Climate and Society

Course goals

Please note: the information in the course manual is binding.

After this course, students will be able to propose seeds of change for mitigating climate change to a broad audience, leveraging transdisciplinary approaches.
More specifically, students will be able to:

1. Explain the basic principles of climate change and its effects on society
2. Identify leverage points for an absurdity of the climate system using a systems analysis approach
3. Propose seeds of change by leveraging transdisciplinary approaches
4. Translate complex information about climate change to a broad audience using different science communication tools

Content

This course brings students and academics from several disciplines together to learn from each other to understand the challenges climate change presents to society. It has a strong interdisciplinary approach and focuses on understanding and unpacking climate change through an analysis of the climate system, the human-climate interaction and future scenarios. We seek to understand how different disciplines approach climate analysis, societal adaptation and mitigation. Students will work in groups and create a climate change impact project using different skills taught during the course including making a short video and presenting. In their final project there is the possibility for students to partner with students from the HKU University of the Arts.

This course will be graded as follows:

• Individual exam: 50%
• Individual reflection report: 10%
• Group impact project: 40

Please note: it is not allowed to take two additional courses in period 2 next to Climate and Society.