From the Blue Marble 1972 to Brussels 2024 with Verena Ringler, SAIS '01, '02 (MA)

Course Title: From the Blue Marble 1972 to Brussels 2024 - An Engaging, Cross-disciplinary Tour through the Cultural History of Sustainability 

Instructor:  Verena Ringler, SAIS '01 (Dipl), '02 ( MA)

Brought to you by Odyssey   

June 13, 2024 - June 20, 2024 (2 Sessions)  

Thursday,  1 PM ET  

Virtual via Zoom 

Course Description: “I'm pro-human, not pro-toad.” The CEO of a major global company CEO reportedly said this as an argument that habitat destruction was sometimes necessary for progress. Yet 500 years earlier, Leonardo da Vinci observed that: "We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.“ 

What connects these two observations? Which key figures and historical milestones have led us to see the sustainability agenda as so important today? 

We will tackle these questions in two engaging and interactive online sessions on the cultural history of sustainability. In a lively parkours tailored to curious minds in the larger Johns Hopkins community, we will unpack key moments and movements in the sustainability movement, as well as their links to international relations, multilateralism, leadership/change management, European Affairs, and peace studies.

Our journey will reveal a number of often-ignored turning points in politics and land management, as well as landmarks in arts and culture, which have preceded today's "green transition" agendas – especially in the transatlantic context.

• As Columbus sailed West in 1492, a Latin school teacher in the Ore mountains worked on an audacious fictional law case narrative in which Mother Nature accuses miners of reckless exploitation. 
• When the the Club of Rome published its report on the limits to global growth in 1972, the iconic "Blue Marble" image of planet Earth humbled and moved humans around the world. 
• The presentation of the European Green Deal in 2019 offers a multi-faceted roadmap for the bloc of 27 countries to move to climate neutrality by 2050. Yet what were the origins of this reform plan – and what do the city of Venice and the Peace Palace of The Hague have to do with the Green Deal? 

Participants in our dynamic exploration will come to understand that civilizational history is indeed a century-long struggle between two camps: extractionist vs. regenerative. Hopping between key milestones and markers, they will emerge with a new orientation and inspiration regarding today's world challenges. They also will be able to apply this approach and historical lessons learned to their own leadership challenges in various fields and contexts. 

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