course explores the inter-relationships between technology, society and the environment, how a technological orientation affects environmental problems and solutions and how social forces wield an influence over both.  This course introduces theories explaining the linkages between technology and society with illustrations via environmental case studies, and explores the implications for environmental policies and actions.

Environmental Ethics and Behaviour Change
Convenors: Dr Benjamin Franks, Dr Stuart Hanscomb and Prof Sean Johnston

This course, surveying ethical questions relevant to postgraduate studies in environmental studies and management, addresses fundamental principles of ethics.  It applies this foundational knowledge to two questions: firstly, establishing a taxonomy of philosophical attitudes towards the environment held by different groups within society; secondly, asking how these attitudes condition judgements and actions concerning the environment. The intention is to provide essential background for an environmentally-oriented discipline; to motivate enthusiasm for the wider subject of environmental management; to sensitise students to the ethical dimensions of their subject and its professional practice; and, not least, to enable them to justify to their eventual clients the importance and appropriateness of their activities. The course presumes no prior exposure to ethical questions.

Environmental Politics and Society
Convenor: Dr Benjamin Franks / Prof. Joseph Murphy

One of the main ways in which environmental programmes have wider social impact is through their implementation as law. This course examines whether there is an identifiable green politics and, if there is, what constitutes its core concepts and with which alternative political movements (liberalism, conservatism, socialism, fascism or anarchism) it has most in common. The course provides a practical guide to the mechanics of policy formation and implementation, and then considers alternative methods by which ecological principles can have wider social impacts.

Environmental Communication
Convenor: Dr Stuart Hanscomb

Environmental Communication is concerned with the application of some foundational principles and practices of communication to environmental issues. It questions, for example, how environmental groups, scientists, communities, anti-environmental groups, corporations, and public officials are able to make use of the psychology of persuasion, semiotics, and mass media in the delivery of environmental messages. Students will learn to make critical assessments of these messages, primarily in terms of their effectiveness in reaching particular audiences.

Environmental History
Convenor: Prof Sean Johnston

Human understandings of, and interactions with, their environments have ranged from outright exploitation of resources for immediate needs, to theologically and metaphysically informed stances that promote other considerations.  From Arcadian visions of the ideal natural past to utopian outlooks for a managed planet, this history continues to underpin human interactions with the wider environment.  This course explores changing social practices and cultural expressions that continue to influence contemporary environmental engagement.  The course addresses three general questions: how have we engaged with our environment in the past, how do current activities relate to the past, and what are we capable of doing in the future, based on past evidence?

Climate, Carbon and Change
Convenor: Dr Rachel Dunk

Motivating and leading others to manage their environmental impact first requires a good working knowledge of the key issues. The main aim of this core course is to provide students with vital underpinning knowledge in climate science and policy that will enable them to develop an holistic understanding of environmental, and particularly carbon, management. In essence this course seeks to answer two key questions: 'why should we manage carbon?', and 'what options do we have?' We first explore climate science, developing an understanding of the climate system, global carbon cycling, natural climate variability, and anthropogenic climate change.  We then go on to examine the implications of climate change, examining climate change impacts, and the suite of available mitigation and adaptation responses, including a critical assessment of current international and national policies, and potential future policy options.

Sustainable Energy and the Built Environment
Convenor: Dr Rachel Dunk

This course offers a comprehensive overview of renewable and non-renewable energy generation set within the context of sustainability and current political environmental and economic drivers. During the course we examine the potential components of a future low carbon energy portfolio, including renewable energy technologies, bio-energy, energy from waste, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, and fuel cells. The course will address the relative impacts and efficiencies of these different technologies, assessing their planning requirements, technical efficiencies, transmission logistics, environmental impacts and economic feasibility, both within the UK and worldwide. This course benefits from workshops and site visits with commercial and academic experts. We also take full advantage of the wealth of renewable energy in the region, with field trips to local biomass and biogas power plants, and examples of micro-renewable generation in public buildings and domestic houses.

Climate Change: Impacts on Ecology (not offered for the 2013-14 academic year)
Convenor: Dr Bethan Wood

The threat of climate change to ecological systems is well accepted, but impacts are in some cases only partially understood. Some mitigation measures may be possible; however, there is a need to explore options which would enable adaptation to change. This course looks at the some of the main impacts of climate change on ecological systems and examines in more detail those ecosystems which act as carbon sinks.

Theory and Principles of Sustainability
Convenor: Dr Arjunan Subramanian

Economic activity takes place within the confines of the environment and it is now increasingly recognized that ecological constraints are starting to make themselves felt. This course is intended to explore the economy/environment interface and to identify and develop the conditions necessary to achieve sustainable flows of inputs into the economic system and to cope with the impacts of outputs arising from economic activity. There is then the vexed question as to whether ecological constraints can be reconciled with continuing development. There will be a distinctly multi-disciplinary aspect to this course.

Reading the Environment: Modern and Contemporary Nature Writing
Convenor: Dr David Borthwick

The course looks at varied depictions of the environment in modern and contemporary texts, examining contemporary attitudes towards climate change and environmental degradation in, for example, Ian McEwan’s satire of sustainable energy, Solar, and Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic narrative The Road.  Further emphasis will include the contemporary cult of ‘the wild places’ in work by Robert Macfarlane, Kathleen Jamie and in Thoreavian narratives such as John Krakaeur’s Into the Wild.  In addition, seminars on contemporary environmental activism as well as mainstream media reportage of environmental issues and disasters will be analysed and placed in context.  Assessment will be by essay and exam, with an additional poster presentation based upon students’ responses to a personal journey in a location of their choosing.

Writing the Environment: Old and New World Romanticisms
Convenor: Dr David Borthwick

The course introduces students to conceptions of the environment in texts of the 18th and 19th centuries, engaging with notions of environmental ‘wildness’ in a range of key texts from William Cobbett’s Rural Rides and Thoreau’s Walden project to John Clare’s poems of exile and Robert Burns’ use of myth and song. Examination of modes of identification with and alienation from place will be considered, including ideas of artistic inspiration and the sublime as depicted in literary, biographical and artistic depictions.  Assessment will be by essay and exam, but there will also be a practical writing element which will rely upon students’ responses to a field trip.

Policies for Sustainability and Development
Convenor: Dr Arjunan Subramanian

This course is concerned primarily with the problems that arise in the identification, formulation and evaluation of policy options that could contribute towards reconciling the need for development with the constraints required for sustainability, although in reality most policy making is directed towards making economic activity less blatantly unsustainable as opposed to achieving ‘true sustainability’. Policy, targets and instruments will be examined with regard to feasibility from the perspective of both the developed and the developing economies including the contentious issues associated with carbon trading, with a focus on policy challenges associated with developing countries.