3-13: Societal Responses to Regional Climate Change

Importance of this Unit to the Course

Local environmental changes linked to changes in global climate can give citizens a sense of helplessness because no one locally is to blame. This unit explores how citizens respond to seemingly irreversible regional environmental changes as an analogy to how they might respond to regional effects of global warming as described in Block 2.

Objectives

To review past examples of how societies responded to irreversible environmental change.
To use past examples of environmantal change as a means of forecasting how future societies will respond to changes in global, regional, and local environmental change.

Preparation for Discussion (You must complete this section before class.)

Read the summary information.

Take the Quiz over the summary information. (see your portfolio)

Review additional reading material (this material is not covered in the quiz, but offers more ideas for online discussion)

None

Discussion (online / face-to-face) (See your portfolio for due dates and times)

A major component of the course is participation in the online dialog. The following types of comments are required:

Social Comments
Knowledge-building Comments
Ethical Comments

The following may be used as discussion starters for the online dialog:

Unit Problem to Ponder:

What could you personally do to reduce your contribution to global greenhouse gases by 50% over the next year? What would you be willing to do?
Unit exam questions from previous years
Unit discussions from previous years, available from the current online discussion page

Additional Reading