Sustainability: scientific and social issues

Teacher: Dominique Bourg
Semester: Spring 2019
Schedule: Wednesday 8:00am à 9:45am
Classroom: 
Number of hours: 28

Objective

The course aims to introduce the major contemporary environmental issues, then to introduce the conceptual contents of sustainability and, in fine, to discuss the various responses, and to know the main social scenarios in the scientific literature.

Content

Planetary overview:

• About economic activities from the 1950s onwards
• Income in terms of the planetary distribution of wealth
• Resource status and disturbance status of the biosphere system
• Genetic awareness of environmental problems
• The five characteristics of contemporary environmental problems: globality; invisibility; imprecision; visibility; inertia/irrationality; versibility; flows versus pollution
• Presentation of the major ecological scenarios: 1) Fundamentalist ecology; 2) Authoritarian ecology; 3) Sustainable development; 4) Prosperity without growth

The fundamentalist scenario:

• The intrinsic value
• Aldo Leopold
• Arne Naess
• Can we build a legal system that is no longer anthropocentric
• Can we build a moral system that is no longer anthropocentric?
• Can we build a political system that is no longer anthropocentric;
• Breaking the deadlock by moving on from biocentric galitarianism

The authoritarian scenario:

• Hans Jonas and the Principle of Responsibility;
• A situation inédite
• The Principle and its implications for the very concept of responsibility;
• The heuristics of fear
• The principle of responsibility and public policy
• Critique de l’autoritarisme en environnement

The sustainable development scenario:

• Historical introduction
• High vs. low sustainability
• Sustainable development, principles and strategies of sustainability: a) the 3 pillars; b) the principle of precaution; c) public debate; d) strategies for de-accessioning (clean production, co-design, co-branding, etc.); e) the principle of sustainable development;co-design, industrial ecology, circular economy and 3Rs strategy, functionality economy 1 and 2) and coupling
• Critical assessment: a) weakness of the concept; b) failure of coupling and reasons for failure; c) prospects

The prosperous scenario without growth

• Introduction to prosperity without growth
• Genetics of the critique of growth
• Pistes pour un modèle macro-économique sans croissance
• National governance and long-term management
• International governance and management of the long term
• Corporate governance
• Values and lifestyles

Teachers: Dominique Bourg (Honorary Professor UNIL), Sophie Swaton (MER UNIL), Hugues Poltier (MER UNIL), Sarah Koller (Graduate Assistant UNIL)

Semester: Spring 2019
Schedule: Wednesdays 10:15am & 12:00pm
Classroom: 
Number of hours: 28

Objective

The aim of the tutorial course is  to delve more deeply into areas covered by the general course: 

• Acquire a general culture of environmental issues and sustainability;
• Understand the social aspects and implications of environmental issues
• Acquire basic knowledge of the scientific literature on this subject and its various aspects
• Develop the critical characteristics of the student·e·s in order to be able to pass judgement on the various scenarios developed in the scientific literature
• Develop students' abilities to grasp the environmental components and implications of a given problem or issue

Content

Part 1: Political philosophy applied to the environmental question (Hugues POLTIER)

• The question of the notion of nature underlying à the geacute;néalogy of liberalism
• The traditional question of the formation of political will
• The question of a common political will on a global scale.

On the essence of liberalism and what follows (necessarily)

• a. Introduction: why address the issue of liberalism in the context of a course on sustainability;
• b. The essence of liberalism from the perspective of some of its most important exponents
• c. The role of liberalism in the development of a sustainable society

1. Locke
2. Bastiat
3. Say
4. Freidmann & Hayek

c. On the unity of liberalism beyond its variants, including the status and place of nature

The consequences of this practical theory
. a. On the idea of nature (=everything that is not'man'
b. Historical and contemporary illustrations of libéral practice (including in its speeches)

Arrêt on some exemplary contemporary cases of the man-nature relationship according to the libérale approach

Liberalism & capitalism:
a. For a critique of value
b. Can we set limits to liberalism (in its use of nature)?

Part 2: Copsychology (Sarah KOLLER)

Co-psychology can be defined as a transdisciplinary approach, at the frontier between psychology and ecology, which aims to gain a better understanding of the interrelationships between the human being and the environment in which he lives. Its starting point is twofold: the psychology of the human being cannot be understood without taking account of its relationship with the biosphere, and psychological problems cannot be solved without taking account of the complex workings of human psychology.

Born in the 1970s in the United States, psychology has been gaining ground in the French-speaking world for only a few years. This seminar will provide an opportunity to explore the origins of this approach, its development and its various practical applications. To do this, the seminar will bring together ex-cathedra presentations, readings and discussions, as well as practice. Students will be able to try out some of the applications of copsychology, through exercises that will complement the theoretical foundations presented. Note that the last session will take place outdoors.

In a cross-disciplinary way, and in the current context of ecological transition, we will be rethinking the theoretical and practical scope of co-psychology, at both individual and collective levels.

Two seminal works:
Roszak, Theodore. 1992. The voice of the Eart. New York: Simon & Schuster
. Roszak, Theodore. 1995. Ecopsychology: restoring the Eart, healing the mind. San Francosco: Sierra Club Books

Course: can be taken without the " course-seminar ".
Seminar course: you must have taken or be taking the ‘Sustainability: scientific and social issues’ course on Wednesdays from 8am to 10am.

Course: continuous assessment
Sessional: continuous assessment: 2 exams of 1h30

NB: The corresponding credits for this course cannot be validated for FGSE students