← Back to course website “Global Challenges and Sustainable Futures”

Here you can find the weekly readings that you need to prepare before we come together in the course. Please read and watch all the articles, book excerpts and videos that you can find under “Mandatory Reading/Watching”. Please keep the guiding questions for each week in mind when reading. You don’t need to answer the questions on your own, they just serve as the basis for discussions in class. Under “Further Reading”, you can find other material that you can dig into, if you are interested in the topic.

Oct 3: Back to a 2°C Future

Guiding Questions:

• How can we reach a 1,5°/2° future?
• What are some of the catastrophic scenarios that might occur due to climate change?
• Who wins and loses from Climate change?

Mandatory Reading/Watching:

Context:

• The Carbon Map. (Interactive Website. Watch the introduction video and play around a bit.)
• Anderson, K., Peters, G., 2016. The trouble with negative emissions. Reliance on negative-emission concepts locks in humankind’s carbon addiction. Science, 354:6309, pp. 182-183.
• IPCC, 2014. Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. Geneva: IPCC.

Cases:

• About Uppsala’s Climate Protocoll – 32 local players. A common objective. Folder. 12 pp.
• About the indigenous community of Kivalina in Alaska –

Reading/Watching added by the Student-led Session group:

• McCarthy, J., 2017. How a Tiny Alaska Town is Leading the Way on Climate Change. Huffington Post
• And video:

Further Reading/Watching:

• Clark, D., 2010. Aviation Q&A: the impact of flying on the environment. The Guardian, 6 Apr.
• Roberts, D., 2012. Discount rates: A boring thing you should know about (with otters!). Grist, 24 Sep.
• Klein, N., 2014. This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs the Climate. Knopf: Penguin Random House, pp. 1-25.

Documentaries:

• Merchants of Doubt (2014, 1hr 36min).
• Backlight: The Breakthrough in Renewable Energy (46 min).
• Humus – forgotten climate aid (71 min). Part 1 & Part 2.

Oct 10: Transition Stories: Imagination for the Future(s) we Want and Need

Guiding Questions:

• What is the Transition Movement? What is a sustainable future for them?
• What are limits and challenges of the Transition Movement? Transition by whom and for whom?

Mandatory Reading/Watching:

• Hopkins, R., 2008. Chapter 10: The Transition Concept. In: The Transition Handbook. From oil dependency to local resilience. Foxhole, Dartington, Totnes, Devon: Green Books, p. 134-145.
• Alloun, E., Alexander, S., 2014. The Transition Movement. Questions of Diversity, Power, and Affluence. Simplicity Institute, p. 6-17.

Oct 17: Me, myself and futures: #30daysofsustainability later

Guiding Questions:

• What is a utopia? How does it relate to sustainability?
• What does it mean to create one’s own future vision about sustainability?

Mandatory Reading/Watching:

• Costanza, R., and Kubiszewski, I., 2014. Why We Need Visions of a Sustainable and Desirable World. In: Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future: Insights from 45 Global Thought Leaders. pp.3–8.
• P.6-11 (Section 3 & 4) of Bradley, K., and Hedrén, J., 2014. Utopian Thought in the Making of Green Futures. In: J. Hedrén and K. Bradley, eds., Green Utopianism: Perspectives, Politics and Micro-Practices. Routledge.
• Hammer, E., 2017. A Utopia for a Dystopian Age. The New York Times. 
• Costanza, R., 1999. Four visions of the century ahead: will it be Star Trek, Ecotopia, Big Government or Mad Max? Futurist, 33(2), pp.23–28.
• The Future We Want Visualizations (website to explore different examples)

Further Reading/Watching:

• de Geus, M., 2002. Ecotopia, Sustainability, and Vision. Organization & Environment, [online] 15(2), pp.187–201.
• Kumar, K., 2010. The Ends of Utopia. New Literary History, 41:3 (Summer), pp. 549-569.

Oct 24: No (or) more borders?: Moving towards multicultural futures

Guiding Questions:

• What drives global migration patterns now and in the future?
• What possibilities and challenges does that bring?
• How does and will global/local environmental change affect migration?

Mandatory Reading/Watching:

Context:

• Cohen, R., Van Hear, N., 2017. Visions of Refugia: territorial and transnational solutions to mass displacement. Planning Theory & Practice, 18:3, 494-504.
• Sassen, S., 2016. A Massive Loss of Habitat: New Drivers for Migration. Sociology of Development, 2:2, pp. 204–233.
• Swain, A., 2016. Climate Change: National Security Threat. In: Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy, Third Edition. New York: Taylor and Francis, 20 May.

Cases:

• About Uganda’s refugee policies –
  • G., T., 2016. Why Uganda is a model for dealing with refugees. The Economist, 26 Oct.
  • Schiltz, J., Titeca, K., 2017. Is Uganda really a ‘refugee paradise’?. Al Jazeera, 29 Jul.
• About the Swedish initiative Ingen människa är illegal (No one is illegal) – Website of Ingen människa är illegal.

Reading/Exploring added by the Student-led Session group:

• Kupfer, M., 2016. Living as a refugee in Uganda: An Interview with Fatb Katilan Khalid. No Lost Generation Student Initiative, 23 Apr. (Make sure to click on “Next” at the bottom to continue reading the story).
• Sweden and Migration (Look around at this website which shows a timeline of migration in Sweden, explore the different time periods and see what happened with the amount of immigration and emigration in Sweden).

Further Reading/Watching:

• Quinn, A., Roche, J., 2014. Syria’s Climate-Fueled Conflict, In One Stunning Comic Strip. Mother Jones, 29 May.
• Facts about migration and crime in Sweden. Government Offices of Sweden.

Guiding Questions:

• How is technology changing and will change environmental (eg energy use by smart devices), social (eg community life, love, privacy), and economic sustainability (eg robots as labour)?
• Do you think that technology is autonomous from humans? What is ‘technosphere’, and why/how do Rosol et. al (2017) argue that it is a useful concept? 
• Do you agree with Winner (1980) that ‘certain technologies in themselves have political properties’ (p.122)? Are there any other examples you can think of that support (or doesn’t support) this perspective?

Mandatory Reading/Watching:

Context:

• Rosol, C., Nelson, S., and Renn, J., 2017. In the machine room of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review, 4(1), pp.2–8. 
• Winner, L., 1980. Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedalus, 109(1), pp.121–136.

Cases:

• About automation – The Rise of the Machines 

• About automation – Frase, P., 2016. Four Futures. Visions of the World After Capitalism. London/New York: Verso, pp. 10-18.
• About the Internet of Things – Top 5 Facts about the Internet of Things

Reading/Watching added by the Student-led Session group:

• Brandon, J., 2017. An AI god will emerge by 2042 and write its own bible . Will you worship it ? Venturebeat, [online] Oct. 

Further Reading/Watching:

• MacKenzie, D., Wajcman, J., 1999. Introductory essay: the social shaping of technology. In: The Social Shaping of Technology (2nd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press, pp. 3-27.
• TV Series – Black Mirror