Dr Thomas Smith

This course is compulsory on the BSc in Environment and Sustainable Development and BSc in Environment and Sustainable Development with Economics. This course is available on the BA in Geography and BSc in International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course is not available to General Course students.

This course is capped. Places will be assigned on a first come first served basis.

Behind every headline about climate change, loss of biodiversity or pollution lies a complex network of science, debate and decision-making. This course equips you to understand the science behind major environmental challenges – and to analyse how that knowledge is constructed, contested, and translated into real-world policy and action. We will first interrogate the scientific foundations for environmental concerns – how and why physical environmental systems change – before developing a social-science perspective on that science: how evidence is produced, communicated and mobilised in governance, and how uncertainty, interests and institutions shape “what counts” as truth.

Building on this dual foundation, we examine the relationship between science, policy and society. You’ll explore how different knowledge traditions – the scientific method, post-positivist science, Indigenous and local knowledges, citizen science, and the knowledge-industrial complex – converge or collide in real policy arenas. We focus on translation and impact: how evidence informs legislation, markets and multilateral agreements; how scientists and communities communicate more effectively with policymakers; and how non-expert knowledge can reframe agendas. Learning is interactive, combining lectures, class discussions and practical activities so you can critique “truth” claims and better understand evidence-informed action.

Specific Topics Covered:

• Scientific foundations of major environmental crises
• Knowledge production: the scientific method, paradigms, Indigenous & local knowledges, citizen science
• The science-policy interface, scientific uncertainty, bias and politicisation
• Denialism, misinformation and effective science communication
• Environmental governance tools: treaties, regulation, markets and compliance
• Justice, equity and representation: whose knowledge counts, who benefits, who bears the costs
• Climate change
• Stratospheric ozone depletion and the Montreal Protocol
• Transboundary air pollution and attribution politics
• Deforestation, land degradation and the REDD+ programme
• Indigenous fire management and carbon accounting schemes
• Disaster risk management, hazard and vulnerability
• The role of UNEP in agenda setting

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

In the Department of Geography and Environment, teaching will be delivered through a combination of classes/seminars, in-person lectures and other supplementary activities.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures in Autumn Term.

Students will be expected to complete one formative assignment in preparation for the summative assignment.

There are no required textbooks for the course - the following texts provide useful background reading on the core themes:

• Hulme, M. (2009) Why We Disagree About Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
• Latour, B. (2004) Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press)
• Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., ... & Foley, J. A. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. nature, 461(7263), 472-475.
• Wisner, B., P. Blaikie, T. Cannon and I. Davis (2004) At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd edition (London: Routledge)

Indicative texts (ordered by week) include:

• Quinn, C. H., & Ockwell, D. (2010). The link between ecological and social paradigms and the sustainability of environmental management: a case study of semi-arid Tanzania. Handbook for Environmental Management, 282-308.
• Lenton, T. M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S., Richardson, K., Steffen, W., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2019). Climate tipping points—too risky to bet against. Nature, 575(7784), 592-595.
• Snyder, E. G., Watkins, T. H., Solomon, P. A., Thoma, E. D., Williams, R. W., Hagler, G. S., ... & Preuss, P. W. (2013). The changing paradigm of air pollution monitoring. Environmental science & technology, 47(20), 11369-11377.
• Goldstein, J. E. (2016). Knowing the subterranean: Land grabbing, oil palm, and divergent expertise in Indonesia’s peat soil. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 48(4), 754-770.
• Russell-Smith, J., Cook, G. D., Cooke, P. M., Edwards, A. C., Lendrum, M., Meyer, C. P., & Whitehead, P. J. (2013). Managing fire regimes in north Australian savannas: applying Aboriginal approaches to contemporary global problems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11(s1), e55-e63.
• Smith, T. E. L., & Liu, F. H. M. (2025). Seasons and the Anthropocene. Progress in Environmental Geography, 27539687251348470.
• Díaz, S., Settele, J., Brondízio, E. S., Ngo, H. T., Agard, J., Arneth, A., ... & Zayas, C. N. (2019). Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change. Science, 366(6471), eaax3100.
• Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., & Davis, I. (2004). The disaster pressure and release model. At the risk. Natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters, 49-86.
• Dominey-Howes, D. (2018). Hazards and disasters in the Anthropocene: some critical reflections for the future. Geoscience Letters, 5(1), 1-15.
• Godin-Beekmann, S., Newman, P. A., & Petropavlovskikh, I. (2018). 30th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol: From the safeguard of the ozone layer to the protection of the Earth's climate. Comptes Rendus. Géoscience, 350(7), 331-333.
• Ungar, S. (2000). Knowledge, ignorance and the popular culture: climate change versus the ozone hole. Public Understanding of Science, 9(3), 297.
• Elsasser, S. W., & Dunlap, R. E. (2013). Leading voices in the denier choir: Conservative columnists’ dismissal of global warming and denigration of climate science. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(6), 754-776.

Essay (100%).

Students may choose their assignment as either an environmental monitoring report (3000 words) or a summative essay requiring reference to primary or secondary data sources (3000 words).