This course studies how the environment has related to the construction of race and racism. By focusing on case studies around the globe, we will learn about the racial politics of waste, food consumption, energy, and climate change in diverse social and cultural contexts. Since the course moves chronologically through different historical periods, students will learn how dominant ideas about race and the environment have evolved over time. They will also examine how capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism have recreated environmental racism as a structure and a technology of power.

Creation stories from Turtle Island foreground an integral connection between land and story. "Sky Woman Falling" contains key ecological and environmental knowledge. This course explores the relationship between land and story, emphasizing seeds as sources of sovereignty and repositories of knowledge across generations. We focus on Native New Jersey while understanding the history of this land in the context of global indigeneity and settler colonialism. Course literature engages seeds, land, and the environment from a perspective that crosses the disciplines of American studies, literature, history, ecology, and environmental studies.

This course explores anthropology's engagement with environmental questions, beyond binaries of "nature" and "culture." How do anthropologists' engagement with environment force rethinking of both the given terms of environmental politics and the anthropocentrism of "anthropology"? We explore, across international and global contexts, how anthropological work challenges contemporary environmental thinking, all while exploring new formulations of environment and politics. Topics include climate, materiality, cosmologies, more-than-human ethnography, and environmental justice.

How do we grapple with the lasting, unintended impacts of science, engineering and medicine in "the nation's service and the service of humanity"? What lessons can we learn from the past to conduct morally sound research and generate culturally inclusive knowledge? We explore perspectives from indigenous studies to approach the intersection of Princeton's history, nuclear science, settler colonialism and environmental racism to collectively imagine a more holistic and inclusive approach to studying science, technology and the environment. Students will conduct original research that draws from and contributes to the Nuclear Princeton project.

Objective/Overview: Analysis of fundamental processes in the hydrologic cycle, including precipitation, evapotranspiration, infiltration, streamflow and groundwater flow. The class focuses on exercises using observational data. There is a modeling and data analysis component using Python and Jupyter Notebooks, readings on flood and drought, and a forecasting competition.

Goal: introduce undergraduate engineering students to: (a) infrastructure and food system innovations that can advance the triple outcomes of decarbonization, climate resilience and social equity (b) city scale decarbonization pathways and linkage to larger scale national zero carbon pathways (c) fundamentals of inequality and equity (d) hazard risk resilience framework (e) data analysis and systems models for tracking urban zero carbon emissions including material flow analysis sand life-cycle assessment, measuring inequality to inform equity and introductory analysis of resilience pathways.

This course focuses on: a) interdisciplinary conceptual research frameworks to address multi-scale/-sector/-objective urban systems with zero carbon resilience and equity goals; b) city scale carbon accounting incorporating MFA and LCA; c) multi-scale modeling of nested zero carbon pathways in communities; d) data analysis of inequality to inform equity in designing just infrastructure transitions; e) infrastructure and environment related health risk assessment following the global burden of disease methodology; f) measuring carbon and resilience co-benefits of distributed infrastructure systems exploring nexus linkages.

This course covers pollutant chemicals in the environment with a focus on water and soil. The focus is on hazardous and toxic chemicals such as benzene, trichloroethane, pesticides and PCBs. In this course, environmental chemistry serves as a vehicle for study of chemical thermodynamics. Students gain an understanding of Gibbs free energy, chemical potential, and fugacity, and the universal applicability of thermodynamics to describe equilibrium and kinetic processes such as phase partitioning.

In the interface of environmental and film studies, this multidisciplinary course investigates the phenomenology of home in relation to the environment as well as the civilizational (both cultural and technological) paradigms of colonizing versus nomadic homemaking through examples from masterpieces of cinema and our own short research film exercises.

The global consensus on climate risks demands a rapid switch to clean energy and industries. But few comprehend the unprecedented speed and scale of the needed transformations. Obstacles encountered during rapid, large-scale change, must be anticipated and addressed to achieve climate goals. Princeton's recent Net-Zero America and (with others) Australia studies, provide granular insights on the speed of infrastructure delivery and on impacts to the environment, finances, jobs and more. Students will build on those studies to analyze sub-regional energy transitions through multi-disciplinary lenses to assure achievement of net-zero goals.

Principles and design of solar energy conversion systems. Quantity and availability of solar energy. Physics and chemistry of solar energy conversion: solar optics, optical excitation, capture of excited energy, and transport of excitations or electronic charge. Conversion methods: thermal, wind, photoelectric, photoelectrochemical, photosynthetic, biomass. Solar energy systems: low and high temperature conversion, photovoltaics. Storage of solar energy. Conversion efficiency, systems cost, and lifecycle considerations.

Introduces students to cross-disciplinary concepts that shape how complex environmental challenges are defined, studied, and addressed. These concepts include biodiversity, climate change, ecosystem, environmental racism, pollution, sustainability, and wilderness. Examines a wide range of case studies - from the U.S. National Park Service and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit and Extinction Rebellion.

A very large number of chemicals designed for one purpose are now known to have a second, completely unexpected ability to mimic or interfere with estrogen, testosterone, thyroid and other hormones. Examples include BPA and phthalates that leach from plastics; pesticides; flame-retardants; chemicals used in Teflon and take-out food containers. Many end up as personal and environmental contaminants. There is growing evidence that these pollutants interfere with health, behavior and reproduction in both humans and wildlife. This seminar examines landmark discoveries, current research, and emerging policy and regulatory action.

Examining the relationship between law and environmental policy, this course focuses on cases that have established policy principles. The first half of the seminar will be conducted using the Socratic method. The second half will allow students to reargue either the plaintiff or defendant position in a key case, which will be decided by the classroom jury.

Addressing global ecological and societal degradation depends on humanity practicing regenerative, or reciprocal, relationships with nature. Evidence suggests that we are collectively capable of producing restorative technological, behavioral, and social solutions, but they must be applied holistically across all human actions at every scale. We explore sustainability challenges in the context of ethics, justice, and behavioral psychology, including visits with experts, and survey-based investigations on campus. Students will be presented with real-time decision-making needs at Princeton, with an opportunity to influence those decisions.

The class will discuss the physics of ocean surface waves and its impacts on human life. We will cover the principle of ocean waves propagation across the oceans, with analogies to optics and acoustics. Using historical observations and modern modeling tools, we will discuss wave forecasting with practical examples including planning of D-Day during the second world war, or local surf forecasting. The influence of ocean waves on human life will be discussed, from their role on beach morphology, mitigation of storm surge, or tsunamis. Finally, we will discuss the ubiquitous representation of waves in arts/movies.

This course provides the chemical background to understand many of today's most important environmental issues. Topics include atmospheric pollution, the ozone hole, the greenhouse effect, ocean acidification, acid mine drainage, and coastal dead zones. Overall, the course focuses on a quantitative understanding of the chemistry of the atmosphere and natural waters. Students will use the chemical equilibrium model Minteq to study specific examples related to water quality issues.

The Anthropocene names both the advent of human mastery over nature and the serial catastrophes that now challenge our "risk society", from climate change and global plagues to nuclear fallout, flooding, the sixth extinction, and environmental racism. Literary testimonies can help us rethink the human relationship to the environment by shedding a unique light on how distinct cultures live this rapport. By studying novels, films, plays, and essays from France, Russia, Nigeria, India, Japan, and the US, we will see how some of the world's most exposed populations have navigated the lethal cross-currents of modernity.

Humans have profoundly altered the chemistry of Earth's air, water, and soil. This course explores these changes with an emphasis on the analytical techniques used to measure the human impact. Topics include the accumulation of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) in Earth's atmosphere and the contamination of drinking water at the tap and in the ground. Students will get hands on training in mass spectrometry and spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition of air, water, and soil and will participate in an outreach project aimed at providing chemical analyses of urban tap waters to residents of Trenton, NJ.

The course covers concepts related to the chemistry of inorganic and organic materials found in the pristine and contaminated settings in the Earth surface environments, with an introduction to the modern field sampling techniques and advanced laboratory analytical and imaging tools. Different materials characterization methods, such as optical, infrared, and synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy and microscopy, will also be introduced. Field sampling and analysis of materials from diverse soil and coastal marine environments will be the focus during the second half of the semester.

This course presents a treatment of the physical and chemical processes that shape Earth's surface, such as solar radiation, deformation of the solid Earth, and the flow of water (vapor, liquid, and solid) under the influence of gravity. In particular,the generation, transport, and preservation of sediment in response to these processes is studied in order to better read stories of Earth history in the geologic record and to better understand processes involved in modern and ancient environmental change.

The course explores a range of problems in the history of aesthetics, poetics and cultural techniques. These include intersections of aesthetics and politics, art and literature¿s relationship to social context and social theory, the history of perception and knowledge practices, performance theory, the problem of judgement, aesthetic critique, and ecological aesthetics.

This course provides an overview of fundamental physical mechanisms behind sustainable energy technologies, including solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, nuclear, and hydroelectricity. Physics of the greenhouse effect, projected Earth's climate changes, as well as socio-economic impacts on energy uses and greenhouse-gas emissions are reviewed. Variability, dispatchability, and areal power density of energy resources are discussed. Energy efficiency, energy storage, as well as transmission and distribution of electric power are touched upon.

This course examines over a millennium of music, art, literature, and culture in Venice, using as its lens the theatricality of the city's unique topography, environment, and geographic position. Moving between modern and medieval, the stage and the street, we consider the special relationship this implausible city has always staged between human creativity and ecological fragility. Topics include public opera, civic ritual, postwar avant-gardism, tourism, the city in fiction and film, and the Venice Biennale.

Overview of the issues surrounding global energy supplies, oil's unique physical and economic properties, and its role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East and U.S. strategic interests in the region. Discuss availability of energy sources, the state of technology, the functioning of energy markets, the challenges of coping with global climate change and the key role of the oil reserves in the Middle East. Then focus on the history of oil in the Middle East and its impact on societies in the region.

This course surveys ways in which the value of the environment has been conceptualized in political philosophy, with a special focus on the moral problem of climate change. What is the value of nature, biodiversity, and non-human animals? What is a fair distribution of environmental goods? How does climate change interact with other structures of inequality in our society? Is economic growth the problem or the solution? What are our environmental responsibilities to future generations? How should individuals and governments respond to the problem of climate change?

How will climate change influence cooperation and conflict within and among nation-states? Who are the winners and losers from climate change? These are among the central questions addressed in this course, and one of growing importance to academics and policymakers. Taking a social scientific approach emphasizing formal modeling and empirical analysis, we draw on most recent research and policy writing on climate change and conflict. We consider how climate change will influence the availability and cost of a range of natural resources and discuss and debate whether these changes are likely to lead to conflict or cooperation.

What is the social basis for the production and distribution of carbon emissions, the source of human-induced climate change? Which people, companies, and countries are responsible? On whom do the effects fall? What makes change possible? We examine the institutions that try to govern carbon emissions, with a focus on different types of governments, social movements, and private firms. We consider how these actors are both similar and different across rich and poor countries, and across the global, national, and urban scales. And we debate proposed solutions that rely on the analyses and evidence that we have studied earlier in the course.

This course examines the ways domestic US and international environmental regulatory frameworks adopt, interpret and otherwise accommodate scientific information. The course focuses on several case studies, that provide insights into the science-policy interactions which emerge from managing natural resources and environmental risk. Topics include air pollution; climate change; ozone depletion; managing the world's forests, fisheries, and ecosystem services, and global trade in wildlife. Students will explore the science underlying these issues as well as current policies and the range of future policy responses.

People have plowed up, cut-down and otherwise heavily manipulated more than 75% of the world's forests and grasslands, releasing roughly 30% of the carbon in the atmosphere added by people. In the next 30 years, the world is on a path to convert vast additional areas of forest and diverse habitats to meet rising demands for food, wood, and energy. This course will explore the scope of the challenge and possible solutions. Students will obtain a general understanding of important scientific concepts, such as the carbon cycle, basic principles of agronomy and biodiversity. They will also explore a wide range of policy issues.