PPUA 5264 Energy Democracy & Climate Justice: Technology, Policy & Social Change

This course focuses on two interconnected concepts: energy democracy, a growing social movement that frames the transformation to a renewable-based society as an opportunity to advance social, racial and economic justice, and climate justice, an intersectional, equity-focused framework to assess and prioritize societal responses to the worsening climate crisis. Climate justice recognizes that policies, processes and practices of elite and profit-seeking organizations and individuals are driving the climate crisis, climate vulnerabilities are worse among those who have contributed the least, and transformative, systemic changes are urgently needed. The course explores the economic injustices and racial disparities that are expanding climate vulnerabilities and increasing precarious livelihoods. The course explores fossil fuel phaseout as an essential part of both energy democracy and climate justice. Social structures and policy processes that reinforce and perpetuate fossil fuel reliance will be interrogated, as will processes for change in energy and climate systems. The course elevates antiracist, feminist principles and explores tensions associated with systemic versus incremental change, individual versus collective action, centralized versus decentralized power, and concentrated versus distributed wealth. Semester-long team projects provide students an opportunity to collaborate to advance energy democracy and climate justice.   

Check out student projects from the course:

Examples from Fall 2021

Initiative for Energy Justice: Frontline Voices of the Gulf South:

StoryMapJS: Frontline voices of the Gulf South (knightlab.com)

by Harley Hayes, Johan Arango-Quiroga, Dipa Desai

Solar Policy Research for Puerto Rico - InvestPR and TSK Energy Solutions: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/382cae1b449dd89395f2a82d7fb18642/investpr-tsk-energy-solutions/index.html

by Alyssa Rose, Awa Sane-Darboe, Carlos Arriaga Serrano, Ariel Estevez Perez

Fall 2020 - Green New Deal Storymap - This storymap charts the 14 GND proposals reviewed in the Exploring Frameworks for a GND project. In order of release, the map locates each proposal and provides its unique highlights. Although it is concentrated in the northeast U.S., this map includes proposals from across North America, as well as NextGenerationEU, the European multinational proposal.

Additional student projects from Fall 2020 can be viewed here at Northeastern’s Service Learning Virtual Expo.

Other Courses Previously Taught:

The Renewable Energy Transition: Technology, Policy and Social Change, Northeastern

The 21st Century City: Urban Opportunities & Challenges in the Global Context, Northeastern

Environmental Science (undergraduate-level), U of Vermont

Energy System Transitions (graduate-level), U of Vermont & Clark University

Climate Change, Energy and Development (graduate & undergrad), U of Vermont & Clark University

Environmental Science & Policy: Introduction to Case Studies (undergraduate-level), Clark

The Sustainable University/Sustainability and the Role of Higher Education, Clark

Global Warming: How to respond? (first-year undergraduate-level), Clark University

Research Project Development for Environmental Science & Policy (graduate-level), Clark

Energy & Climate Social Change Research Seminar (graduate-level), Clark University

Biogeochemical Cycles and Global Change (graduate-level), Clark University

Joint Fact Finding (grad-level), MIT (2004) (co-taught with Herman Karl)

Earth System Science, Boston University (2004)

Climate Change: Scientific, Political, and Economic Challenges, Tufts University (2003)