MSc Climate Change: Science, Society and Solutions

This course creates a space for students to explore how politics and knowledge about climate relate. Drawing upon multidisciplinary insights - including those from climate science, human geography, and political philosophy - we will explore who does and does not get to produce knowledge and future imaginaries relating to the climate, their respective social standings, and examine why this is the case. Against the spectre of climate denialism and post-truth, we will question whether and how we can strive for inclusive, plural approaches to the construction of climate change knowledge. We will ask whether knowledge around climate change has become depoliticised, what repoliticisation might mean and require, and if this is desirable. Along the way, we will explore the overlaps between expertise, colonialism, and the ‘power of numbers’, and the potential role that decolonial perspectives and artistic approaches could play in realising more socially inclusive futures. The course will draw upon a range of global case studies but will also draw heavily from the local context, where Manchester has committed to becoming a zero-carbon city by 2038.

The course will be divided into two parts. In the first half, we will investigate whose knowledge is included and excluded from contemporary discourse on climate change, examining the cultural and political status of experts such as accountants, standard setters, and scientists alongside the likes of lay knowledge, citizen science, artistic knowledge, and indigenous knowledge. In the second half, we will consider what, if anything, should be done about the inequalities surrounding the production and consumption of climate change knowledge. This will include exploring: what role experts should play in shaping politics around climate change, whether there is a boundary between ‘hard factual’ and ‘contestable’ forms of expertise, and key questions surrounding participation, co-option, and disagreement in the production of climate knowledge.

This is a core unit for students on MSc Climate Change: Science, Society and Solutions, but it can be taken as an option by others.

The unit aims to:

• Explore how politics and knowledge about the climate relate to each other.
• Understand who gets to produce knowledge around the climate and why.
• Consider what, if anything, should be done about inequalities surrounding the production of climate change knowledge.
• Explore multidisciplinary approaches to understanding the social construction and reach of climate knowledge.

Expected outcomes for students participating in this unit could include:

• Proficiency in interpreting the complex landscape of climate-related knowledge production and dissemination, enabling students to interpret climate policy and expertise. To this end, students will be able to discern whose knowledge is included and excluded from discourse on climate change and explain the social production of scientific knowledge.
• Ability to navigate and address inequalities surrounding the production and consumption of climate knowledge in their professional work, including issues of participation, co-option, and disagreement.
• Enhancement of creative knowledge communication skills, enabling students to effectively convey complex ideas and insights in innovative and engaging ways. Students will hone their ability to communicate effectively across diverse audiences, a skill crucial for both academic and professional spheres.
• Ability to make links between climate science, philosophy, the social sciences and real-world problems.
• Acquisition of transferable employability skills relevant to real-world employment settings, including effective communication, time management, and project planning.

This unit will develop the following elements outlined in the JISC Building Digital Capabilities Framework:

Digital Learning and Development

• Navigating learning materials in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
• Responding to online feedback.

Digital proficiency and productivity

• Depending on their chosen assessment 1 format, students may engage with Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Powerpoint to create posters or wider software of their own choosing.

Information, Data and Media Literacy

• Using appropriate search engines/indexes/databases to find information.
• Manage and retrieve information for study.

Digital communication, collaboration and participation

• Mentimeter, editable Google Slides and Padlet will be used to allow students to participate with in class questions and discussion points.
• Using a range of digital communications media appropriately (email, online forums).

Digital creation, problem-solving and innovation

• Depending on their chosen assessment 1 format, students may become proficient in blog writing as a form of knowledge communication.

Syllabus (indicative curriculum content):

Week 1: Introduction: Towards a politics of climate change knowledge
Week 2: Cultures of expertise
Week 3: Activist knowledge, lay knowledge and citizen science
Week 4: Artistic knowledge
Week 5: Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge
Week 6: Post-truth, denialism, and ignorance
Week 7: Hope, hopelessness and false hope
Week 8: (Un)counting knowledges: Participation, co-option, (post)politics
Week 9: What should be done about knowledge inequalities?
Week 10: Conclusion and coursework surgery

The unit is delivered through weekly, in-person, synchronous two-hour sessions typically composed of a lecture (10 x 1 hours) and a seminar (10 x 1 hours). Seminar activities include discussions, debates, and practical exercises. A high level of participation is required from all students throughout the unit. Wider reading around the themes of the lectures is expected. Formative feedback will be given during lectures and seminars. The course is supported by a dedicated Blackboard site.

• Identify alternative knowledges and imaginaries on climate change.
• Examine why some knowledges around climate change become dominant over others.
• Debate the challenges and opportunities to respond to social and environmental challenges in more inclusive ways.
• Evaluate whether and how can we strive for more inclusive approaches to the construction of climate change knowledge.

• Formulate structured and reasoned arguments.
• Relate theoretical arguments to empirical evidence.
• Interpret and evaluate academic literature.

• Design ways of communicating knowledge around social and environmental processes that are accessible and engaging.
• Interpret and critique policy and other arguments made around the climate.
• Make links between philosophy, theory, science, policy, and culture.

• Determine, and be mindful of, the social and political processes that shape quantification and other forms of expertise.
• Assess whether modes of policymaking or knowledge construction are inclusive or exclusive.
• Critically reflect on social science, climate science, policy, and other arguments around the climate.
• Self-direct their own learning.

Formative Assessment Task 1 
Pitch your plan for assessment 1 to your peers and provide feedback on their work.
5 mins.
Peer and teaching staff feedback during the class in the week 6.
Expected outcome: Students will clarify their plan for assessment 1 based on feedback.

Formative Assessment Task 2
Produce a plan for your chosen assessment 2 essay.
Up to 500 words.
Verbal feedback from peers and teaching staff in class in week 12.
Expected outcome: Students will improve their final assessment based on feedback.

Assessment task 1
Communicate an often-overlooked knowledge or imaginary on, or relating to, climate change in a format of your choosing. Produce a poster, blog, or other creative output (subject to agreement with the convenor) around an often-overlooked knowledge or imaginary about, or relating to, climate change. 
A3, no more than 700 words plus graphics (poster) OR 1,000 words (blog) OR Comparable length in agreement with the convenor (other formats).
Feedback due in week 7. Formative discussions in class ahead of the assignment. Peer feedback in class ahead of the assignment. In office hours (3 hours available per week). Written feedback will be provided within 15 working days of submission through Turnitin.
40% weighting.

Assessment task 2
Individual summative essay on a topic chosen by you from a list supplied by the convenor. 
2,000 words.
Feedback due in week 13. Formative discussions in class ahead of the assignment. Peer feedback in class ahead of the assignment. In office hours (3 hours available per week). Written feedback will be provided within 15 working days of submission through Turnitin.
60% weighting.

Bennett, M.M., 2020. Ruins of the Anthropocene: The aesthetics of arctic climate change. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111(3), pp.921-931.
Blakey, J., 2021. Accounting for elephants: The (post) politics of carbon omissions. Geoforum, 121, pp.1-11.
Boykoff, M. and Osnes, B., 2019. A laughing matter? Confronting climate change through humor. Political Geography, 68, pp.154-163.
Brace, C. and Geoghegan, H., 2011. Human geographies of climate change: Landscape, temporality, and lay knowledges. Progress in Human Geography, 35(3), pp.284-302.
Brown, J. and Dillard, J., 2013. Agonizing over engagement: SEA and the “death of environmentalism” debates. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 24(1), pp.1-18.
Dilling, L, Lemos, MC (2011) Creating usable science: Opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy. Global Environmental Change, 21: 680–689.
Gibbs, L., Williams, K., Hamylton, S. and Ihlein, L., 2020. ‘Rock the Boat’: song-writing as geographical practice. cultural geographies, 27(2), pp.311-315.
Goeminne, G., 2012. Lost in translation: Climate denial and the return of the political. Global Environmental Politics, 12(2), pp.1-8.
Kenis, A. and Mathijs, E., 2014. Climate change and post-politics: Repoliticizing the present by imagining the future?. Geoforum, 52, pp.148-156.
Kenis, A., 2019. Post-politics contested: Why multiple voices on climate change do not equal politicisation. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37(5), pp.831-848.
Latour, B., 1993. We have never been modern. Harvard University Press.
Lievens, M. and Kenis, A., 2018. Social constructivism and beyond. On the double bind between politics and science. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 21(1), pp.81-95.
Machen, R. and Nost, E., 2021. Thinking algorithmically: The making of hegemonic knowledge in climate governance. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 46(3), pp.555-569.
Machen, R., 2018. Towards a critical politics of translation: (Re)Producing hegemonic climate governance. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 1(4), pp.494-515.
McArdle, R., 2021. Intersectional climate urbanism: Towards the inclusion of marginalised voices. Geoforum, 126, pp.302-305.
McGuirk, P., 2011. Assembling geographical knowledges of changing worlds. Dialogues in Human Geography, 1(3), pp.336-341.
Rice, J.L.,Burke, B.J. and Heynen, N., 2015. Knowing climate change, embodying climate praxis: Experiential knowledge in Southern Appalachia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2), pp.253-262.
Ryan, K., 2016. Incorporating emotional geography into climate change research: A case study in Londonderry, Vermont, USA. Emotion, Space and Society, 19, pp.5-12.
Swyngedouw, Erik. 2011. Depoliticised environments: The end of nature, climate change and the post‐political condition. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 69: 253–74.
Timmermans, S. and Epstein, S., 2010. A world of standards but not a standard world: Toward a sociology of standards and standardization. Annual review of Sociology, 36(1), pp.69-89.
Watson, A. and Huntington, O., 2014. Transgressions of the man on the moon: climate change, Indigenous expertise, and the posthumanist ethics of place and space. GeoJournal, 79(6), pp.721-736.
Yusoff, K. and Gabrys, J., 2011. Climate change and the imagination. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(4), pp.516-534.

The unit will support EDI through using and providing students with resources from a diverse range of authors and contexts. These will be present throughout the course, though we will specifically think about indigenous knowledge, traditional ecological knowledge, and decolonising knowledge in one week of the course.

Teaching and learning will be designed to be inclusive through providing materials online in advance of sessions in accessible formats. Moreover, a range of routes for students to engage with discussion (e.g. in person, or through online tools such as Padlet), encouraging students to share their own knowledge and reflections on relevant topics.

Students are also given choice in their first assessment, which can be tailored to a format of their choosing (blog, poster, or other creative output) to suit numerous different kinds of learner.

More widely, and where appropriate, students will be signposted to wider support services such as DASS, the various assistive technologies they can provide, and the University counselling service.