2015 Bootcamp Syllabus Day 1: Ecomodernism: Surveying the Landscape “The Next Industrial Revolution” from Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins (1999) “A Question of Design” from Cradle to Cradle by Michael Braungart and William McDonough (2002) “Lightly, Carefully, Gracefull” from Eaarth by Bill McKibben (2010) “The Ultimate Resource” from The Ultimate Resource by Julian Simon (1981) “History of Our Future” from Road to Survival by William Vogt (1948) “A safe operating space for humanity” by Johan Rockstrom et al (2009) “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist” by Paul Kingsnorth (2011) “Toward Some Operational Principles of Sustainable Development” by Herman E. Daly (1990) “Our Grandest Challenge” from Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steve Kotler (2012) “Optimum Human Population Size” by Gretchen Daily, Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich (1994) “The Limits to Exponential Growth” from Limits to Growth by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III (1972) “An Economic and Social Hurricane” from The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding (2011) Day 2: Energy Transitions and Paradigms Transitions “The mineral based energy economy” from Continuity, Chance, & Change by E.A. Wrigley (1988)
“Past and prospective energy transitions: Insights from history” by Roger Fouquet and Peter Pearson (2012)
“Future Global Energy Prosperity: The Terawatt Challenge” by Richard Smalley (2006)
“A critical review of global decarbonization scenarios: what do they tell us about feasibility?” by Loftus et al (2014)
Paradigms “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken” by Amory Lovins (1976) “Market Solutions” from The Infinite Resource by Ramez Naam (2013) Introduction and Executive Summary from “Coal Killer” by Trembath et al (2013) Day 3: Conservation “Nature Unbound” by Linus Blomqvist, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger (2015) “What is Conservation Biology?” by Michael E. Soulé (1985) “Conservation in the Anthropocene: beyond solitude and fragility” by Peter Kareiva, Robert Lalasz, and Michelle Marvier (2012) “What is Conservation Science?” by Peter Kareiva and Michelle Marvier (2012) “The ‘New Conservation’” by Michael E. Soulé (2013) “What is the future of conservation?” by Daniel Doak et al (2013) “New Conservation: Setting the Record Straight and Finding Common Ground” by Peter Kareiva (2014) “The Liberation of the Environment” by Jesse H. Ausubel (1996) Day 4: Pragmatism and Paradigm Shifts Pragmatism
"Pragmatism" from Break Through by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger (2007) "Pragmatism and Environmental Thought" by Kelly Parker (1996) "The Pursuit of the Ideal" from The Crooked Timber of Humanity by Isaiah Berlin (1991) “Law Amid Diversity” from Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict by Cass Sunstein (1996) “Optimism, Meliorism, and Faith” from The Community Reconstructs by James Campbell (1992) Part 2 from Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly by John Kay (2010) “Climate Pragmatism” (Introduction and Conclusion) by Robert Atkinson, Netra Chhetri, Joshua Freed, Isabel Galiana, Christopher Green, Steven Hayward, Jesse Jenkins, Elizabeth Malone, Ted Nordhaus, Roger Pielke Jr., Gwyn Prins, Steve Rayner, Daniel Sarewitz, and Michael Shellenberger (2011) [Optional] “Political Economics and Possibilism” from A Bias for Hope: Essays on Development in Latin America by A.O. Hirschman (1971) Paradigm Shifts Excerpt from "The Pollution Paradigm" in Break Through by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger (2007) "Shift Happens" by David Weinberger (2012) Extract from “A General Theory of Scientific/Intellectual Movements” by Scott Frickel and Neil Gross (2005) Day 5: Innovation and the Role of the State “Innovation and the Invisible Hand of Government” by Fred Block from State of Innovation (2011) “Public R&D and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D programs?” by D. Foray, D.C. Mowery, and R.R. Nelson in Research Policy (2012) “Technological Change” by Arie Rip and Rene Kemp from Human Choice and Climate Change, Vol 2 (1998) Engines of Growth by Loren King, Linus Blomqvist, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger (2013) “The innovation effects of environmental policy instruments – A typical case of the blind men and the elephant?” by Rene Kemp and Serena Pontoglio in Ecological Economics (2011) “Has ‘Innovation’ supplanted the idea of progress?” by Siva Vaidhyanathan in Aeon Ideas (2015) [Introduction & Conclusion] How to Make Nuclear Cheap by Ted Nordhaus, Jessica Lovering, and Michael Shellenberger (2013) “Lessons from the Shale Revolution: A Report on the Conference Proceedings” by Loren King, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger (2015) Day 6: The Anthropocene Ruth DeFries (2014) – Chapter 1 from The Big Ratchet: How Humanity Thrives in the Face of Natural Crisis. Fridolin Krausmann (2011) – The global metabolic transition: A historical overview. Erle Ellis (2013) – Used planet: A global history, PNAS 110:20. Emma Marris (2009) – Ragamuffin earth, Nature 460. Timothy Taylor (2010) – Just Three Systems from The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution. Rene Dubos (1980) – Environmental Needs of Human Life from The Wooing of the Earth. Bill McKibben (1989) – Excerpt from The End of Nature. Will Steffen, Paul J. Crutzen and John R. McNeill (2007) – The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature, Ambio 36:8. Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus (2011) – Evolve: The Case for Modernization as the Road to Salvation, Breakthrough Journal vol. 2. Day 7: Science Policy “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” by Horst W.J. Ritter and Melvin M. Webber (1973) “Collective Representations of Nature” by Michael Thompson and Steve Rayner from Human choice and climate change Volume one: The societal framework, Eds. Steve Rayner and Elizabeth L. Malone (1998) “Border Skirmishes between Science and Policy: Autonomy, Responsibility, and Values” by Heather E. Douglas (2002) “How science makes environmental controversies worse” by Daniel Sarewitz (2004) “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” by John P.A. Ioannidis (2005) “Scientific and lay communities: earning epistemic trust through knowledge sharing” by Heidi E. Grasswick (2010) The Honest Broker by Roger Pielke, Jr. (First five chapters) (2010) Day 8: Energy for Development “Our High-­‐Energy Planet” by Mark Caine et al. (2014) “Making Energy Access Meaningful” by Morgan Bazilian and Roger Pielke Jr. (2014) “The Low-­‐Energy Club” by Alex Trembath (2014) “Power to the Poor” by Morgan Bazilian (2015) “Abandoning Hope” from Getting Better by Charles Kenny (2012) “High-­‐Energy Innovation” by Gary Dirks et al. (2014) Day 9: How We Think About the Future “Escaping Goblins, Only to be Chased by Wolves?” from The Precautionary Principle: A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk Assessment by Indur Goklany (2001) “Love Your Monsters” by Bruno Latour (2012) “Authenticity, Anti-­‐Vaxxers, and the rise of neoprimitivism” by Andrew Potter (2015) Introduction to Visions of Technology edited by Richard Rhodes (1999) “The Art of the Long View” by Peter Schwartz (1996)
[Optional, but you should read if you are interested in energy] “Improving the way we think about projecting future energy use and emissions of carbon dioxide” by M. Granger Morgan and David W. Keith (2008) “Scale, Scope, Stakes, Speed” from Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand (2009) “The postConcorde world and the risk of planetary entrapment”
“Planet of the Future”, Boom Magazine interview with Kim Stanley Robinson (2014)