Instructor: Suzanne Lohmann
Subject Area: Political Science
Course Description: Global catastrophic risks pose a challenge to modern civilization because of their superhuman extension in space, time, and the knowledge realm. Human interests and outlooks are local, regional, and national as well as egoistical, particularistic, and tribal. Overlapping generations imply intergenerational conflicts among the living—young, middle-aged, and old—and between ancestors and descendants. Deeply and variably specialized experts struggle to communicate across scientific disciplines; across natural and human sciences; and across pure and applied sciences—only to hit a brick wall in their communications with the lay public, which is variously represented by elected politicians, appointed bureaucrats, organized interest groups, and fluid social movements. The ensuing clash of science, ethics, and politics is the subject of this course.
We shall study climate change, the paradigmatic global catastrophic risk, with a focus on the role of food, the food system, and food system crises.