August - 2012
Perspectives on Climate Change
Fall 2012 - 3 credits
Prof. M. Tedesco (CCNY and GC)
mtedesco@ccny.cuny.edu
Ph: 2126507027 (office)
Cell: 2023754884
Wednesdays 10:00 – 13:00
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and CCNY
Room: 3212 Graduate Center
COURSE DESCRIPTION.
This course will focus on multiple aspects of Climate Change using a crossdisciplinary approach. Climate Change includes a large body of topics and it is
obviously impossible to provide a comprehensive view of the topic within one
course. The core of the course will attempt, therefore, at focusing on those topics
related to Geography and Earth and Environmental Sciences with contributions
from other disciplines (such as Social Sciences, Architecture, Media and
Communication, Science Policy and Anthropology, etc.). Classes will be given by
the instructor and by distinguished invited speakers. The course is oriented
toward registered graduate and master students. The motivation is to bring
together students from different sub-disciplines of the EES program to interact
and discuss topics concerning Climate Change from different perspectives. This
will expose the students to either cutting edge research and existing literature
that will complement their main field of study. This is especially important in the
case of Climate Change where multiple disciplines are involved. It is further
important for the students of the Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES)
program at the Graduate Center, often finding themselves separated into the
physical and not-physical sciences. This course offers an opportunity for the
students to get together and creates a basic ground where all students could
interact. No specific knowledge of math and physics is required nor of climate
related topics. Graduate students from programs different from the Earth and
Environmental Sciences (EES) are invited to register, but are kindly asked to
contact the instructor before doing so. Master students interested in registering
will need to contact the instructor.
Classes will be at the Graduate Center.
SHORT-TERM ASSIGNMENTS.
1. ASSIGNED READINGS: Every week all students will be assigned
readings. For each reading, the student must hand in an “article review”
by email before the beginning of the next class to the instructor and deliver
a printed version of it in class, if they want. No assignment will be
accepted late without a legitimate excuse. The assignment must be named
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2.
3.
4.
5.
as follows: Surname_name_date_revname.docx’ where ‘revname’ is the
abbreviated article or book chapter name containing, for example, first
author’s name and date. A student named Marco Tedesco, reviewing a
paper by John White published in 2006 and delivering the assignment on
November 23 2012 will name the file as follows:
‘Tedesco_Marco_11232012_white2006.doc’. Students are allowed to pick
up additional readings in case they want to but they will have to coordinate
with the instructor in doing so.
LECTURES: The classes will be focusing on both informal presentations by
the instructor/invited speakers and the discussion on the articles assigned
to the students. Together with the article review on point # 1 the students
will have to provide a summary of the presentation of the previous week
following the guidelines mentioned above. The length round 500-600
words (that’s about 1 page single space with 12 point font) summary,
including critique, and your own opinions. Students can extend the review
up to a maximum of 1000 words. Students will be informally presenting
and discussing the articles and the professor and/or speakers will act
mostly as ‘moderator’, as in a panel discussion or a conference meeting.
COURSE TEXT BOOK: There is not a specific textbook. Every week there
will be one ore more readings assigned from several books or article
identified by the instructor (this will be updated with the syllabus).
BOOK REVIEW: Students will choose one of several suggested books to
review. Students may also review a book of their own choosing, with priorapproval of the instructor. Book reviews must be 1200-1800 words (that’s
about 2-3 pages), and include an overview of the book, a description of
each chapter, and discussion of what was done well or done poorly, and a
discussion of which audience is the book good for. This is due at the end of
semester (see below).
RESEARCH PAPERS: For final purposes, students might be aggregated into
groups or teams. This is done either to reduce the number of final
presentations that we will have to go through during the last class but also
to promote and to promote the aspect of working in teams with your peers
(whether you like it or not “none of us is as smart as the sum of us”). Each
student or group will write two research papers at the end of the semester:
a first paper will be concerning the book assigned at the beginning of the
semester. This will be done by each student, and not by the group. The
second final assignment will be produced by the different teams or single
students and will consist in an essay 5-10 pages on a topic selected by the
student concerning his/her area of expertise. The group or the student
might want to add an introductory background on the topic and add some
critical thinking (the essay does not just have to be a large summary,
though this will be a good part of it). For example, how do you relate the
topic in your essay to the others that we looked at ? What are your
opinions regard the selected topic ? How does it fit in the context of
climate change and global warming debate ? What is the potential of
advancing our understanding of climate change and what are some of the
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things that can be or need to be done ? We will have time to discusss more
in detail this and other aspects during classes.
6. FINAL PRESENTATION: each group of students/student will make an
individual presentation of their essay at the end of the semester.
7. WEBSITE AND TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE
During class all students will contribute to the creation and development
of a website where we will be posting all the class material. In addition, we
will be posting videos, powerpoint presentations and any material that
invited speakers might want to share with us and make it available for the
public.
Grades and criteria
The following criteria will be used for the final grade. There will be no mid-term
or temporary grade during class.




Participation in class and weekly deliverables
book review
20%
website and IT knowledge
20%
final paper and presentation
30%
30%
Preliminary schedule for classes
Date
TOPIC
Specific topics/Speaker
Readings
Lec
#
1
08/29
Physical Science
of Climate
Change I
- MGHS – Ch 1.
- AD – Ch 1, 2, 3 , 4
Additional Readings
- PO – Ch 2.
- DR – Ch1
2
09/5
Physical Science
of Climate
Change II
3
09/12
Global warming
debate
4
09/19
Historical
overview of
Climate change
Class
Introduction/Definition
of climate/ Basic
physics principle of
climate and climate
drivers/unveiling the
past
Understanding the
present and projecting
the future/ Current
observations/Climate
models/
R. Alley’s movie: Earth
Operator’s manual +
Bob Tanner
Joshua Wolfe
(climatescience.tv)
5
6
09/27
10/3
NO CLASS
Climate Change
and the poles
Allan Frei (Hunter
College)
- The Economist – Vanishing North – June 16th
2012 Issue
7
10/10
Monday
schedule
10/17
NO CLASS
according to
ccny schedule
Climate Change
and the Media
8
Deadline
- AD, Ch. 5,6,7,8
- MGHS – Ch 2
Additional readings
- RH pp. 159 - 216
Alley’s selected readings
- EK (entire book)
- Spencer Weart's essay: Government: The View
from Washington, DC
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/pdf/Govt.pdfIPCC Historical Overview of Climate Science from
AR4:
www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4wg1-chapter1.pdf
Selection
of topic
for final
essay
We can watch more
movies.
Andy Revkin( NYT and
Pace University).
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9
10/24
10
10/31
11
11/7
12
13
11/14
11/21
14
11/28
15
12/5
16
12/12
Climate change
and soft
infrastructures:
protecting NYC
from SLR
Communicating
Climate change
at the poles
through
sonification and
visualization: A
CCNY
sponsored
projects
Energy,
sustainability and
climate change
Tedesco out
Climate
modeling and
communication
Archaeology,
Climate
Change, and
Long Term
Sustainability
NO CLASS
Tedesco at
Conference in
San Francisco
CLASS
presentation
Title: Why climate
and the media are a
bad fit, and why that
may not matter.
Catherine Seavitt
(School of Architecture,
CCNY)
(me in Florida), need to
change class
Ina Saltz (Art Dept.,
CCNY) and Jon Perl
(Music Dept., CCNY)
Chapters from SeaRise book
Balazs Fekete (CUNY
Cross Road
Environmental Initiative
Institute and CCNY)
Gavin Schmidt (NASA
GISS)
Tom McGovern (The
Graduate Center of
CUNY)
Toward an Integrated History to Guide the Future,
van de Leeuw et al.
Collapse and Reorganization in Social-Ecological
Systems: Questions, Some Ideas, and Policy
Implications, Abel et al.
Hegmon et al., Social Transformation and Its
Human Costs in the Prehispanic U.S. Southwest
Students
For classes:
Selected readings for class.
-
D. Randall – Atmosphere, Clouds and Climate – Princeton University Press –
2012 (DR)
A. Dessler – Introduction to Modern Climate Change – Cambridge 2012 (AD)
Emmanuel K – What we know about climate change, 2007 , MIT Press (EK)
J. P. Peixoto and A. H Oort, Physics of climate – American Institute of Physics
(PO)
K. McGuffie and A. Henderson-Sellers – A climate modeling primer, Wiley and
Sons, 2004 (MGHS)
J. Marsching and A. Polli – Far Field. Digital Culture, Climate change and the
poles, ISBN 9781841504780, Paperback 272 pages, 230 x 170 Published
November 2011 , Imprint: Intellect (MP)
Robert Henson, The rough guide to Climate change – Rough guides (RH)
The Discovery of Global Warming, Spencer Weart 2003
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Movie list:
-
Everything’s cool
Earth – The operator’s manual
Cool it !
To check
- Six degrees could change the world
- The great global warming swindle
- Out of balance: exxon Mobil’s impact on Climate change
Required Books:
1- W. Behringer – A cultural history of climate, Polity Press, 2010
(Sam)
2- R. Alley - The two mile time machine, Princeton, 2000 (OLU)
3- S. Weart – The discovery of global warming, Harvard University
Press, 2008 (Renhuma)
4- B. McKibben – The global warming reader – Penguin 2011 (Patrick)
5- E. Kolbert - Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and
Climate Change, Bloomsbury , 2006 (Kamilla)
6- T. H. Friedman – Hot, Flat and Crowded – Why we need a green
revolution and how it can renew America – Picador , 2009 (Chad)
7- B. Doppelt, The Power of Sustainable Thinking: How to Create a
Positive Future for the Climate, the Planet, Your Organization and
Your Life, Routledge, 2010 (Annesia)
8- S. Schneider , Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth's
Climate, National Gepgraphic, 2009
9- F. Krupp and M. Horn, Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent
Energy and Stop Global Warming, Norton and Company, 2009
(Alejandro)
10- T. Flannery, The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the
Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, Grove Press, 2001
(Renhuma)
11- A. Lappe, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of
Your Fork and What You Can Do about It, Bloomsbury, 2010 (kaitilin)
12- E. Pooley, The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to
Save the Earth, Hyperion 2010
13 -D. Archer, The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation for the
Climate Change Forecast, Wiley – Blackwell 2011 (Christine)
14 – The whale and the supercomputer (Eric)
Recommended books:
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- P. N. Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data,
and the Politics of Global Warming (Infrastructures), the MIT press
2010 (Tri)
- B. McKibben – Eaarth, St. Martin’s Griffin- 2011
- A. Campbell Keller, Science in Environmental Policy: The Politics of Objective
Advice (Politics, Science, and the Environment), the MIT Press 2009
- Rodger Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, Oxford University
Press, 1998
- P. Hawken, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Back
Bay Books, 2008
Suggested books:
- P. N. Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the
Politics of Global Warming (Infrastructures), the MIT press 2010
-D. Archer, The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation for the Climate
Change Forecast, Wiley – Blackwell 2011
- R. Pielke Jr. - The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You
About Global Warming, Basic Books, 2010
- J. Hansen – Storm of my Grandchildren, Bloomsbury, 2009
- L. Smith – The world in 2050, Plume, 2011 (Gerry)
- M. Mann, The hockey sticks and the climate wars, Columbia 2012
- M. Bowen, Censoring Science, Dutton, 2008
- M. Oppenheimer and R. H. Boyle – Dead Heat Basic Books - 1990
- G. Schmidt and J. Wolfe – Climate Change
- H. Pollack – A World without ice, Avery 2010
Student’s proposed books
The hockey stick illusion – (Dan)
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