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Course Title |
Description |
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ENV 1001H
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Environmental Decision Making
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This course introduces and critically considers concepts and methods for making decisions about environmental problems. Topics include critical thinking, quantitative and qualitative approaches to decision making, science and the use of models, addressing conflicting objectives and stakeholders through formal evaluation methods and collective decision making, dealing with uncertainties, values, perceptions and ethical considerations. The material is presented through lectures and class discussions using examples and case studies. Note that all course material may not be posted on the site, and students must ensure that they receive all announcements and handouts given out during the classes.
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ENV 1002H
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Environmental Policy
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Subject
The subject of the course is action taken or not taken by governments at all four levels (local, sub-national, national and international) to achieve environmental policy goals. The focus is upon Canada, but other countries are also discussed. The latter part of the course examines the failure to date of Canadian federal and provincial governments to put in place policies which are capable of meeting the international commitments as a member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime Canada made in 1997 at Kyoto and 2009 at Copenhagen. The central question to be explored in that part of the course is this: what are the major factors explaining this Canadian policy failure?
Educational objectives
The purpose is to provide a comprehensive understanding of government organization, decision-making procedures, policy instruments and the roles of non-state actors in the environmental policy system. Secondly, the course explores the major factors which influence governments as they develop and implement environmental policy, such as the institutional structure and interests and powers of the policy actors. Thirdly, the intent is to give students a fairly detailed understanding of Canadian climate change policy.
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ENV 1004H
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Urban Sustainability and Ecological Technology
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Ecological technology, in a limited sense, encompasses those technologies that incorporate ecosystems to replace mechanical or non-living components in a machine or a piece of infrastructure. These technologies might include green roofs, green walls and living machines. As cities grow and as densities increase, green space often decreases, leading to a number of consequences, some expected and some unexpected. Can ecological technologies replace the green spaces, in terms of area and function, within a city? Can these technologies be used as adaptation strategies to climate change? Are there unexpected consequences that would reduce sustainability? Expanding the definition of ecological technology to include design according to ecological principles, whether the design is for a particular machine, a building, a community or even a city expands the discussion to include economics, geography, sociology, psychology, engineering, architecture and urban planning.
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ENV 1005H
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Business and Environmental Politics
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The subject is the role played by business in the development and implementation of environmental policy at the international and domestic levels. Although other countries are examined, the primary subject is the business role within Canada. The term "business" includes all sectors and levels of analysis but the primary focus is upon the individual resource or manufacturing corporation interacting with environmental regulators.
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ENV 1008H
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Worldviews and Ecology
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This course undertakes a historical and interdisciplinary examination of diverse ecological worldviews as a means for instigating and enhancing class discussion. Our focus will be the current environmental situation/crisis and the several religious/spiritual as well as contemporary cultural worldviews that have given rise to the environmental situation today and the way in which we understand the way things are. We will assess the cosmological dimensions of human-nonhuman natural dynamics in various historical traditions/paradigms: (a) the spiritual worldviews of First Nations, Judaism, Islam, Western Christianity, Orthodox Easter Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism; (b) contemporary dominant secular worldviews: globalization, postglobalization, modernity/enlightenment/modern science, capitalism/consumerism; and (c) emerging worldviews with new possibilities: ecofeminism, deep ecology, Whiteheadian process philosophy, Bateson’s systems theory, Thomas Berry’s ecozoism. We will delve into these worldviews with the hope of understanding them and their context for environmental concerns today. We will try to see how each one of them affects human consciousness and knowing awareness, as well as how each separately or some of them jointly inform our decision-making and activity in terms of the natural (human and nonhuman) systems.
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ENV 1444H
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Capitalist Nature
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This course will draw on a range of theoretical and empirical research materials in order to examine the particularities of what might be referred to as “capitalist nature”. Specifically, the course is concerned with three central questions: (i) what are the unique political, ecological, and geographical dynamics of environmental change propelled by capital accumulation and the dynamics of specifically capitalist forms of “commodification”? (ii) how and why is nature commodified in a capitalist political economy, and what are the associated problems and contradictions? (iii) how can we understand the main currents of policy and regulatory responses to these dynamics?
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ENV 1701H
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Environmental Law
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Law is a key instrument in environmental management. What is the general framework which governs the Canadian environment? What are the values, assumptions, and guiding principles which underlie this framework? Are there alternative models for regulation? How does the Canadian model compare to other models? This course will address these questions with the intention of giving students a basic understanding of regulatory policies in Canada governing the environment, natural resource use and allocation.
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ENV 1703H
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Water Resources Mangement and Policy
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This course will address the interaction between energy and water resources in the context of climate change, focusing on institutional, socio-economic and policy aspects of water. Special topics include water resources management in (a) megacities in developed and developing countries (e.g. Greater Toronto and Beijing), (b) small islands, particularly tourism-intensive economies, (e) Canadian water issues (e.g. Great Lakes and the Alberta tar sands). The course is conducted as a graduate seminar. Each participant focuses on a selected topic or case study.
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ENV 1704H
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Environmental Risk Analysis and Management
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General concepts of risk analysis and management will be introduced in a framework that will include risk identification, estimation, evaluation, management, and emergency planning. These are illustrated by applications to natural hazards, climate change, medical risks, occupational health, contaminated industrial lands, banking and insurance.
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ENV 1707H
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Environmental Finance and Sustainable Investing
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Environmental finance and responsible investing are fast-emerging fields. They involve the application of new and established financial market instruments and practices to the management of environmental issues, and the incorporation of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into asset management. Banks, insurance companies, pension funds, venture capitalists, financial services companies, corporations and governments are becoming increasingly engaged on the topic in order to manage risks and capitalize on new opportunities. This course explores the growing materiality of ESG factors on the bottom line financials, using real case examples of how various firms and investors are driving and responding to this relatively new strategic area. An in-depth knowledge of financial markets is not required.
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ENV 2000H
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Topics: Environmental Studies Independent Study
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Special Reading Course. Before registering for this course, students will write a proposal to the Centre for Environment's Coordinator of Graduate Studies, including the name of the instructor who has agreed to supervise this course.
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ENV 2002H
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Special Topics: Environmental Studies
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Special Reading Course. Before registering for this course, students will write a proposal to the Centre for Environment's Coordinator of Graduate Studies, including the name of the instructor who has agreed to supervise this course.
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ENV 4444Y+
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Internship
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Students who do a research paper are required to do an internship. Students must register with the Centre for Environment Student Advisor before starting their internship and fill out the CFE Internship Placement Form. Please check the Internship Guidelines page for more information.
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ENV 5555Y+
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Research Paper
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Environmental Studies students who do not have a home departmental alphanumeric code for their research papers will use this code. A final copy of the research paper (bound or unbound) must be submitted to the CFE Graduate Student Advisor. Please check the Research Paper Guidelines page for more information.
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AEC 1104H
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Community Education and Organizing
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This course involves the study of a variety of perspectives in critical and community education as they relate to development, environment and social change. Key issues in theory and practice will be examined through the study of classic writing in popular education, community organizing, feminist, socialist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, environmental, and indigenous education/organizing.
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AEC 1131H
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Special Topics in Adult Education: Adult Education for Sustainability
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This special topics course will introduce students to the emerging field of adult education for sustainability. As a form of critical pedagogy, it concentrates on the interface between education and sustainability. The task of adult education for sustainability involves helping us to learn our way out of unsustainable modes of thinking, feeling and acting in the world, and to learn our way in to more sustainable ways of life. This course will cover issues associated with adult education for sustainability, such as globalization, sustainable development, environmental integrity, social justice, community, gender, energy and ecological literacy. It will also examine the role of adult education in an unsustainable world, and explore alternatives to our current unsustainable course.
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AEC 1160H
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Introduction to Transformative Learning Studies
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This is the foundation course for Transformative Learning studies. It is designed to introduce students to a global planetary perspective. The concept of a global world orderwill be examined from historic, critical, and visionary perspectives. Issues of development/underdevelopment, human rights, and social justice perspectives are considered. A critical understanding of social power relations will be highlighted in the areas of gender, class, and race dynamics. The topics are approached as interdependent dimensions within a holistic education perspective.
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AEC 1178H
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Practitioner/Ecological Identity and Reflexive Inquiry
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The course is intended to initiate explorations of both practitioner and ecological identity. It is directed to a wide range of practitioners (including those working in environmental education) who have high regard for the place that values grounded in ecological and environmental responsibility may have in their professional practices. The course is writing intensive. A reflexive inquiry (autobiographical) process is the primary inquiry tool. The course activities are directed toward explorations of relevant personal history-based experiences and their meanings focusing, especially, on the place of experiences in particular (natural) ecological and environmental contexts - and the forming of subsequent sensitivities - in developing orientations to practitioners’ work. Articulation of contemporary and forward looking perspectives about ecological and environmental issues as they pertain to the local (as well as regional and global) context of professional practice is expected.
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AEC 3146H
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Sense of Place in Professional and Natural Contexts
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The course is intended to extend students’ previous explorations of both “practitioner and ecological identity” through extensive readings, discussions and writing opportunities. It is directed to a wide range of professionals/practitioners (including those working in environmental education). These persons see potential places in their work contexts and lives, and their professional practices, for the clarification and expression of personal values grounded in ecological and environmental experience, knowledge, and responsibility. The course provides a context in which to examine a variety of published works by scholarly and literary authors, journalists, artists and those in the professions. These works articulate notions of “sense of place”, “rootedness” in landscape (intellectual, professional, built, and natural), ecological/environmental identity, geopiety, and a range of other connected concepts and will form the basis for extending course participants’ understandings and expressions of their own ecological/environmental identities and perspectives as they pertain to professional practice within their workplaces. The course is intended as an extension and expansion of AEC1178. Permission of instructor is required.
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GGR 1214H
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Global Ecology and Biogeochemical Cycles
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This is a graduate seminar course run in connection with GGR403S. The curriculum will focus on the exchange of matter (i.e. carbon) between the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. Course-related topics include the global carbon cycle, global hydrological cycle, terrestrial resource limitations (nitrogen and phosphorus cycles) and marine resource limitations (iron, zinc and phosphorus cycles). Examples and case studies will be viewed from the paleo-, contemporary and potential future global change perspectives. Graduate students will be responsible for giving a “lecture” to the class (~ 1-hour), attend Thursday morning classes and meet with the instructor and other course graduates to discuss in greater detail articles of interest. These meetings will occur every other week for approximately 2-hours and will be scheduled (in consultation with course participants) on the first day of class. Please contact the Department of Geography and Plannig for course syllabus or click here.
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JEI 1901H
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Technology, Society and the Environment I
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The course will introduce you to state-of-the-art methods for overcoming the above difficulties and effectively dealing with the negative social and environmental implications of your decisions. Together these methods can be built into a technological and economic strategy that will permit economies to deliver goods and services more competitively while at the same time substantially reducing burdens imposed on human life, society and the biosphere. Such a feat is impossible with conventional approaches because they are based on an intellectual and professional division of labour embedded in institutions in which specialists of all kinds make decisions whose consequences mostly fall beyond their domains of competence, to be dealt with in an end-of-pipe or after-the-fact manner by others within whose specialties undesired effects fall. Hence, problems are first created and then dealt with by adding to the “system”. For a complete course outline, please click HERE.
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JEI 1902H
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Technology, Society and the Environment II
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This course is offered to students who have completed JEI1901 and are interested in continuing the subject matter in a way that is custom tailored to their interests/needs. Details are negotiated with the instructor.
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JFS 1460H
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Community Based Natural Resource Management
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This course focuses on analyzing the interactions between communities and the resources on which they depend. Drawing on examples from both domestic and international contexts, topics covered include multiple perspectives of community, local knowledge, design principles of community based institutions for sustainable development, role of civil society and micro-macro interactions in sustainable development. Special emphasis is placed on community-based management of forest resources. It will engage students in critical reflection through lectures, readings, writing, group discussion, and student presentations. This course is useful for students from such diverse disciplines as forestry, geography, planning, sociology, development economics, political science, and international development.
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JGE 1413H
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Workshop in Environmental Assessment
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This course will provide a short introductory overview of the theory and practice of environmental assessment and then move on to more advanced topics. Environmental assessment is a procedure that examines the positive and negative environmental implications of proposed projects (this type of assessment is typically referred to as environmental assessment or environmental impact assessment), policies, programs or plans (together, these three types of assessment are known as strategic environmental assessment). EA seeks to identify ways to mitigate negative effects and involves continued monitoring and assessment of effects after a project has been constructed or after a policy/plan/program has been implemented. Many of the examples of EA presented in the course will come from Canada, but a comparative international perspective will also be offered on several topics. For a full course outline, please click HERE.
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JGE 1420H
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Urban Waste Management
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The course presents an overview of urban waste management practices in developing urban areas, with comparative reference to Northern cities. The emphasis of the course is on the linkages among the technical, social, economic and political aspects of solid waste management. The main examples will come from Asia and Canada. Aspects of solid waste management planning to be covered in the course include: identification of waste problems (social, technical and managerial), development of alternative waste management strategies (including source reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, incineration and landfilling), and factors (social, economic, political and technical) contributing to the success of such strategies.
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JGE 1609H
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Cities, Industry and Environment
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This reading seminar is devoted to the study of the environmental impacts of (mostly urban) industrialization and to past, current and potentially new ways of analyzing and addressing them. The topics discussed range from the history of deforestation and the creation of recycling linkages between firms to the role of institutions in promoting innovative behavior and the impact of geographical distance on the sustainability of industrial practices. Unlike many seminars discussing the relationship between economic growth and the environment, the perspective favored in "Cities, Industry and the Environment" will be generally optimistic. Please click here to see the course website: http://eratos.erin.utoronto.ca/desrochers/1609a.htm
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JNC 2503H
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Environmental Pathways
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The course is jointly offered between Chemical Engineering and Centre for Environment. The objective of this course is to convey an appreciation of the sources, behaviour, fate and effects of selected toxic compounds which may be present in the environment. Emphasis will be on organic compounds, including hydrocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons and pesticides. The approach will be to examine, for each compound, physical and chemical properties, sources, uses, mechanisms of release into the environment, major environmental pathways and fates (including atmospheric dispersion and deposition), movement in aquatic systems (including volatilization, incorporation into sediments, biodegradation, photolysis, sorption), movement in soils, and bioconcentration. Toxicology and analytical methodology will be described very briefly. Each student will undertake a detailed individual study of a specific toxic compound.
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JPG 1402H
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Environment and Development
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TO BE ADDED.
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JPG 1403H
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Political Ecolgogy of African Environments
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TO BE ADDED.
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JPG 1404H
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Issues in Global Warming
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This course presents a comprehensive overview of the greenhouse gas/global warming issue, its relationship to other atmospheric environmental problems, and policy options at the local to international scale. See list of topics on the reverse side. For full course outline, please click HERE.
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JPG 1407H
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Efficient Use of Energy
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The course examines the options available for dramatically reducing our use of primary energy with no reduction in meaningful energy services, through more efficient use of energy at the scale of energy-using devices and of entire energy systems. Topics covered include generation of electricity from fossil fuels and energy use in buildings, transportation, industry, and agriculture. Each topic will cover (i) the underlying physical principles that determine the potential of and the limits to energy efficiency improvements, (ii) the difference in potential savings when focusing on individual energy using devices rather than entire energy-using systems, (iii) examples of efficiency improvements that have been achieved in practice in various countries around the world, and (iv) the cost and financing of energy efficiency improvements. As well, the role of the so-called rebound effect in eroding the energy-saving benefit of efficiency improvements will be discussed. For a complete course outline, please click HERE.
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JPG 1408H
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Carbon-Free Energy
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The course examines the options available for providing energy from carbon-free energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, hydro, oceanic, and geothermal energy, as well as through sequestration of carbon from fossil fuel sources. The hydrogen economy is also discussed. For each carbon-free energy source, the physical principles, physical or biophysical limits, efficiencies, and other constraining factors are discussed, as well as examples of current applications, current and projected future costs, and possible future scenarios. The course concludes by combining the main conclusions from JPG 1407F concerning the prospects for reducing energy demand through improved energy efficiency, with the conclusions drawn in this course concerning the feasibility of large-scale carbon-free energy, to generate scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, showing the range of possible consequences for global mean temperature, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. For a complete course outline, please click HERE.
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JPG 1414H
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Cities as Ecosystems
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Course objective: Develop proposals to deal with the practical problems associated with designing, building, financing, and managing an ‘ecological city', which is defined as a ‘human settlement which operates in harmony with the ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles on which it depends'.
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JPG 1415H
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Global Environmental Justice and Social Movements
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TO BE ADDED. (New course)
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JPG 1419H
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Aboriginal/Canadian Relations in Environment and Resource Management
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This course will explore the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canadian society from pre-European contact to the present. The relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada shapes historical and current views of environmental and resource management in a variety of ways. Economic, environmental, political, social and cultural aspects will be discussed.
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JPV 1201H
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Politics, Bureaucracy and the Environment
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This course is jointly offered between Political Science and CFE. The purpose of this course is to analyze the influence of politics and administrative processes and structure on the formulation and resolution of environmental issues in Europe and North America. A major concern will be to evaluate the extent to which environmental politics represents a new approach to the political process in Western countries, or whether it is simply a continuation of traditional politics in a new guise. To deal with this question, the course will pay particular attention - on a comparative basis - to the public policy process; to public opinion and interest group activity; and to issues involving jurisdiction, sovereignty and levels of community initiative.
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JVP 2147H
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Environmental Philosophy
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This course explores how value judgments and philosophical assumptions affect environmental decision-making. Water ethics will provide a focus for discussion, as students are encouraged to: (a) recognize and articulate their views on the environment, as well as to seek reasons to justify those views; (b) become more aware of others’ value judgments, “mental models” and paradigms; (c) explore ways of modifying behaviour through increased awareness of water and other broader environmental issues; (d) help to critically analyze hidden assumptions behind water policies, programs and institutional (regulatory and judicial) procedures; and (e) see built and natural environments in a more integrated way. Assignments will be organized to allow students to apply their own, specific areas of research to this interdisciplinary field.
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HIS 1111H
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Topics in North American Environmental History
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This graduate course studies historical themes in North American environmental history from the 15th century to the present. Topics include: an introduction to the historiography in the field; the early environment with Aboriginal hunter-gatherer societies; Aboriginal/European contact and ‘the Columbian exchange;’ the environmental impact of resource development, settlement, industrialization and urbanization, and transportation; the conservation movement in Canada and the United States; wildlife conservation; the modern environmental movement; parks, the transformation of agricultural and food.
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SES 1909H
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Eco-Sociology
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This course will look at the state of the environment, and how we deal (and refuse to deal) with it in the social sciences, as well as in life in general. The theoretical starting point is the assumption that environmental issues and social equity issues are necessarily and inextricably intertwined. The second part of the course will focus on what we can do to ameliorate the situation, and to recognize the opportunities in the challenges that confront us. Students will select their own examples of positive action, either from scholarship or from life, as well as determine the latter portion of required readings. For a complete course outline, please click HERE.
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ANT 6018H
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Theories of Nature (and Society)
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"Nature," Raymond Williams wrote in Keywords, "is perhaps the most complex word in the language," and he notes that "...any full history of the uses of nature would be a history of a large part of human thought" (1987:219-21).
This course adopts the nature-society distinction as a central problematic and explores some of the ways in which this dualism has been critiqued, contested, rejected and re-fashioned in social theory. Through readings that encompass often quite substantially different approaches to "nature," this course seeks to engender discussion and debate about "nature" and its relation to social theory. Although the course adopts a roughly chronological and thematic framework, the readings have been specifically selected to draw out and investigate the contributions and limitations of different theorists, and, consequently, to draw students into substantive conversations about them. The analytical emphasis of the course builds on the notion of interfaces—points of interconnection and/or disjuncture among the various agendas and "natured" projects being developed by different authors. Course prerequisites: This is an introductory-level graduate course and as such, there are no official prerequisites for this course. The course includes some "classic" texts focusing on critical perspectives on Nature/Society dichotomies, and adopts a largely (but not exclusively) historical approach. Students are not expected to have a background in Environmental Studies or Environmental Theory, and are strongly encouraged to bring both their own disciplinary perspectives as well as theoretical orientations into critical dialogue with the course contents. Although facilitated by an anthropologist, this is an interdisciplinary seminar course in which different critical viewpoints are welcomed.
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