Overview of Course

This course provides an overview of the most important environmental communication issues of our time as experienced on Semester At Sea. Students will become informed critical thinkers regarding environmental change, human society, and the sustainability of natural resources internationally and how to communicate change. An analytical framework for understanding a number of current issues at SAS countries visited will be used to evaluate communication strategies for environmental sustainability. The daily news and the scientific literature suggest that humanity faces a number of grave threats that undermine ecosystem and human wellbeing (e.g., global pandemic, biodiversity loss, fisheries collapse, climate change, soil degradation; unemployment, endemic poverty and malnutrition juxtaposed with diseases linked to obesity). Despite some successes, policies and investments to address such problems are either inadequate or ineffective. Why have modern societies and international institutions so far, with a couple of notable exceptions, failed to effectively tackle global social and environmental challenges and what communication strategies were used especially during the global pandemic (Covid19)? Not only are there debates over the nature and extent of global issues through various discourses, but different schools of thought as to how humanity’s prognosis can be improved. Communication strategies are the focus of the course especially during and after a global pandemic.