SDG Detail

INAF U6071Environmental Fundamentals

Postgraduate course

Project description

Human societies do not exist separately from the natural environment, and the effects that humans have on natural systems have become so great that some scientists claim we have entered into a new epoch, the Anthropocene. In this course we shall look not only at how humans have altered the environment (impacts), but why societies have degraded the environment to their own detriment (behavior), how human behavior can be changed to protect the environment (policy), and how to tell whether the policies being adopted make humans better off (cost-benefit analysis). As the course is about the environment from a human perspective, we shall incorporate both the natural and social sciences into our framework. And as there are no prerequisites, we shall focus on basic concepts.