Students who enroll in Let’s Talk About Climate Change! will have the opportunity to engage in robust and far-ranging discussions about climate change—and potential solutions to it—with 14 faculty scholars representing fields from energy policy to environmental justice and geology to global health.

The course will begin with an overview of how Earth’s climate has changed since the Industrial Revolution and what experts predict will happen over the next century. Each week after that, a different Climate Change Faculty Fellow will help lead an hour-long class discussion investigating climate change from a different perspective—from the role language plays in policy making to how social psychologists are working to give us smarter ways to calculate and reduce our carbon footprints. Students and faculty will continue their talk over a catered dinner and in small breakout groups after dinner.

Our goal is to expose students to thought-provoking possibilities about our path forward and help them explore how they can use their talents and voices to bring about positive change and help forge a more sustainable and equitable future for us all.

Course Schedule

Our class meets every Monday throughout the fall semester

5:00 – Class begins in 2237 French Family Science Building 

6:00 – Class dinner is served at Zweli’s Café in the Divinity School 

6:30 – Small Group Discussions outdoors or in assigned classrooms 

7:30 – Class Adjourns 

Outline

Discussant Conversation Starter
Norman Wirzba, Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Christian Theology and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics &
Emily BernhardtJames B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Biogeochemistry and Chair, Department of Biology
An essay by Margaret Atwood “It’s Not Climate Change – It’s Everything Change”
Please watch:
A TED talk by Katharine Hayhoe  “Let’s Talk About Climate Change”
Dr. Naomi Oreskes. Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University Please watch Climate Change and the Promise of Progress Found at this LINK (scroll to bottom of page)
Emily Bernhardt is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Biogeochemistry and Chair, Department of Biology
Valerie Sabol, PhD, MBA, ACNP, GNP, CNE, ANEF, FAANP, FAAN is the Interim Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) and is certified as both an acute care and gerontology nurse practitioner.
Torry Bend, MFA, is a Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies.
Amy Schmid is David M. Goodner Associate Professor in the Department of Biology.
Maurizio Forte is William and Sue Gross Distinguished Professor of Classical Studies Art, Art History, and Visual Studies at Duke University.
Jose Maria Rodruiguez-Garcia is Associate Professor of Romance Studies and the creator of two Spanish courses, cross-listed with Art History, which foreground the socioeconomic and political dimensions or artistic styles, or as philosopher Jacques Rancière would say, courses that invite students to entertain possible correlations between “aesthetic regimes” and “political regimes.”
Cameron Wolfe  is a Professor of Medicine, in Infectious Disease.
Dr. Kyle Powys White is a faculty member at the University of Michigan where he is George Willis Pack Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, and Professor of Philosophy in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Kerilyn Schewel is the co-director of the Duke Program on Climate-Related Migration and a lecturing fellow at the Duke Center for International Development.
Dan Vermeer is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where he leads the Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment (EDGE).
Liz Kalies is the Lead Renewable Energy Scientist for the North America region of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and an adjunct associate professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment.
Ryke Longest is the Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic and a Clinical Professor of Law at the Duke University School of Law
ALL STUDENTS “Let’s Talk About Climate Change” Gallery Walk – every student will share their own ‘conversation starter’