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This advanced undergraduate-level course focusses on the fundamental biology underlying the major global change issues that humanity currently faces. Strong emphasis will be placed on the critical interconnections among issues across hierarchical levels from molecule to biosphere that explain the patterns and mechanisms which have led to our current environmental situation.

We will explore the biology underlying the major global change issues that our civilization currently faces (e.g. land-use change including deforestation, biodiversity loss, invasive species, climate change, nitrogen pollution, antibiotic resistance...).  Together, in the spirit of mutual learning, we will address the following broad over-arching questions: 

1. What is our current scientific understanding of the specific biology underlying each of the major global change issues?
2. In what ways do these biology-based insights: a) help us to understand why we are in the current environmental situation; b) point the way toward potential solutions; and c) ultimately influence perspectives on our civilization’s future?

Professor and student-lead seminars will introduce many of the major global change issues as well as a number of conceptual frameworks to understand them and their interactions.  Specific concepts will include: Progress trap, Global Planetary Boundaries, Biogeochemical linkage interactions, The Anthropocene, Deep Ecology, Socio-Ecological Stewardship, and Complex Adaptive Systems.

The ultimate aim is to empower students so that they can develop their own perspectives on how to interpret, cope with, and constructively respond to the major global change issues that they will face through the 21^stcentury.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Explain and contrast the major global environmental issues that our civilisation faces.
2. Develop and apply an over-arching conceptual framework to identify and organize the principal interactions among major global change issues that ramify their impacts.
3. Describe the patterns and causes of previous civilisations’ rises and falls to appraise our current global environmental predicament within an historical context.
4. Summarize the impacts of western ‘progress’-based, individualist, and capitalist ideologies on humanity’s relationship with the rest of the nature, and contrast those with the more holistic ideologies of Indigenous and eastern cultures.
5. Use concepts such as Progress trap, Global Planetary Boundaries, The Anthropocene, Biogeochemical linkage interactions, Deep Ecology, Socio-Ecological Stewardship, and Complex Adaptive Systems to discuss, evaluate, and critique potential solutions for individual global change issues.
6. Identify and analyze the fundamental biological root causes of our civilisation’s current environmental situation, and use that assessment to develop lasting personal solutions for coping with, and constructively responding to, the major global change issues of the 21^st century.

Session times and locations: Mondays 1.00-2.30 (MacCorry A311); Thursdays 08.30-10.00 (Kingston Hall 304)

Professor: Paul Grogan   Teaching Assistant: Colin St. James (colin.stjames@queensu.ca) Office: Room 2507)

Provisional Assessment plan:

• Participation in tutorial discussion (based on intellectual depth and relevance of contributions, not quantity) 15% 
• Written questions provided in advance of each tutorial (based on intellectual depth and originality)  20% 
• Group seminar  25% 
• Outline of final synthesis exercise 7%  
• Final synthesis exercise (peer marking) 28%
• Reflective writing exercises 5%   
   

Provisional seminar topics:

• Introduction – conceptual frameworks
• Land-use change – patterns, drivers, and impacts
• Carbon Cycle and Climate Change
• Antibiotic Resistance and Virus epi/pandemics – rapid evolution of human pathogens
• Nitrogen Cycle – too much of a ‘good’ thing
• Phosphorus Cycle – humanity’s absolute need – peak phosphorus
• Biodiversity – 6th extinction; invasive species
• Freshwater extraction – growing demand, limited supply
• Ocean acidification – cause, thresholds, and biological impacts
• Atmospheric contaminants – mercury, nitrogen, .....
• Human population size – the elephant in the room
• Synthetic chemical proliferation??  â€“ Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring...
• Anthropogenic Electromagnetic Radiation??
• Industrialised food production??
• Nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons proliferation??
• Success stories: Ozone; Acid rain; ??
• Case study: Climate change and other recent perturbations in the Arctic
• Historical perspective – ‘The Short History of Progress’; Progress-traps
• Indigenous and other non-western cultural perspectives on humanity’s relationship with the rest of nature – Perspectives and Implications
• Emerging perspectives on sustainability: Socio-Ecological Stewardship, Complex Adaptive Systems, Well-being
• Deep Ecology and other Environmental Philosophies
• What can Biology tell us about our Future?
• Synthesis
   

Preliminary Schedule (to be updated through the course):

To see materials from previous iterations of this course, use the drop-down menu under the 'Teaching' tab at the top of this page

 Last update: 15th September 2025