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: Today's CEOs, risk managers, bank / insurance / policy leaders have to suddenly know about ecosystems and the functions and value of a jar of living, healthy soil. But - wait: already Leonardo Da Vinci observed 500 years ago that “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” Definitely, today's daily headlines invite anyone of the larger Johns Hopkins community to navigate the basics of today's sustainability and "green transition" debates at least from the EU and U.S. perspectives, hopefully with active participants from other parts of the world! In this course, I offer an engaging and big picture overview on the cultural history of sustainability and its interlinkages with international relations, multilateralism, leadership/change management, European Affairs, and peace studies.

 In an interactive manner, students and masters from all disciplines or backgrounds will learn about the origins of today's "green transition" agendas. - While Columbus was sailing West in 1492, a Latin school teacher in the Ore mountains worked on an audacious fictional law case narrative, where Mother Nature accuses the miner of reckless exploitation. - In the same year that the Club of Rome published its report on the limits to growth in 1972, humans around the world were humbled and moved by the iconic "Blue Marble" image of planet Earth. - The European Green Deal, presented in 2019, offers a multi-faceted roadmap for the bloc of 27 countries moving to climate neutrality by 2050. Which considerations, what kind of thinking lies behind this profound economic and social reform plan? And what does the city of Venice or the Peace Palace of The Hague have to do with the Green Deal? 

Students understand in a lively manner that civilizational history is indeed a century-long struggle between two camps - extractionist vs. regenerative. Working ourselves through key milestones and markers, breakthroughs and setbacks on the quest for sustainability from the European and transatlantic point of view, students of this class will get a transversal and generalistic overview. Students will hopefully leave this course holistically oriented and hopefully inspired regarding today's and tomorrow's world challenges. They will be able to use this narrative, human-centered experience of our class to master their leadership challenges in their very own fields and contexts. 
 

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