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Introduction
Introduction
BackEnvironmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
Related Courses
About Amherst College
About Amherst College
BackEnvironmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
Related Courses
Admission & Financial Aid
Admission & Financial Aid
BackEnvironmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
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Environmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
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Environmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
Related Courses
Five College Programs & Certificates
Five College Programs & Certificates
Back- Five College Courses
- Five College Certificate Programs
- African Studies Certificate
- Asian Pacific American Studies Certificate
- Biomathematics
- Buddhist Studies Certificate
- Coastal and Marine Sciences Certificate
- Culture Health Science Certificate
- Ethnomusicology Certificate
- International Relations Certificate
- Latin American Caribbean Latino Studies Certificate
- Logic Certificate
- Middle Eastern Studies Certificate
- Native American and Indigenous Studies Certificate
- Queer and Sexuality Studies Certificate
- Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Certificate
- Russian East European Eurasian Studies Certificate
- Sustainability Studies Certificate
Environmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
Related Courses
Honors & Fellowships
Honors & Fellowships
BackEnvironmental Studies
Professors Clotfelter, López, Martini, Melillo†, Miller (Chair), Moore*, and Temeles‡; Sims, Associate Professor Holleman; Assistant Professors Hewitt‡ and Ravikumar*; Senior Lecturer Levin.
For many thousands of years, our ancestors were more shaped by the environment, than they were shapers of it. This began to change, first with hunting and then, roughly ten thousand years ago, with the beginnings of agriculture. Since then, humans have had a steadily increasing impact on the natural world. Environmental Studies explores the complex interactions between humans and their environment. This exploration requires grounding in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.
Majors in Environmental Studies must take a minimum of eleven courses that collectively reflect the subject’s interdisciplinary nature. The required introductory course (ENST-120) and senior seminar (ENST-495) are taught by faculty from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and humanities. The five core courses include Ecology (ENST-210), Environmental History (ENST-220 or HIST-105 or HIST 265), Economics (ENST-230 or ECON-111), Statistics (STAT-111 or STAT-135), and Environmental Policy (ENST-250 or ENST-260). Beyond these courses, majors must take four electives, including at least one course from each of two categories (Category I: Natural sciences and Category II: Social sciences and Humanities), which span different fields of environmental inquiry.
Majors are strongly encouraged to complete the introductory course by the end of their second year and the core requirements prior to their senior year. The senior seminar (ENST-495) offered in the fall semester, fulfills the comprehensive requirement.
The honors program in Environmental Studies involves two course credits. Majors electing to complete honors are required to submit a thesis proposal to the Department either in the spring of the junior year (if summer work is required) or at the beginning of the first semester of the senior year. Accepted candidates can take either an honors course in two successive semesters (ENST-498 & ENST-499) or take a double-credit course in the spring semester (ENST-499D).
Students who wish to satisfy a requirement with a Five College course or a course taken away from Amherst College must petition the Department in writing through the Chair and submit a syllabus or description of the course for approval. Students for whom Environmental Studies is a second major can count no more than two courses toward both majors.
* On leave 2021-22
†On leave fall semester 2021-22
‡On leave spring semester 2021-22
105 Global Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
[Offered as HIST 105 [TE/TR/TS/C] and ENST-105) This course examines the environmental history of the world since 1900 with a particular focus on Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. We will use books, articles, four films, and a range of online media to illuminate the comparative and interdisciplinary possibilities of global environmental history. In addition to studying the past, we will explore how to use historical knowledge in the formulation of policy recommendations and grassroots initiatives for addressing contemporary environmental issues. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester.. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2019, Spring 2022
110 Environmental science with laboratory
This course provides an introduction to environmental science. Students will gain an understanding of the function and interactions between the biological, chemical, and physical components of the biosphere and take a systems approach to addressing environmental issues. Lectures on the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, resource use and management, and pollution and toxicology will link central scientific concepts to case studies of regional, national, and global environmental concern. The laboratory will expose students to various tools, techniques, and methodologies used to study the natural environment and document problems. Through field studies and the analysis of data and scientific literature, we will explore air, water, soil, and vegetation processes and their connection to local and global environmental issues. Students will identify research questions, test hypotheses, develop sampling and analysis plans, execute various field and lab methods, and report scientific findings.
Limited to 16 students. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2021
120 The Resilient (?) Earth: An Introduction to Environmental Studies
What is ‘the environment’ and why does it matter? What are the environmental impacts of “business as usual”? What kinds of environmental futures do we want to work towards and what are the alternatives? In this course, we will explore these and other questions that examine how and why we relate to the environment in the ways that we do and the social, ecological and ethical implications of these relationships. As an Introduction to Environmental Studies, this course seeks to (i) develop a common framework for understanding ‘the environment’ as a tightly coupled socio-natural enterprise, and (ii) familiarize students with several key environmental issues of the 21st century. One lecture and one discussion section per week.
Limited to 50 students. Spring semester. Senior Lecturer R. Levin and Professor Holleman
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
207 The Wild and the Cultivated
(Offered as HIST 207 [TR/C] and ENST 207) For thousands of years, wild and domesticated plants have played crucial roles in the development of cultures and societies. Students in this course will consider human relationships with plants from a global-historical perspective, comparing trends in various regions and time periods. We will focus on the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, seed-saving practices, medicinal plants, religious rites, food traditions, biopiracy, agribusiness, and biofuels. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 30 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2019
210 Ecology
(Offered as BIOL 230 and ENST 210) A study of the relationships of plants and animals (including humans) to each other and to their environment. We'll start by considering the decisions an individual makes in its daily life concerning its use of resources, such as what to eat and where to live, and whether to defend such resources. We'll then move on to populations of individuals, and investigate species population growth, limits to population growth, and why some species are so successful as to become pests whereas others are on the road to extinction. The next level will address communities, and how interactions among populations, such as competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, affect the organization and diversity of species within communities. The final stage of the course will focus on ecosystems, and the effects of humans and other organisms on population, community, and global stability. Three hours of lecture per week.
Requisite: BIOL 181 or ENST 120 or equivalent. Limited to 40 students. Fall Semester. Professor Temeles.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024
220 Environmental Issues of the 19th Century
(Offered as HIST 104 [TR/c] and ENST 220) This course considers the ways that people in various parts of the world thought about and acted upon nature during the nineteenth century. We look historically at issues that continue to have relevance today, including: invasive species, deforestation, soil-nitrogen availability, water use, desertification, and air pollution. Themes include: the relationship of nineteenth-century colonialism and environmental degradation, gender and environmental change, the racial dimensions of ecological issues, and the spatial aspects of human interactions with nature. We will take at least one field trip. In addition, we will watch three films that approach nineteenth-century environmental issues from different vantage points. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 18 students. Not offered in 2021-22. Professor Melillo.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021
225 Climate Change: Science and Society
Understanding the connections between climate science and the societal impacts of climate change is key to addressing the global climate crisis. This course will critically examine climate change drivers, impacts, and solutions from the scientific and societal perspectives. Through lecture, discussion, and project work we will examine environmental responses to climate change, communication within the scientific community and by stakeholders, and adaptation and mitigation response strategies. Our examination of the science will be grounded by careful analysis of documents such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and will empower students to translate their understanding of the science into meaningful communication strategies designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. This course will emphasize verbal, written, and visual communication skills pertaining to climate change science.
Requisites: ENST-120, BIOL-181, GEOL-109, or consent of instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Assistant Professor Hewitt.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
226 Unequal Footprints on the Earth: Understanding the Social Drivers of Ecological Crises and Environmental Inequality
(Offered as SOCI 226 and ENST 226) Creating a more sustainable relationship between human society and the rest of nature requires changing the way we relate to one another as humans. This course will explain why, while answering a number of associated questions and introducing the exciting and engaged field of environmental sociology. We study the anthropogenic drivers of environmental change from an interdisciplinary and historical perspective to make sense of pressing socio-ecological issues, including climate change, sustainability and justice in global food production, the disproportionate location of toxic waste disposal in communities of color, biodiversity loss, desertification, freshwater pollution and unequal access, the accumulation and trade in electronic waste, the ecological footprint of the Internet, and more. We examine how these issues are linked to broad inequalities within society, which are reflected in, and exacerbated by, persistent problems with environmental racism, the unaddressed legacies of colonialism, and other contributors to environmental injustice worldwide. Industrialization and the expansionary tendencies of the modern economic system receive particular attention, as these continue to be central factors promoting ecological change. Throughout the course a hopeful perspective in the face of such interrelated challenges is encouraged as we study promising efforts and movements that emphasize both ecological restoration and achievement of a more just, democratic world.
Course readings include foundational texts in environmental sociology, as well as the most current research on course topics. Writing and research assignments allow for the development of in-depth analyses of social and environmental issues relevant to students' community, everyday life, personal experience, and concerns.
Limited to 18 students. Fall semester. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
228 Environmental Philosophy
(Offered as PHIL 225 and ENST 228) Our impact on the environment has been significant, and in recent decades the pace of change has clearly accelerated. Many species face extinction, forests are disappearing, and toxic wastes and emissions accumulate. The prospect of a general environmental calamity seems all too real.
This sense of crisis has spurred intense and wide-ranging debate over what our proper relationship to nature should be. This is the focus of the course. Among the questions we shall explore will be: What obligations, if any, do we have to non-human animals, to living organisms like trees, to ecosystems as a whole, and to future generations of humans? Do animals have rights we ought to respect? Is nature intrinsically valuable or merely a bundle of utilities for our benefit? Is there even a stable notion of “what is natural” that can be deployed in a workable environmental ethic? Do our answers to these questions result in some way from a culturally contingent “image” we have of nature and our place within it? How might we best go about changing the ways we inhabit the planet?
Limited to 25 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professors Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2018
230 An Introduction to Economics with Environmental Applications
(Offered as ECON 111E and ENST 230) A study of the central problem of scarcity and of the ways in which micro and macro economic systems allocate scarce resources among competing ends and apportion goods produced among people. Covers the same material as ECON 111 but with special attention to the relationship between economic activity and environmental problems and to the application of micro and macroeconomic theory tools to analyze environmental issues. A student may not receive credit for both ECON 111 and ECON 111E. Two 80-minute and one 50-minute lecture/discussions per week.
Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 30 Amherst College students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Sims.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023
250 US Environmental Policy
This course is built around core readings on key policies and agencies of environmental governance in the US. It will provide students with a strong grasp of the most important environmental legislation in the United States (such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act). We will explore how existing environmental laws and institutions have provided important environmental protections, and also where they have fallen short. We will also ask how environmental racism and other forms of inequality have been addressed or exacerbated by historical policies, with an eye towards identifying promising alternatives in the future. Students will examine the relationships between local, state, and federal agencies carrying out environmental governance. This class will explore how policy is "political," and how it emerges from the actions of competing interest groups.
Pre-requisite: ENST-120; Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2020
260 Global Environmental Politics
The effects of environmental problems, from climate change, to water contamination, to the depletion of fisheries, are felt acutely at the local level. But their underlying causes are often global: coal-burning power plants in China affects sea-level rise near Miami, overfishing by European fleets off the coast of Africa affects bush meat hunting in the Congo Basin, and deforestation in Indonesia creates forest fires that affect all of Southeast Asia’s air quality. Environmental issues are also fundamentally political: that is, they emerge through negotiations between different actors and groups with divergent interests and disparate degrees of power and influence. In this course, we will examine how environmental problems emerge through political processes that transcend national borders. Through foundational readings, in-depth classroom discussions, and team-based analysis of pressing contemporary cases, you will learn the tools of rigorous multi-level political and policy analysis. While we will emphasize that a global and explicitly political analysis is necessary to properly diagnose why environmental problems and conflicts emerge, we will focus on how these diagnoses suggest solutions. Coming out of this course, you will be better equipped to analyze how global politics are linked to local environmental issues, and to understand when different types of solutions – from small changes to policy, to international treaties, to protest and demands for radical systems change – are most likely to move the needle on environmental sustainability and justice.
Requisite: ENST 120. Limited to 35 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
265 Environmental History of Latin America
(Offered as HIST 265 [LA/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 265 and ENST 265) This course focuses on the links between ecological transformations and human problems, and between rural social movements and environmentalism. Questions we will engage include: How has imperialism impacted the environment? How have these environmental impacts shaped the possibilities for political resistance by subaltern groups? Can history guide us in our current efforts to develop a sustainable approach to the environment that helps the land and its fauna, but does so in a way that brings greater justice and self-determination to the people who live there? Is it possible to protect the environment while affirming the interests of the state and of investors? We will focus on case studies from all across Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Andes. The class will introduce students to classic texts in Latin American environmental history, as well as some of the newest scholarship. Two class meetings per week.
Fall semester. Professor López.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2021
300 The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal has gained traction in the United States and around the world as a new approach to environmental policy and to redress structural inequalities linked to income and race. What is the Green New Deal, and how does it seem to transform environmental governance? In this course, we will explore key readings on the Green New Deal, and explore its connection to the original New Deal. We will examine how it relates to relevant literatures, such as environmental economics, political economy, critical race theory, and environmental sociology. We will critically debate the merits of various proposals for the Green New Deal using these frameworks and explore what it might take to translate these proposals into effective legislation. This class will equip students to contribute to a national conversation around these questions. Students will write weekly reflections, a policy brief or op-ed, and a research paper.
Pre-requisite: Background knowledge on climate change, environmental policy, or economics is recommended (e.g., courses such as ENST 226, 230, 252, 260, 330, 342 or POSC 112, 231, 307). Instructor permission required for students who have not taken ENST 120. Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
301 Hydrogeology
(Offered as GEOL 301 and ENST 301) As the global human population expands in a future marked by climate change, the search for and preservation of our most vital resource, water, will demand thoughtful policy and greater scientific understanding. This course is an introduction to surface and groundwater hydrology, geochemistry, and management for natural systems and human needs. Lectures will focus on understanding the hydrologic cycle, how water flows over and within the earth, and the many ways in which this water is threatened by contamination and overuse. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab each week. The laboratory will be centered around on-going local issues concerning use and restoration of the Fort River watershed.
Requisite: GEOL 109 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Spring semester. Professor Martini.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
310 Ecosystem Ecology
This course examines the principles of ecosystem ecology, which facilitates our understanding of key environmental issues. We will focus on water and elemental cycling and energy flow in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Topics will include the Earth’s climate system, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes, succession, and ecosystem resilience. We will discuss how ecosystem structure and function relates to applied issues of conservation, sustainability, and responses to climate change.
Requisites: ENST-210 or consent of instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Hewitt
Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
328 The Pandemic
(Offered as SOCI 328 and ENST 328) This course examines the root social and ecological conditions that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic and that help explain the significant inequalities we observe in terms of its impact. We study the structure and historical development of the global economy and the state, class and racial formation, the gendered division of society, and global ecological challenges, all of which provide necessary background to understand the pandemic’s emergence, effects, and the range of social response, including state policy. These studies include attention to the persistent consequences of colonialism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We also study the contested nature of these developments, such as how movements and struggles over political power, economic development, racial justice, ecological protection, and public health, shape outcomes.
This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with more of the course online and in-person meetings included as possible. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.
Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professors Holleman and Lembo.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2021
330 Environmental Justice
From climate change to water and air pollution, environmental degradation harms some groups of people more than others. Today, communities of color in the global North are disproportionately harmed by environmental contamination. The global South writ large faces far more environmental health issues than the global North. And women face unique harms from environmental degradation across the world. Why do these disparities exist? Should everyone have equal access to the same environmental quality, and whose responsibility is it to ensure this in the United States and globally? In this seminar, we will explore how and why factors like race, gender, colonial histories, and contemporary poverty shape the impacts of environmental problems on different communities. We will critically examine the theories and issues of environmental justice and political ecology. Beginning with a review of the history of the U.S. environmental justice movement, we will examine the social and environmental justice dimensions of U.S. and international case studies of fossil fuel extraction, tropical deforestation, urban industrial production, and agricultural intensification. The course will require students to write position papers, facilitate discussions, and produce a final case study analysis of a contemporary environmental justice issue of choice with recommendations for action.
Requisite: ENST 120 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
341 Ecology, Justice, and the Struggle for Socio-Ecological Change: Environmental Movements and Ideas
(Offered as SOCI 341 and ENST 341) Social movements—from the early conservation and anti-colonial movements that began over a century ago, to the modern climate justice movement—have worked to make environmental issues and inequalities part of the global political and policy agenda. The course draws upon sociological research that fosters an understanding of contemporary environmental debates, as well as the possibilities and obstacles we face in attempting to address socio-ecological problems. We study diverse global environmental movements and proposed environmental solutions, which reflect a wide range of perspectives and interests, as well as social inequalities. Inequality within and between countries means that different issues are at stake in negotiations addressing ecological problems for communities and people of different social locations. Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and position in the global economy affect both the way we experience socio-ecological change, and the ways we imagine and attempt to solve contemporary problems. Therefore, issues of environmental justice are highlighted as we study the history and achievements of environmental movements internationally, as well as enduring challenges and controversies. The syllabus is designed to benefit both the most seasoned environmentalists and students of the history of environmentalism, as well as participants for whom the course topics are new.
Limited to 20 students. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
342 Socio-Ecological Victories and Visions
(Offered as SOCI 342 and ENST 342) If you learn about the major trends shaping human societies and the rest of the planet in our era, you might ask these questions: How do we reduce the vast inequalities threatening democracy and undermining the self-determination of peoples around the world? How do we address global-scale crises like climate change, the pollution of the earth’s lands and waters, and anthropogenic extinction of species? How do we heal social divisions to build movements based on solidarity and reparation that transcend a “single-issue” focus while emphasizing the distinct needs of diverse communities? Can we imagine a society geared toward meeting culturally-determined human needs and deepening human happiness, while at the same time restoring the earth systems on which we depend? How do we engage such daunting issues with strength and, at times, joy?
These are massive questions now asked by scholars, scientists, activists, and communities around the world. This course explores answers to these questions through in-depth sociological analyses of critical victories and visions toward ecological and social change emerging internationally in the past decade. Such case studies represent hopeful challenges to the xenophobic, racist, anti-ecological, homophobic, misogynistic, winner-takes-all politics threatening much of life on earth.
Students must have at least one course in either SOCI or ANTH, or ENST 120, or other courses addressing the trends that are central to this course.
Limited to 18 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-22. Professor Holleman.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2019
371 Climate Change and Social Justice in Puerto Rico
(Offered as SPAN 371 and ENST 371) In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and laid bare the social inequalities that had been growing since the Great Recession of 2008 and before. But the Hurricane has also accelerated efforts to seek alternative sources of food and fuel and avoid a repeat of the post-hurricane shortages linked to an overdependence on food imports and a crumbling energy grid. Students in this course will analyze and evaluate how three such efforts have fared: one small grassroots organization, one large not-for-profit organization, and one government agency. The findings may have far-reaching implications beyond Puerto Rico, as centralized power grids throughout the world enter the end of their useful life, begging replacement with new innovative systems that do not contribute to climate change. Accepted students must commit to travel to Puerto Rico during the second and third weeks of January 2020, to acquaint themselves with the organizations we will be studying in depth during the Spring 2020 semester. At the end of the semester, students will share their findings with a diverse audience of stakeholders and interested parties. Course readings and discussions will be in Spanish and in English.
Limited to 12 students. Admission with consent of the instructor. Omitted 2021-2022 Professors Schroeder Rodríguez and Ravikumar.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Spring 2020
430 Seminar on Fisheries
The dependency of many countries on marine organisms for food has resulted in severe population declines in cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish, and abalone, as well as numerous other marine organisms. In this seminar we will examine the sociological, political, and economic impacts of global depletion of fisheries. Questions addressed will be: What is the scope of extinctions or potential extinctions due to over-harvesting of marine organisms? How are fisheries managed, and are some approaches to harvesting better than others? How do fisheries extinctions affect the society and economy of various countries, and ecosystem stability? How do cultural traditions of fishermen influence attempts to manage fisheries? Does aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to overfishing the seas, and what is aquaculture’s impact on ecosystem stability? Three class hours per week.
Requisite: ENST 120 or BIOL 230/ENST 210. Limited to 15 students. Professor Temeles. Omitted 2021-22.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2013, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
441 Seminar in Conservation Biology
(Offered as BIOL 440 and ENST 441) Conservation biology is a highly interdisciplinary field, requiring careful consideration of biological, economic, and sociological issues. Solutions to biodiversity conservation and environmental challenges are even more complex. Yet, conservation is a topic of timely importance in order to safeguard biological diversity. Utilizing close reading and discussion of articles from the primary literature, the course will explore key topics including overexploitation (including connections between the wildlife trade and emergent diseases such as COVID-19), habitat fragmentation, climate change, restoration, protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, as well as how to determine appropriate conservation priorities. Three classroom hours per week.
Requisite: BIOL 230/ENST 210 or BIOL 320, or consent of the instructor. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 14 students. Fall and spring semesters. Senior Lecturer Levin.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022
464 Seminar: Population Ethics
(Offered as PHIL 464 and ENST 464) Is our planet overpopulated? And if so, how many of us should live on it? Population raises tricky questions that are both empirical and broadly philosophical: How should we weigh the well-being of future individuals against the lives of those currently living? Should we aim for a future population whose average or whose total level of well-being is maximized—or should we apply some other standard? Even more fundamentally: are we right to think of human life as, on balance, a positive thing? And how might a policy based on answers to such questions be weighed against rights to reproductive choice, and against considerations of justice?
In this seminar, we will explore recent work in the emerging and fascinating field of population ethics. We will chart new areas for research, as well as for practical policy-making.
Requisite: At least one course in either ENST or PHIL. Limited to 15 students. Omitted 2021-2022. Professor Moore.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall 2019
490 Special Topics
Independent reading course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
495 Senior Seminar
The Senior Seminar is the capstone course in the environmental studies major, which serves as the comprehensive requirement, and is taken by all seniors in the fall of their senior year. The diversity of student interests is one of the strengths of the environmental studies department at Amherst and the senior seminar captures this diversity by asking students to explore their own interests through substantial, original research on an environmental topic. The capstone is designed to be flexible to accommodate diverse interests and cultivate different skills, including finding and making sense of material from a variety of sources, articulating effective arguments, and gaining fluency in the communication of ideas.
Open to seniors. Fall semester. Professors Levin and Temeles.
2022-23: Not offeredOther years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021
498 Senior Honors
Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, January 2021, Fall 2021, January 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
499 Senior Departmental Honors
Spring semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024