ENV 621a () / 2026-2027

The Ministry for the Future: Exploring The Science and Politics of Climate Solutions through Fiction

Credits: 3 Fall 2026: Time and location TBA

This course focuses on the potential for global cooperation and implementation of climate solutions in this century. We will use the novel The Ministry for the Future to guide our discussion of potential climate solutions, and the potential for their implementation. Each week we will combine reading a section of the novel with related research on technical climate solutions and on international cooperation. The novel will help us envision one possible future while our other readings will let us decide how plausible that future might be, and examine what other potential futures we might experience.
 
This course will be a reading-intensive course, with students expected to read 100-150 pages of material each week and be ready to discuss the material in seminar. The course will feature a final paper about the possible effectiveness of a climate solution, including whether it is likely to be politically feasible