402-0742-00L Energy and Environment in the 21st Century (Part II)
Semester | Frühjahrssemester 2021 |
Dozierende | P. Morf |
Periodizität | jährlich wiederkehrende Veranstaltung |
Lehrsprache | Englisch |
Kurzbeschreibung | This second part of the lecture on Energy and Environment in the 21st century covers the state of human civilization and its impact on the environment. We find many unsustainable aspects and try to investigate the consequences. Can we find and maintain a sustainable way of life? Do we find scientific measures and ethical guidelines to stay within the planetary boundaries? |
Lernziel | Can we find a scientifically useful definition of sustainability? We try to understand the unsustainable aspects of our current lifestyle and our society. Investigate the unsustainable use of ressources, environmental destruction, climate change and mass extinctions. How long can humanity continue on its current unsustainable path, what are the possible consequences? Historical examples of society collapse. What can we learn from them - can we? What about existing models/experiments promise to transform the human society into the direction of sustainability? Which guide lines and transformational designs can we follow into a sustainable world? |
Inhalt | Introduction to "sustainability" (26.2.) Population Dynamik (5.3.) Finite (energy)-resources (12.3.) Waste problems (19.3.) Water, soil and industrial agriculture (26.3.) Biodiversity (16.4.) Limits to growth (23.4.) Over the limits (30.4.) Growth, de-growth and the doughnut economy (7.5) Sustainability, how to achieve? (14.5.) Interdisciplinary environmental science (21.5.) Environmental ethics and policies (28.5.) Possible ways into sustainability – how is your 2040 or 2050 (4.6) |
Literatur | Environmental Physics (Boeker and Grandelle) Humanökologie (Nentwig) Limits to growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers and Behrens) A prosperous way down: Principles and Policies (Odum and Odum) Come On! (Weizäcker and Wijkman) |
Voraussetzungen / Besonderes | Basics on Physics applied to Energy and Environment. Investigation on current problems (and possible solutions) related to the human environment interaction and the needed transition from an unsustainable use of renewable and non renewable (energy) resources to sustainable systems. Training of scientific and multi-disciplinary methods, approaches and their limits in the exercises and discussions. |