Environmental Science and Politics course: First Class

A few days ago we had the first class of my Winter term course, Environmental Science and Politics (ERST-POST 2100H).  There are about 100 students in the class this year, majoring mainly in environmental science, environmental studies, or ecological restoration, with smaller numbers in biology, politics, and Indigenous environmental studies.

This was the first course I created after I arrived at Trent.  My view was that there was a need for a course that examines the roles of science in environmental affairs -- to connect the two solitudes of environmental science and environmental studies.  I've been teaching it ever since (I also wrote a textbook on this topic, that appeared in 2004).

In this first class, my main objective was to explain why it's necessary to examine carefully this relation between science and politics: that we can't simply assume there is a rational connection between knowledge and action, but that we have to work at using knowledge effectively.  Of course in these "post-fact" days we have daily reminders of the non-rational nature of politics (and I made note of this), but I also wanted to stress to everyone that there are ways of thinking about how to use knowledge effectively, to make good environmental decisions.

And that will be the agenda of the course: drawing from history, political science, psychology, sociology and other fields to make sense of the roles of science (and other forms of knowledge) in society.  I'm looking forward to the term.