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Columbia University Dr. Adela J. Gondek Undergraduate Program in ajg2@columbia.edu

Sustainable Development Office: 1406 IAB

Earth Institute Assistant: Stephanie Ullrich

Spring 2018 smu2111@columbia.edu

SDEV UN3310

ETHICS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Course Description

Aiming to create, increase and perpetuate benefit, and to prevent, rectify and remediate harm,

sustainable development works to improve living conditions, most directly those of humans

throughout a wide range of natural, built and hybrid environments. Woven with decisional

threads concerning benefit and harm understood as right and wrong in relation to humans but

also nonhumans throughout their habitats, sustainable development is inextricable from the

fabric of ethics. Its variegated threads are spun from self- and other-regarding motivation and

behavior, which can be viewed as infused with sensitivity and rationality, whether individual or

collective, private or public, personal or societal, transcultural or cultural. Sustainable

development is concerned with the ensuing human forms of both “soft” infrastructure, such as

worldviews and professions, and “hard” infrastructure, such as highways and cities. The

evaluative and prescriptive assessments of these processes and outcomes can be called the ethics

of sustainable development.

This course is divided into four main sections, two of which are intended to show the ethical

fallacies of unsustainable development, and two, the ethical dimensions of sustainable

development. The first section focuses upon longstanding counterproductive assumptions or

foundations, particularly those surrounding human hegemony, consumerist modernity and

scientific methodology. The second focuses upon deceptive justifications or rationalizations

applied to deeds, victims, situations and decisions involving climatological, chemical, ecological

and biological harm. The third section responds to these problematic justifications with new

ethics, including earth justice, environmental justice, biocultural ethics, and sectoral ethics (food,

water, energy, place and other ethics). The fourth section responds to the problematic

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assumptions with a new foundational paradigm, comprised of biotic wholeness, sustainability

management and adaptive worldviews.

A simple observation is central to the material covered: if development is to be sustainable, it

must be ethical. Since the field or frame of sustainable development is highly cross-disciplinary,

the course readings have been selected to demonstrate the intersections of ethics with science,

policy, management, environmentalism, economics, business and other arenas of human

endeavor. The readings also demonstrate the vocal engagement or “voice” of many concerned

parties in the discourse of sustainability, among them, scholars, literary writers, scientists,

journalists, public officers at all governmental levels, corporate entities, civil society

organizations, including ethics watchdogs, and “grassroots” individuals and groups. All function

together to help us understand the ethical right and wrong among developmental pathways.

Course Objectives

The course aims to encourage and create proficiency in recognizing, comprehending and

resolving ethical issues in the context of sustainable development. Students are taught to:

1. frame, defend and advocate sustainable development projects in terms of ethics;

2. analyze and evaluate development projects with a view to their climatological, chemical,

ecological and biological effects as matters of rights and duties, or entitlements and

responsibilities;

3. structure the remediation of conflicts resulting from unsustainable development through

provision for earth and environmental justice, and cultural and sectoral ethics;

4. develop proposals for ethics initiatives within non-profit, governmental and business

organizations;

5. map conflict among competing environmental stakeholders and their claims;

6. advance sustainable development policies and programs through appropriate interpersonal,

social and public discourse centered upon ethics.

The overall aim is to develop capacity for promoting and enhancing the presence, impact and

durability of ethics within organizational and related contexts involving development.

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Course Content – Topics and Readings

Weekly preparation for class includes (1) reading 4 of the articles listed and (2) exploring

the material at the 2 links provided for the week. This should be accomplished prior to our

Tuesday class session. Short news media and other articles and documents may be added

periodically to the weekly list of materials. PDFs of the readings and links to documents and

organizations are available in the Files section of our Canvas site. (Click on “Resources” to

open the appropriate folder of weekly readings.)

Section I. Unsustainable Development: Deceptive Assumptions

Week 1. Human Status: Human Hegemony, or “Hegemonic Dualism”

January 16 and 18

Kahn, Peter H. 2011. The Old Way; Robotic Dogs in the Lives of Preschool Children; and

Robotic Dogs and Their Biological Counterparts. Ch. 1, 7, and 8 in Adaptation and the Future

of Human Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1-10, 107-136.

Kasperbauer, T.J. 2016. The Implications of Psychological Limitations for the Ethics of

Climate Change. Environmental Values 25.3:353-370.

Kellert, Stephen R. 2012. Dominion. Ch. 6 in Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern

World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 81-93.

Worster, Donald. 1979, 2004. The Black Blizzards Roll In; and Facing Up to Limits. Ch. 1 and

12. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10-25, 182-

197.

Worthy, Kenneth. 2013. The Banality of Everyday Destruction. Ch. 1 in Invisible Nature:

Healing the Destructive Divide between People and the Environment. Amherst, NY:

Prometheus Books, 35-68.

The Antarctic Treaty (December 1959)

http://www.ats.aq/documents/ats/treaty_original.pdf

Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty

http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm

Week 2. Human Action: Consumerist Modernity, or “Hedonistic Materialism”

January 23 and 25

Ali, Saleem H. 2009. The Darker Side of Fortune: The Psychology of Treasure Dependence.

Ch. 4 in Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed, and a Sustainable Future. New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 89-109.

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Cardella, Avis. 2010. Barney’s, Bergdorf’s, Bloomingdale’s; and The Price of Everything, the

Value of Nothing. Ch. 1 and 7 in Spent: Memoirs of a Shopping Addict. New York, NY: Little,

Brown and Company, 3-9, 106-122.

Meert, Katrien, Mario Pandelaere, and Vanessa M. Patrick. 2014. Taking a Shine to It: How the

Preference for Glossy Stems from an Innate Need for Water. Journal of Consumer Psychology

24.2:195-206.

Smith, Daniel Jordan. 2008. Development Scams: Donors, Dollars, and NGO Entrepreneurs.

Ch. 3 in A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 88-111.

Thoreau, Henry David. 1854. Economy. Ch. 1 in Walden. London, England: George

Routledge & Sons (1904), 27-80. [a classic environmental reading]

Yildirim, Seda, and Burcu Candan. 2015. Segmentation of Green Product Buyers Based on

Their Personal Values and Consumption Values. Environmental Values, 24.5:641-661.

World Happiness Report 2016 Update (March 2016)

http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2016/

WHO Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020

http://www.who.int/mental_health/action_plan_2013/mhap_brochure.pdf?ua=1

Week 3. Human Thought: Scientific Methodology, or “Technocratic Objectivity”

January 30 and February 1

Douglas, Heather E. 2009. The Moral Responsibilities of Scientists. Ch. 4 in Science, Policy,

and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 66-86.

Kelbessa, Workineh. 2015. African Environmental Ethics, Indigenous Knowledge, and

Environmental Challenges, Environmental Ethics, 37.4:387-410.

Lukes, Stephen. 2008. Relativism: Cognitive and Moral. Ch. 1 in Moral Relativism. London,

UK: Profile Books Ltd., 1-28.

Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. 2010. Of Free Speech and Free Markets; and A New

View of Science. Conclusion and Epilogue in Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of

Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York,

NY: Bloomsbury Press, 240-274.

Resnik, David B. 2007. Money and the Norms of Science. Ch. 4 in The Price of Truth: How

Money Affects the Norms of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 77-108.

Environmental History Timelines

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http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/a-fierce-green-fire-timeline-of-environmental-

movement/2988/

http://environmentalhistory.org/

Environmental Movement Timelines

http://www.pbs.org/pov/ifatreefalls/environmental-timelines/

Section II. Unsustainable Development: Deceptive Justifications

Week 4. Distance from the Deeds: Climatological Change

February 6 and 8

Gardiner, Stephen M. 2010. A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics,

and the Problem of Moral Corruption. Ch. 4 in Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, edited by

Stephen M. Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 87-99.

Gardiner, Stephen M. 2010. Is “Arming the Future” with Geoengineering Really the Lesser

Evil? Some Doubts about the Ethics of Intentionally Manipulating the Climate System. Ch. 16

in Climate Ethics, Essential Readings, edited by Stephen M. Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale

Jamieson, and Henry Shue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 284-313.

Katz, Eric. 2015. Geoengineering, Restoration, and the Construction of Nature: Oobleck and

the Meaning of Solar Radiation Management. Environmental Ethics, 37.4:485-498.

Kretz, Lisa. 2012. Climate Change: Bridging the Theory-Action Gap. Ethics & the

Environment, 17.2:9-27.

Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter S. 2010. It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral

Obligations. Ch. 18 in Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, edited by Stephen M. Gardiner,

Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 332-346.

Transparency International: Corruption Perceptions Index 2015

https://www.transparency.org/cpi2015/

Transparency International

https://www.transparency.org/

Week 5. Distance from the Victims: Chemical Change

February 13 and 15

Butler, Lindsey J., Madeleine K. Scammell, and Eugene B. Benson. 2016. The Flint, Michigan,

Water Crisis: A Case Study in Regulatory Failure and Environmental Injustice. Environmental

Justice, 9.4:93-97.

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Carson, Rachel. 1962. And No Birds Sing. Ch. 8 in Silent Spring. New York, NY: Mariner

Books (2002), 103-128. [a classic environmental reading]

Hird, Myra J. 2013. Waste, Landfills, and an Environmental Ethic of Vulnerability. Ethics and

the Environment, 18.1:105-124.

Schwarze, Steve. 2007. The Silences and Possibilities of Asbestos Activism: Stories from

Libby and Beyond. Ch. 6 in Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice

Challenge to the Environmental Movement, edited by Ronald Sandler and Phaedra C. Pezzullo.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 165-188.

Wright, Beverly. 2005. Living and Dying in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” Ch. 4 in The Quest

for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. San Francisco, CA:

Sierra Club Books, 87-107.

EPA: Learn About the Toxics Release Inventory

https://www.epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program/learn-about-toxics-release-inventory

EPA: Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) National Analysis 2016

https://www.epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program

Week 6. Distance from the Situations: Ecological Change

February 20 and 22

Dauvergne, Peter, and Jane Lister. 2011. The Global Political Economy of Timber. Ch. 1 in

Timber. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1-26.

Glennon, Robert. 2009. Wealth and the Culture of Water Consumption. Ch. 2 in

Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to do About It. Washington, DC: Island

Press, 37-50.

Mathur, Hari Mothan. 2013. Investors In, Farmers Out: Private Sector Projects and the

Contentious Issue of Land Acquisition. Ch. 10 in Displacement and Resettlement in India: The

Human Cost of Development. New York: Routledge, 151-167.

McGranahan, Gordon. 2007. Urban Transitions and the Spatial Displacement of Environmental

Burdens. Ch. 2 in Scaling Urban Environmental Challenges: From Local to Global and Back,

edited by Peter J. Marcotullio and Gordon McGranahan. London, UK: Earthscan Ltd., 18-44.

Thompson, Allen, and Stephen T. Jackson. 2013. The Human Influence: Moral Responsibility

for Novel Ecosystems. Ch. 7 in Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering

Biological and Ecological Systems, edited by John Basl and Ronald L. Sandler. Plymouth, UK:

Lexington Books, 125-150.

President Theodore Roosevelt’s Special Message on the Report of the National Conservation

Commission (February 1909)

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http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/consrv:@field(DOCID+@lit(amrvgvg38div5))

Library of Congress > American Memory > Finding Primary Sources

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/finding.html

Week 7. Distance from the Decisions: Biological Change February 27 and March 1

Bryson, Bill. 2003. Good-bye. Ch. 30 in A Short History of Nearly Everything. New York,

NY: Broadway Books, 469-478.

Kolbert, Elizabeth. 2009. The Sixth Extinction? The New Yorker, 85.15: 53-63.

Minteer, B. A., and Collins, J. P. 2013. Ecological Ethics in Captivity: Balancing Values and

Responsibilities in Zoo and Aquarium Research under Rapid Global Change. ILAR Journal,

54.1:41-51.

Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. 2013. Answering “Scientific” Attacks on Ethical Imperatives: Wind

and Solar Versus Nuclear Solutions to Climate Change. Ethics and the Environment, 18.1:1-17.

Smythe, Elizabeth. 2009. In Whose Interests? Transparency and Accountability in the Global

Governance of Food: Agribusiness, the Codex Alimentarius, and the World Trade Organization.

Ch. 4 in Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance, edited by Jennifer Clapp and Doris

Fuchs. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 93-124.

Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Report)

(December 1987)

http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf

UNECE: Sustainable Development – Concept and Action

http://www.unece.org/oes/nutshell/2004-2005/focus_sustainable_development.html

Section III. Sustainable Development: Ethical Justifications

Week 8. Earth Justice: Inclusivity

March 6 and 8

Caney, Simon. 2010. Climate Change, Human Rights and Moral Thresholds. Ch. 9 in Climate

Ethics: Essential Readings, ed. by Stephen Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry

Shue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 163-177.

Crist, Eileen, and H. Bruce Rinker. 2010. One Grand Organic Whole. Ch. 1 in Gaia in

Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis, edited by

Eileen Crist and H. Bruce Rinker. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 3-20.

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Lynch, Tony, and Stephen Norris. 2016. On the Enduring Importance of Deep Ecology.

Environmental Ethics, 38.1:63-75.

Muir, John. 1912. Hetch Hetchy Valley. Chap. 16 in The Yosemite. New York: The Century

Co., 249-262. [a classic environmental reading]

Ogden, L., Heynen, N., Oslender, U., West, P., Kassam, K. A., and Robbins, P. 2013. Global

Assemblages, Resilience, and Earth Stewardship in the Anthropocene. Frontiers in Ecology and

the Environment, 11.7:341-347.

Schlosberg, David. 2012. Justice, Ecological Integrity, and Climate Change. Ch. 8 in Ethical

Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future, edited by Allen Thompson.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 164-184.

The Earth Charter (June 2000)

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_a/img/02_earthcharter.pdf

The Earth Charter Initiative

http://earthcharter.org/

Week 9. Spring Break

March 13 and 15

Week 10. Environmental Justice: Equality

March 20 and 22

Brugge, Doug, Allison P. Patton, Alex Bob, Ellin Reisner, Lydia Lowe, Oliver-John M.

Bright, John L. Durant, Jim Newman, and Wig Zamore. 2015. Developing Community-Level

Policy and Practice to Reduce Traffic-Related Air Pollution Exposure. Environmental Justice,

8.3:95-104.

Carrick, Paul. 2012. Aldo Leopold’s Concept of Land Health: Implications for Sound Public

Health Policy. Ch. 5 in Human Health and Ecological Integrity: Ethics, Law and Human

Rights. New York: Routledge, 56-65.

Harrison, Jill Lindsey. 2011. Introducing Environmental Justices. Ch. 1 in Pesticide Drift and

the Pursuit of Environmental Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1-24.

Jones, Van. 2009. Eco-Equity. Ch. 3 in The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can

Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 61-78.

Pellow, Daivd Naguib. 2007. The Global Village Dump: Trashing the Planet. Ch. 4 in

Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice. Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press, 97-146.

Millennium Development Goals (September 2000)

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http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Millennium Villages Project

http://millenniumvillages.org/

Week 11. Biocultural Ethics: Legitimacy

March 27 and 29

Barry, Joyce M. 2012. Saving the Endangered Hillbilly: Appalachian Stereotypes and Cultural

Identity in the Anti-Mountaintop Removal Movement. Ch. 4 in Standing Our Ground: Women,

Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal. Athens, OH: Ohio

University Press, 94-124.

Esty, Daniel C. and Andrew S. Winston. 2009. Inspiring an Eco-Advantage Culture: Creating

an Organizational Focus on Environmental Stewardship. Ch. 9 in Green to Gold: How Smart

Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive

Advantage. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 206-232.

Maffi, Luisa, and Ellen Woodley. 2010. Lessons Learned from the Projects; and Biocultural

Diversity and the Future of Sustainability. Chs. 6 and 8 in Biocultural Diversity Conservation:

A Global Sourcebook. London: Earthscan Ltd., 155-173, 191-196.

Pradhan, Rajendra, and Ruth Meinzen-Dick. 2010. Which Rights are Right? Water Rights,

Culture, and Underlying Values. Ch. 5 in Water Ethics: Foundational Readings for Students

and Professionals, edited by Peter G. Brown and Jeremy J. Schmidt. Washington, DC: Island

Press, 39-58.

Rozzi, Ricardo. 2012. Biocultural Ethics: Recovering the Vital Links between the Inhabitants,

Their Habits, and Habitats. Environmental Ethics, 34.1:27-50.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Human Rights Watch (originally Helsinki Watch, 1978)

https://www.hrw.org/

Week 12. Sectoral Ethics: Equity

April 3 and 5

Holt-Gimenez, Eric. 2011. Food Security, Food Justice or Food Sovereignty? Crises, Food

Movements, and Regime Change. Ch. 14 in Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and

Sustainability, edited by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,

309-330.

Klingle, Matthew. 2007. The Geography of Hope: Toward an Ethic of Place and a City of

Justice. Epilogue in Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle. New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 265-280.

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Marcus, Karni. 2016. The Fundamental Role of Large-Scale Trust Building in Natural Resource

Management. Environmental Values, 25.3:259-286.

O’Leary, D. 2009. Corruption and Transparency in the Water Sector. Ch. 16 in Water Ethics,

edited by M. Ramon Llamas, Luis Martinez-Cortina, and Aditi Mukherji. Leiden, The

Netherlands: CRC Press/Balkema, 273-294.

Toyoda, Mitsuyo. 2013. Revitalizing Local Commons: A Democratic Approach to Collective

Management. Environmental Ethics, 35.3:279-293.

Laudate Si – On Care for Our Common Home (May 2015)

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-

francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Ethics in Action – Partnership of World’s Religions

https://rfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Ethics-in-Action.pdf

Section IV. Sustainable Development: Ethical Assumptions

Week 13. Human Status: Biotic Wholeness

April 10 and 12

Becker, Christian U. 2012. The Relational Dimension of Sustainability Ethics and the Role of

Individual Morality. Ch. 9 in Sustainability Ethics and Sustainability Research. New York:

Springer, 67-82.

Birmingham, Beth, and Stan L. LeQuire. 2010. Green Heroes Reexamined: An Evaluation of

Environmental Role Models. Ch. 6 in Leadership for Environmental Sustainability, edited by

Benjamin W. Redekop. New York, NY: Routledge, 107-121.

Cullinan, Cormac. 2011. Transforming Law and Governance. Ch. 14 in Wild Law: A

Manifesto for Earth Justice. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 157-168.

Deliège, Glenn. 2016. Contact! Contact! Nature Preservation as the Preservation of Meaning.

Environmental Values, 25.4:409-425.

Rayner, Steve. 2009. Human Capital, Social Capital, and Institutional Capacity. Ch. 4 in

Linkages of Sustainability, edited by Thomas E. Graedel and Ester van der Voet. Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press, 47-70.

Robbins, Jim. 2004. Lessons from the Wolf. Scientific American, 290.6:76-81.

Rowlands, Mark. 2009. The Pursuit of Happiness and Rabbits. Ch. 6 in The Philosopher and

the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness. New York: Pegasus Books

LLC, 136-162.

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The Nature Conservancy: Conservation by Design

http://www.nature.org/media/aboutus/conservation-by-design-20th-anniversary-edition.pdf

ExxonMobil: Energy Center

http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/

Week 14. Human Action: Sustainability Management

April 17 and 19

Bernal, E., and Edgar, D. 2012. The Development of a Model of Sustainability Management,

Based on Biological Ethics. International Journal of Management. 29.3:177-188.

Gilding, Paul. 2011. The Future Is Here, It’s Just Not Widely Distributed Yet. Ch. 19 in The

Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Change Everything (for the Better). New York,

NY: Bloomsbury Press, 236-255.

Honig, Maria, Samantha Peterson, Tom Herbstein, Saul Roux, Deon Nel, and Clifford Shearing.

2015. A Conceptual Framework to Enable the Changes Required for a One-Planet Future.

Environmental Values, 24.5:663-688.

Leopold, Aldo. 1949. The Land Ethic. In Part Four of A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches

Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, 237-264. [a classic environmental

reading]

Patnaik, Dev. 2009. The Golden Rule. Ch. 10 in Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper

When They Create Widespread Empathy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press, 180-199.

Prahalad, C. K. 2010. The Ecosystem for Wealth Creation. Ch. 4 in The Fortune at the Bottom

of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Education, Inc., 89-102.

Speth, James Gustave. 2008. Consumption: Living with Enough, Not Always More. Ch. 7 in

The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to

Sustainability. New Have: Yale University Press, 147-164.

World Justice Project: Rule of Law Index 2016

https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-law-index/wjp-rule-law-index-2016

World Justice Project

http://worldjusticeproject.org/who-we-are

Week 15. Human Thought: Adaptive Worldviews April 24 and 26

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Edwards, Andres R. 2010. A Thriveable Future; and Resources. Ch. 8 and Resources, Thriving

Beyond Sustainability: Pathways to a Resilient Society. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society

Publishers, 149-166.

Fouke, Daniel C. 2012. Blameworthy Environmental Beliefs. Environmental Ethics, 32.2:115-

134.

Ims, Knut J., and Ove D. Jakobsen. 2011. Deep Authenticity – An Essential Phenomenon in the

Web of Life. Ch. 14 in Business Ethics and Corporate Sustainability, edited by Antonio Tencati

and Francesco Perrini. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 213-224.

Jenkins, Willis. 2016. The Turn to Virtue in Climate Ethics: Wickedness and Goodness in the

Anthropocene. Environmental Ethics, 38.1:77-96.

Parkin, Sara. 2010. New Perspectives and Broad Knowledge. Ch. 7 in The Positive Deviant:

Sustainability Leadership in a Perverse World. London: Earthscan Ltd., 155-170.

Princen, Thomas. 2010. To Sustainabilize: The Adaptive Strategy of World-views. Ch. 11 in

Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 157-178.

Sustainable Development Goals (September 2015)

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300

The Sustainable Development Solutions Network

http://unsdsn.org/

Week 16. Student Presentations

During Exam Period, as Scheduled by the Registrar

Course Resources

Required reading materials are indicated under weekly topics in the Syllabus section of our

Canvas site, and are available in the Files section, typically as PDF files. The readings have been

selected from a broad range of highly contemporary relevant literature. To access a reading,

simply click on “Resources” in the Files section, then in the appropriate weekly list of materials,

click on the title of the reading. Typically it takes less than a minute for the article to appear

fully, depending upon the strength of internet connectivity and the structure of the reading.

Links to the websites to be explored are also provided in the weekly lists.

Method of Instruction and Evaluation

Each class session is comprised of both lecture material and open discussion. Students are

welcome to raise questions and offer comments throughout the class sessions. Course

requirements include the following, upon which grades are based:

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1. Class Attendance: Attendance will be given a maximum weight of 14 points. One half (.5)

grade point will be given for each attended class session. Attendance should be timely and

regular. An absence is excused only with (a) prior e-mail notification for a critical documented

purpose, or (b) emergency verification. Attendance should be professionally “attentive”, or

without distractive use of electronic or other equipment.

2. Class Participation: Participation will be given a maximum weight of 14 points. A

maximum of one grade point will be given for active participation during a week’s 2 class

sessions. Active participation includes both (a) raising questions and offering comments

connected meaningfully to ongoing discussion; and (b) introducing readings by sharing

highlights and considerations prepared in advance of the class session. Details pertaining to (b)

are provided below and also at the start of the syllabus section titled Course Content – Topics

and Readings:

Weekly preparation for class includes (1) reading 4 of the articles listed and (2) exploring

the material at the 2 links provided for the week. This should be accomplished prior to our

Tuesday class session. Short news media and other articles and documents may be added

periodically to the weekly list of materials. PDFs of the readings and links to documents and

organizations are available in the Files section of our Canvas site. (Click on “Resources” to

open the appropriate folder of weekly readings.)

3. Discussion Entries: Discussion entries on our Canvas website in the Discussion section will

be given a maximum weight of 28 points. A maximum of two grade points will be given for the

timely preparation and posting of informative, perceptive, coherent and cogent essay-style

observations on the reading material for each week. A discussion entry should not be less than

250 words long, which is equivalent to somewhat less than a half page of single-spaced text. The

entry is due by Monday, 9 p.m., each week, in advance of the two classes to which it pertains. (A

lateness penalty will apply, and no credit will be given if the entry is not posted by the start of

the Tuesday class.)

4. A Term Paper: A paper focusing on a clearly framed, specific type of progress in or deviation

from the ethics of sustainable development will be given a maximum weight of 44 points. A short

draft of the final paper will be due by Saturday, March 24, at 9 p.m. This draft will be given a

maximum of 9 (of the 44) points. The final version will be given a maximum of the remaining 35

points. Three organizations should be discussed comparatively, including a government agency, a

non-profit organization, and a business, with a view to illustrating and detailing the type of

progress or deviation explored in the paper. The comparative analysis should serve to illuminate

(1) some aspect of “best practices” or “corrupt practices”; (2) the type of organization that may be

least or most problematic in this regard; and (3) what can be done to encourage or discourage the

conduct under consideration.

Formatting details include the following:

(1) the text should be a minimum of 5,400 words in length, which is equivalent to

approximately 12 pages of double-spaced text;

(2) the font size should be 11 or 12 (check overall word length accordingly);

(3) the left, right, top and bottom sides of a page should all have 1-inch margins;

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(4) endnotes should be used (not footnotes or parenthetical notes) and should be situated

on pages following the text;

(5) textual citations to endnotes should appear in Arabic, not Roman superscript;

(6) a bibliography should be situated on pages following the endnotes;

(7) neither the endnotes nor the bibliography should be included in the word count;

(8) citations, endnotes and bibliography should be prepared in Chicago Style, using the

guidelines provided at the following link:

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

(9) any images, photos, diagrams, models, graphs, tables, charts, diagrams, etc., should

be situated on pages titled Appendix, following the end-notes;

(10) all pages should be numbered.

The report should be submitted online by Sunday, May 6, at 9:00 p.m. A paper copy should be

delivered by Tuesday, May 8, at 4:00 p.m.

Papers will be grouped by cohesiveness or similarity of topics, and informal presentations by

student groups formed accordingly will be scheduled for the exam date assigned to our class by

the university Registrar. Each student should create 2 slides to help transmit their findings

efficiently.

At the end of the semester, each student’s points for all requirements (class attendance, class

participation, discussion entries and the research project, including the draft) will be totaled, and

a class curve will be established. Final grades will be provided on a letter grade scale.

Office Hours

Time: Wednesday, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. and by appointment. (It is best to secure a time slot by

making an appointment even if for office hours.)

Office: 1406 IAB.

Statements of University Policy

Academic Integrity Statement

Columbia does not tolerate cheating and/or plagiarism in any form. Students who violate the

Academic Integrity and Community Standards will be subject to the Dean’s Disciplinary

Procedures. The standards can be viewed online:

http://studentconduct.columbia.edu/

You are strongly encouraged to familiarize yourself with the proper methods of citation and

attribution. Columbia provides some useful resources online, which you should examine before

conducting research:

http://library.columbia.edu/research/citation-management.html

15

Facilities Accessibility Statement

Columbia is committed to providing equal access to qualified students with documented

disabilities. A student’s disability status and reasonable accommodations are individually

determined based upon disability documentation and related information gathered through the

intake process. For more information regarding this service, please visit the University’s

Health Services website.

http://www.health.columbia.edu/disability-services

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