World Sustainability ENST20951 #30076
Summer 2010 Schedule, V. 1.0

Syllabus | Wiki BB | Wiki Home
TOC: 1. World Sustainability | 2. Global Crisis | 3. Disabling Analysis | 4. Enabling Analysis

Mission: This Schedule page provides a road map to the implementation of ENST20951, CRN 30076. This is the page you need to follow to keep abreast of our course. The schedule embeds course learning modules to guide your study.

This on-line course, like in-class summer courses, runs five weeks. Each week therefore must provide the content equivalent to three weeks of fall or spring semester courses. The calendar week is an appropriate measure to determine your activities, so will be used to plan the design and flow of ENST20710. You must not fall behind.

Important Dates ^

Our summer session I course officially starts on May 25 and ends on June 24. Please note the due dates below:

May 25: Orientation and Business of the Course

Please become familiar with the tools and web pages essential for the course:

  1. Examine the syllabus carefully. The syllabus is a founding document of the course.
  2. Review this page, our schedule. Use this page for planning how you will approach the course and allocate time.
  3. Return frequently to the World Sustainability Bulletin Board at the wiki for my summer courses. The Bulletin Board is a major tool to keep you abreast
  4. To contact Professor Hayes, please use the dedicated gmail account: wkhayes@gmail.com.
  5. To introduce the tone and substance of this course, please view the 2009 film, Home.

Week #1: Introducing Sustainability, May 26 - May 31 ^

Learning Goal #1: As displayed in the Syllabus, the first goal of ENST209 is to demonstrate your thorough understanding of the concept of sustainability. You will indicate this in the first assignment, a sustainability graphic organizer and a short essay, defined in a separate memo. This essay is due by the end of the day on May 31 and carries 16 points.

The course starts with a historical and critical treatment of Sustainable Development. The substance and the nuance of this story is essential in this section of the course. Please study:

  1. Take a brief educational tour of sustainability.
  2. Review Professor Wayne Hayes: The short wiki page on paradigms
  3. Professor Hayes provides context and background on his wiki on Brundtland.
  4. Browse the Brundtland Report and sample its findings and logic. Spend an hour or so reviewing its substance and tone. This is the seminal historical document that defined Sustainable Development. It built on a history and left a legacy. Note the Report's succinct working definition of sustainability: "Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
  5. Read and study the important Overview, noting the way that sustainable development was framed and the language used to define sustainable development, quoted below. Read the Brundtland section on sustainable development carefully. To complement this section, read Gus Speth's essay at Worldwatch Institute, section on "Three Paths Into the Future."
  6. Recommended: The Archeology of the Development Idea by Wolfgang Sachs

This section ends with your composing a sustainability graphic organizer and short essay that demonstrate a grasp of sustainability as defined in ENST209. This assignment counts 16 points and is

Week #2: Defining the Global Crisis, June 1 - 4 ^

An essay that explains both the global crisis and the disabling analysis will be due on June 14. This essay counts 32 points, as explained in the syllabus.

Learning Goal #2: The student will demonstrate an empirical grasp of the nature and extent of the current global crisis. The student will coherently explain timely and comprehensive aspects that indicate the extent of the unsustainability of our current civilization and anthropogenic systems. This goal will culminate with an essay, counting 32 points, that explains how the student interprets and analyzes the nature and extent of the global crisis of sustainability. Instructions for this assignment are found on our class wiki. The paper is due on June 14.

Please read and study:

  1. Will Steffen, Paul J. Crutzen, and John R. McNeill, "The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?," Ambio, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Vol. 36, No. 8, December, 2007. This bold article defines a new era in Earth history, the Anthropocene, the successor to the Holocene.
  2. Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0, Preface and chapters 1 through 3. This provides a timely round-up of challenges to the biosphere and human inhabitation of Earth. Notice that this book is classified as science/environment. Brown carries weight for his diagnosis, but does not comment extensively on political or economic aspects. I will supplement Brown with my lecture notes, below.
  3. Professor Hayes: notes supplementing Brown on Beyond the Oil Peak, Global Warming, Natural Systems Under Stress and on The Social Divide
  4. See Professor Hayes's wiki page on Limits to Growth.
  5. Recommended: See my working paper on the dynamics within the global crisis.
  6. Read and study Wolfgang Sachs, Fairness in a Fragile World: A Memo on Sustainability. This seminal article is foundational for ENST209 and must be read carefully. Use either the complete version to page 64 and the conclusion or the shorter version. Also see the chart Professor Hayes prepared to de-code the article. (Note, Environmental Studies majors and students who are serious about this course should examine the whole report, at least selectively. This is among the best single treatments of the material of ENST20951.)

Week #3: The Disabling Analysis & Economic Globalization, June 7-11 ^

Learning Goal #3: A critical interpretation of how modern civilization resists, even obstructs, sustainability: Students will explain how modern civilization creates barriers that resist sustainability. This culminates in a summary report of the global crisis and the disabling analysis, ending this part of our course. See the instructions for this assignment.

Read and study:

  1. Professor Hayes presentation: Framing the Disabling Analysis.
  2. For group discussions: View and study the important case study close to home but of national importance: The Toxic Legacy web site by Jan Barry.
  3. Hayes presentation: Economic Globalization.
  4. Hayes presentation: Strategic Sustainablity
  5. Hayes, Economic Strategies for Sustainability
  6. See Professor Hayes's Statement of Concern.

Weeks 4 & 5: Creating World Sustainability, June 15 - 25^

Learning Module #4, the enabling analysis, should be the most challenging and engaging part of World Sustainability: How can citizens and organizations make decisions and gain skills helpful in making their lives sustainable, promoting sustainable communities, and achieving a sustainable world. What public policies can be formulated and implemented that promote world sustainability?

The Enabling Analysis & the Emergence of Civil Society

Please study the following:

  1. Look again at Professor Hayes's Statement of Concern. Join a wiki discussion of what it means.
  2. Presentation by Prof. Wayne Hayes: How Can We Transition to World Sustainability?
  3. Watch Paul Hawken discuss his 2008 book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World.
  4. Professor Hayes presentation, Getting Sustainability
  5. Overview of Professor Hayes's web-based resources on the enabling analysis, but give attention to Framing the Enabling Analysis
  6. Professor Hayes's wiki page on civil society organizations

Policy Prescriptions for Creating a Sustainable World

Class activities:

  1. Please read Brown: Chapters 4 and 5, pp. 79-142
  2. Professor Hayes presentation on Brown, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, climate and energy.
  3. Please read Brown: Chapters 6-10, pp. 143-268.
  4. Professor Hayes presentation on Brown, Chapters 7-10.

Local Roots of World Sustainability

Read and study the following:

  1. Professor Hayes's wiki on framing the enabling analysis and the role of threefolding
  2. Examine Professor Hayes's presentation on McKibben's Deep Economy
  3. McKibben, Deep Economy, Ch. 1 and 2, pp. 1-94

Eco-Economy and World Sustainability ^

Read and study the following:

  1. Professor Hayes's discussion of ecological economics, based on the article, Economic Strategies for Sustainability
  2. McKibben, Deep Economy, Ch. 3, 4, 5, and Afterword, pp. 95-232
  3. View PBS Wide Angle: The Burning Season.
  4. Professor Hayes's comments on the place of economics in sustainability.

The essay assignment on the enabling analysis will be defined as we enter this section of the course and will be due on June 25.


The World Sustainability Web Site | © Wayne Hayes, Ph.D.
Initialized: 1/10/2007 | Last Update: 06/09/2010