In this course taught by Professor Andrew Price-Smith, students took a more political science-minded approach to international policy by learning about and questioning concepts such as Garrett Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons," path dependencies, and "the greening of sovereignty," to name a few. The course itself was much more theory based than many other more empirically based courses in the Environmental department at CC, and required close attention to both readings and significant class discussion in order to be best understood. Sometimes, the theories were challenging to grasp, but in the bigger picture made the actions of various nations on the global stage in relation to the environment much more understandable.
We had two main assignments in this course, the first being a simulation of sorts in order to best convince President Obama (played by our professor) as to which US action towards climate change was most feasible in light of the interests of the given character each student portrayed. I chose to act as Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and my arguments can be viewed here.
The second assignment was a much more open-ended research paper, which essentially required only that we approach a policy theory and apply it somehow to an international environmental issue. I chose to explore how Greenland, currently under the rule of Denmark, stands to benefit both economically and socially from the warming of the globe (and thus the melting of the ice). For me, this was my first major research paper at CC and challenged me to effectively and efficiently analyze various sources (both peer-reviewed and from various news publications) in order to garner applicable arguments. This paper can be viewed here.
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