737316 Environmental and climate justice

Type
Lecture and exercise
Semester hours
2
Lecturer (assistant)
Wiedenhofer, Dominik , Pichler, Melanie
Organisation
Offered in
Sommersemester 2025
Languages of instruction
Englisch
Content

People contribute to, and are affected by environmental burdens quite unequally. This insight marked the beginning of the environmental justice movement in the 1970s in the US, primarily focused on toxic waste, air pollution and hazardous industries. Since then, the thematic, geographical, and analytical scope of social movements and research communities has spread substantially to encompass a growing diversity of environmental justice (EJ) considerations.

In this seminar, we introduce environmental and climate justice as a multi-faceted topic touching on all aspects of society. We discuss the history of the EJ movement in the US and trace its emergence into a global perspective, identifying commonalities and differences between cases and perspectives in the US, Europe and the Global South. We then focus on recent work about climate justice.
Previous knowledge expected


Objective (expected results of study and acquired competences)

After the course, students are able to:
-comprehend the links between resource use and environmental as well as climate conflicts and considerations of justice
-understand the relations between environmental/climate crises and social inequalities
-appreciate different considerations of justice across geographical and societal contexts
-articulate multiple dimensions of environmental and climate justice and apply them to different case studies
You can find more details like the schedule or information about exams on the course-page in BOKUonline.