7.11: Assignments

Assignment 1: Follow the Thing, Environmental Edition

Choose one physical object that you use regularly. Possible examples include a smartphone, laptop, pair of sneakers, coffee cup, electric-vehicle battery, T-shirt, water bottle, piece of furniture, or packaged food product.

Trace its environmental life cycle as far as available evidence allows.

Your analysis should address where major raw materials originate, how the product is manufactured, what energy systems support production and transportation, which environmental impacts appear along the supply chain, who receives economic value, which communities experience environmental risk, what happens at the end of the product's useful life, and what policy or design change could reduce its total impact.

Your final project should include at least five credible sources and one original visual showing the product's environmental journey.

Do not simply calculate a carbon footprint. The purpose is to identify the system around the product.

Conclude by answering:

Where did the product's environmental costs go, and who had the least power over that outcome?

Assignment 2: The Just Transition Policy Challenge

Choose one country or region undergoing a significant energy transition.

Examples might include a coal-dependent region, a petroleum-exporting state, a country rapidly expanding renewable energy, or a mineral-producing country experiencing increased demand because of clean-energy technologies.

Prepare a policy brief evaluating the transition through four lenses:

environmental effectiveness, economic consequences, social justice, and political feasibility.

Identify major stakeholders and explain what each stands to gain or lose. Your recommendations must address workers, affected communities, consumers, and environmental goals.

The challenge is not to design a transition with no tradeoffs.

It is to make the tradeoffs visible and defend which ones are ethically and politically acceptable.

Suggested length: 1,200 to 1,500 words.

Assignment 3: Who Pays for Climate Change?

Select a climate-impact case involving two or more countries or communities with substantially different levels of responsibility and vulnerability.

Possible cases include sea-level rise in Pacific Island states, flood risk in South Asia, extreme heat in unequal cities, drought in the Horn of Africa, wildfire risk, glacier loss, or another instructor-approved case.

Analyze the case using at least three different measures of climate responsibility:

current emissions, historical emissions, per-capita emissions, or consumption-based emissions.

Then assess vulnerability by considering infrastructure, income, political capacity, geography, inequality, and access to adaptation resources.

Your final recommendation must answer:

Who should finance adaptation or loss and damage in this case, and on what principle should that responsibility be based?

Support your argument with evidence and acknowledge at least one serious counterargument.