Environmental Science for Decision Makers
Columbia University
International Affairs U4735, Fall 2006
Lecture (3 points): Tu & Th 2:40 - 3:55p.m; Room 407 IAB.
Seminar (1 point): Tu or Th 4:00-5:00 PM
Course Syllabus
Instructors | Course Summary | Grading | Course Goals | Texts | Additional References
I. Climate - Mark Cane (Note additional required texts).
(9/5) [MC] Introduction. Environmental policy and the nature of Environmental Science.
(9/7) [MC] Global warming: the threat to the Earth.
(9/12) [MC] The climate system. The Earth's energy budget, solar radiation, the greenhouse effect.
(9/14) [MC] The Earth's average climate: the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean.
(9/19) [MC] Climate variability: El Niño and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO); North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).
(9/21) [MC] Climate Change and the Metropolitan Area (Cynthia Rosenzweig, guest lecturer).
(9/26) [MC] Drought and conflict (Marc Levy, guest lecturer).
(9/28) [MC] The Hockey Stick Controversy (with Ed Cook).
(10/3) Exam #1 (Climate and Public Policy).
II. Water - Roberto Lenton.
(10/5) [RL] A: Course overview. B: Water management and public policy. C: Human population history & early river-dependent civilizations.
(10/10) [RL] Atmospheric evolution, iron deposits, carbon dioxide trends and recent glacial climate.
(10/12) [RL] River discharge by continent: S America & N America; North American river management issues.
(10/17) [RL] North American groundwater management issues.
(10/24) [RL] Nile River control; food production & population in Egypt.
(10/26) [RL] Aswan High Dam impacts; fossil groundwaters in North Africa.
(10/31) [RL] Groundwater Arsenic in Bangladesh.
(11/2) Exam #2 (Water and Public Policy).
III. Energy - Walter Pitman.
(11/9) [WP] Energy and public policy. Lecture notes for 11/9, 11/14, and 11/16.
(11/14) [WP] The world is hooked on hydrocarbons (petroleum, gas and coal). About 90% of the world energy is obtained by the burning of hydrocarbons. A worldwide survey by region of rate and type of use.
(11/16) [WP] What are the effects on climate? Regional production of CO2 and other polluting gases. Trends - past, present, and future. The question of sequestering CO2 and other polluting solids and gases.
(11/21) [WP] Are hydrocarbons a limited resource? Energy resources: by type, geographic, and economic groupings. The origin of hydrocarbons - how they are generated - rate of generation. Lecture notes for 11/21 and 11/28.
(11/28) [WP] Origin continued. How much have we used? What is the rate of use? How much is left? Estimate of proven reserves. Estimate of undiscovered hydrocarbons.
(11/30) [WP] Alternative energy resources; present day use and distribution hydroelectric, wind and solar (direct conversion); update on technology/potential and costs. Lecture notes for 11/30, 12/5 and 12/7.
(12/5) [WP] Nuclear energy; fission and fusion. Resources, limitations as an energy source, the problem of disposal of used fuels, accidents.
(12/7) [WP] Providing energy for transportation, home and industry. Mobile vs. stationary energy.
Final Exam #2 (Energy and Public Policy).
Contact Information.
Instructors (Professors,Columbia Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences) |
Phone Campus: 4 - xxxx |
|
|---|---|---|
| Mark Cane [MC] (DEES) | mcane@ldeo.columbia.edu | 8344 (LDEO) |
| Roberto Lenton [RL] (IRI) | rlenton@iri.columbia.edu | 4414 (LDEO) |
| Walter Pitman [WP] (DEES) | pitman@ldeo.columbia.edu | 8397 (LDEO) |
| TA: Jen Alltop [JA] Office Hours: TBA in the DEES Student Lounge (533 Schermerhorn) or by e-mail. |
jalltop@giss.nasa.gov | (212)678-5556 (NASA/GISS) |
| Dept Earth & Environmental Sciences (LDEO) | 8550 (LDEO) | |
| Dept Earth & Environmental Sciences (Schermerhorn - 5th floor extension, Room 556) | 4525 | |
| Office Hours are held in 557 Schermerhorn [854-3661] by appointment on Tu & Th. | ||
Course Summary.
Through lectures, discussions, assigned readings, and problem sets we will address three central themes of environmental policy:
- Water,
- Energy,
- Climate.
These themes will include examples of issues for which there is considerable divergence of opinion, both about underlying data/observations and about the most effective policy options. This one-semester course will follow a modular format with selected scientific foundations for specific environmental policy issues, followed by analysis relevant to scientific/policy controversies, with subsequent discussion of how these controversies might be resolved. Lectures/discussions will be led by three staff members from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. There will be a short exam and problem sets assigned for each of the three segments of the course. Materials covered will include a range of space and time scales, from those primarily relevant to particular river systems (ie. Indus & Nile Rivers) over decades, to topics of global significance on the time-scale of a century or more (energy and climate change). Our primary goal is to present simple, first-order quantitative methods that can be applied to analyzing environmental problems. A companion, optional, one point seminar, available to all registered students in U4735, will pursue similar topics and issues through more extensive problem sets. This seminar is highly recommended for all SIPA students & required for undergraduate students receiving science requirement credit for U4735.
Grading Guidelines.
Course grade (3 Points) based on 25% for each in-class exam plus the final exam and 25% on problem sets. The one point seminar will be evaluated independently and the grade for this component averaged (25% of total weight) with that for the lecture portion of the course (75% of total weight).
General Course Goals.
Many environmental problems are inherently international and they all may have some impact on public policy. The demands of increasing human population for earth resources and the concomitant generation of waste stresses a variety of earth systems. Assessment of complex interactions between nonrenewable resource use, pollutant generation and renewable resource contamination requires understanding of a number of natural systems of the Earth's environment and their sensitivity to a variety of stresses.
Although you can expect to learn some specific factual information about several topics in environmental science during this course, probably the most important result of participation should be to gain confidence in analyzing the dynamics of the natural world on your own, especially through simple, order of magnitude calculations, as a tool to help frame better public policies.
Texts.
Gleick, Peter H., The World's Water, the Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, 2004-2005, Island Press, Suite 300, 1718 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington, DC 20009, Covelo, CA, 2004, 361 pp (paper back) ISBN 1-55963-812-5. Brief articles on selected topics concerning water, with extensive tables of data on water resources. Text primarily for the Water section. See: www.pacinst.org or www.worldwater.org for further data resources.
Kump, Lee R., James F. Kasting, and Robert G. Crane, The Earth System, 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2004. Text primarily for the Climate section of the course.
Harte, John, Consider a Spherical Cow, A Course in Environmental Problem Solving, University Science Books, Mill Valley, CA, 1988, 283 pp. paperback. Text for companion seminar on quantitative examination of natural systems. Excellent resource for tabulated scientific data (appendix) and methods of first-order calculations.
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), Third Assessment Report - Climate Change 2001. Available free at http://www.ipcc.ch/.
All three of the above should be available from Labyrinth Books (536 West 112th St, 212-865-1588) or on reserve in the SIPA (IAB) and Earth and Environmental Sciences (Schermerhorn) Libraries. Labyrinth Books also usually has a limited number of used copies of these books for reduced prices. They also generally repurchase used books.
Additional references [recommended, but not required reading for this course].
Assadourian, Erik, et al. State of the World, 2004, Worldwatch Institute, W.W Norton & Company, NY, 2004, 245 pp. (paperback). Selected chapter topics authored by WWI staff. www.worldwatch.org
Cohen, Joel E., How Many People Can The Earth Support?, WW Norton & Company,
NY, 1995, 532 pp. (paper back & hard cover). Excellent resource for history
of human populations.
Chap. 5, Human population history in numbers and graphs: 76 - 96.
Chap. 14, Water: a case study of natural constraints: 297 - 328.
Appendix 2, Estimates of past human population sizes (millions): 400 -401.
Dai Qing, edited by John G. Thibodeau and Philip B Williams, The River
Dragon Has Come!, The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze
River and Its People, Probe International, International Rivers Network,
M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, London, England, 240 pp. (paper back).
Brief essays and appendices by a number of authors covering a range of environmental
and social issues posed by construction of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze
River. General thrust of the articles is in strong opposition to the dam
construction, hence the treatment is not balanced. However, the book does
provide a valuable source of relevant information.
Firor, John, The Changing Atmosphere, A Global Challenge, Yale University
Press, New Haven, 1990, 145 pp. (paperback).
Simple introduction to human impacts on the atmosphere.
Gleick, Peter H., The World's Water, the Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, 1998-1999, Island Press, Suite 300, 1718 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington, DC 20009, Covelo, CA, 1998, 307 pp (paper back) ISBN 1-55963-592-4. Brief articles on selected topics concerning water, with extensive tables of data on water resources. This was the first edition of the book with similar title used as the text for Fall '03.
Gleick, Peter H., The World's Water, 2000-2001, the Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, Island Press, Suite 300, 1718 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington, DC 20009, Covelo, CA, 2000, 315 pp (paper back) ISBN 1-55963-792-7.
Gleick, Peter H., The World's Water, the Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, 2002-2003, Island Press, Suite 300, 1718 Connecticut Av, NW, Washington, DC 20009, Covelo, CA, 2002, 334 pp (paper back) ISBN 1-55963-949-0.
Meyers, Norman, Gaia, An Atlas of Planet Management, Anchor Books,
Doubleday, New York, 272 pp., 1993.
Another source of a broad spectrum of data on the environment, with much
of the information presented in graphs and diagrams.
Murck, Barbara W., Brian J. Skinner, Stephen C. Porter, Environmental
Geology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, NY, 1996 535 pp. (paperback)
Good general reference on a number of topics discussed in this course.
Paulos, John Allen, Beyond Numeracy, Ruminations of a Number Man,
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1991. 281+ pp.
Chapters w/ definitions and descriptions of scientific notation, statistics,
E, exponential growth, Arabic numerals, and many other topics. Easy to read.
Paulos, John Allen, Innumeracy, Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences,
Hill and Wang, New York, 1988, 135 pp. Science Library at CU, QA93.P38, 1988.
Probability, coincidence, statistics and society. Many examples of the effects
of not having basic intuition about statistics in assessing risks and other
aspects of modern society. Easy to read.
Postel, Sandra, Pillar of Sand, Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?, WW Norton & Co, New York, 313 pp., 1999. Summary of the history of irrigation, with extensive citations of source information. Worldwatch Institute publication.
Turner, B.L. (ed), The Earth as Transformed by Human Action, Cambridge
U. Press, 1990.
Contains chapters on population, water, energy, climate, forest and many
other subjects. 700+ pages, now in paperback.
Updated September 8, 2006