Our human society consists of many intertwined Large Scale Socio-Technical Systems (LSSTS), such as infrastructures, industrial networks, the financial systems etc. Environmental pressures created by these systems on Earth’s carrying capacity are leading to exhaustion of natural resources, loss of habitats and biodiversity, and are causing a resource and climate crisis. To avoid this sustainability crisis, we urgently need to transform our production and consumption patterns. Given that we, as inhabitants of this planet, are part of a complex and integrated global system, where and how should we begin this transformation? And how can we also ensure that our transformation efforts will lead to a sustainable world?

LSSTS and the ecosystems that they are embedded in are known to be Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). According to John Holland CAS are "...a dynamic network of many agents (which may represent cells, species, individuals, firms, nations) acting in parallel, constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing. The control of a CAS tends to be highly dispersed and decentralized. If there is to be any coherent behavior in the system, it will have to to arise from competition and cooperation among the agents themselves. The overall behavior of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment" by many individual agents.

Understanding Complex Adaptive Systems requires tools that themselves are complex to create and understand. Shalizi defines Agent Based Modeling as "An agent is a persistent thing which has some state we find worth representing, and which interacts with other agents, mutually modifying each other’s states. The components of an agent-based model are a collection of agents and their states, the rules governing the interactions of the agents and the environment within which they live."

This course will explore the theory of CAS and their main properties. It will also teach you how to work with Agent Based Models in order to model and understand CAS.

This course focuses on the complexities associated with security and sustainability of states in international relations. Covering aspects of theory, methods and empirical analysis, the course is in three parts, and each consists of seminar sessions focusing on specific topics.

This course on sustainability will cover the implications of this topic on engineering, design, and architecture. The course will begin with a general survey and discussion of current trends, followed by the introduction of the life cycle assessment (LCA) method as a rigorous, quantitative alternative to current popular sustainability measures for the built environment.

The course considers the growing popularity of sustainability and its implications for the practice of engineering, particularly for the built environment. Two particular methodologies are featured: life cycle assessment (LCA) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). The fundamentals of each approach will be presented. Specific topics covered include water and wastewater management, energy use, material selection, and construction.

Course provides undergraduate students with an in-depth exploration of energy policy development, implementation, and assessment at multiple governmental and corporate scales. The course utilizes contemporary real-world problems and actions to provide students context for the drivers, frameworks, and assumptions of energy policy.

Students begin by reading Dr. Seuss' The Lorax as an example of how over-development can cause long-lasting environmental destruction. Students discuss how to balance the needs of the environment with the needs of human industry. Student teams are asked to serve as natural resource engineers, city planning engineers and civil engineers with the task to replant the nearly destroyed forest and develop a sustainable community design that can co-exist with the re-established natural area.

Examines theories and practice of environmental justice, concerns about race, poverty, and the environment in both domestic and international contexts, exploring and critically analyzing philosophies, frameworks, and strategies underlying environmental justice movements. Examines case studies of environmental injustices, including: distribution of environmental quality and health, unequal enforcement of regulations, unequal access to resources to respond to environmental problems, and the broader political economy of decision-making around environmental issues. Explores how environmental justice movements relate to broader sustainable development goals and strategies. This class explores the foundations of the environmental justice movement, current and emerging issues, and the application of environmental justice analysis to environmental policy and planning. It examines claims made by diverse groups along with the policy and civil society responses that address perceived inequity and injustice. While focused mainly on the United States, international issues and perspectives are also considered.

This course explores the proper role of government in the regulation of the environment. It will help students develop the tools to estimate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. These tools will be used to evaluate a series of current policy questions, including: Should air and water pollution regulations be tightened or loosened? What are the costs of climate change in the U.S. and abroad? Is there a "Race to the Bottom" in environmental regulation? What is "sustainable development"? How do environmental problems differ in developing countries? Are we running out of oil and other natural resources? Should we be more energy efficient? To gain real world experience, the course is scheduled to include a visit to the MIT cogeneration plant. We will also do an in-class simulation of an air pollution emissions market.

Review of IPE field covering previous and core research focusing on dual national objectives in a global context, namely pursuit of power and pursuit of wealth. Surveys major paradigms of international political economy, including neoclassical economics, development and ecological economics, lateral pressure, and perspectives and structural views of power relations. Examines interaction of politics and economics on international trade, capital flows, foreign investment, intellectual property rights, international migration, and select issues in foreign economic policy in global context. Examines the evolution of international economic institutions and attendant political implications. Open to undergraduates by permission of instructor.

Multiple factors influence the success or failure of change efforts. The outcome depends on the nature of the innovation and how it is introduced (Evans, 1996; Fullan, 1993; Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999) or the strategies used to implement the innovation (Fullan, 1999, 2003a; Hall & Hord, 2001; Short & Greer, 1997). It also depends on what training opportunities and structural support are provided to those required to implement the change (Hall & Hord, 1987; Schlechty, 2001).

The studio will focus on the district of Gaoming, located in the northwest of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) - the fastest growing and most productive region of China. The District has recently completed a planning effort in which several design institutes and a Hong Kong planning firm prepared ideas for a new central area near the river. The class will complement these efforts by focusing on planning and design options on the waterfront of the proposed new district and ways of integrating water/hydrological factors into all aspects and land uses of a modern city (residential, commercial, industrial) - including watershed and natural ecosystem protection, economic and recreational activities, transportation, and tourism.

" The world is changing in two fundamental ways. First, the development of a truly global market in products, services, capital, and even certain types of labor is changing the basic terms of competition for an array of different firms and industries. Second, the rules and institutions governing the new international economic order are still in flux. National regulations are no longer adequate yet international accords over trade, intellectual property, labor standards, and a host of other issues are fiercely and frequently contested by competing interests. The final results of these debates will determine who wins and who loses in the new global economy. Understanding the interaction between environment and business around the world is the key to understanding both the possibilities for and constraints on either managing an existing or starting a new business in today's fast-changing economy."

Frequently asked questions about Organic Agriculture, with the corresponding answers from the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)

Maker Faire participants collaborate in ISKME's Design Lab, using digital stories and salvaged materials to design an innovative school of the future. The Design Lab features Makers Mauro ffortisimo Di Nucci's deconstructed piano and INKA Biospheric Systems' Vertical Garden; as well as Student and Teacher project examples that integrate art, science, sustainability, and green design inspire the creation of shareable open-source learning resources.

This wiki page showcases photos and video from the Design Lab, open educational resources for teachers, and a step by step guide through the design process.

Interlinked Challenges features bits of information about global challenges from the last 400,000 years. Challenges include: biodiversity, climate change, eco-migrations, economy, energy, food, health, hunger, population growth, poverty, security, sustainability, transportation, urbanization, and water.

Info bits are drawn from articles, podcasts, blogs, press releases, institutional reports, testimonies, encyclopedias, books, and documentaries. Each bit is referenced, date stamped, linked to the original article, tagged on multiple themes, and assigned a related image, which has its own description, author credit, date stamp, image permission, and back link. Connections are made to bits of info from the 2007 IPCC Report on Climate Change.

This seminar will explore the difficulties of getting agreement on global definitions of sustainability; in particularly building international support for efforts to combat climate change created by greenhouse gas emissions as well as other international resource management efforts. We will focus on possible changes in the way global environmental agreements are formulated and implemented, especially on ways of shifting from the current "pollution control" approach to combating climate change to a more comprehensive strategy for taking advantage of sustainable development opportunities.

This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict - focusing on threats to security due to environmental dislocations and (b) cooperation - focusing on the politics of international treaties that have contributed to emergent processes for global accord in response to evidence of climate change. The course concludes by addressing the question of: "What Next?

During this course, we will be exploring basic questions of architecture through several short design exercises. Working with many different media, students will discover the interrelationship of architecture and its related disciplines, such as structures, sustainability, architectural history and the visual arts. Each problem will focus on one of these disciplines and one exploration and presentation technique.

The goals of the course are (1) to give you a firm grounding in the current state of the field of open education, including related topics like copyright, licensing, and sustainability, (2) to help you locate open education in the context of mainstream instructional technologies like learning objects, and (3) to get you thinking, writing, and dialoguing creatively and critically about current practices and possible alternative practices in open education.