All Course Offerings
Please note: This is a full list of ERG course offerings; not all courses are offered each term. For current course offerings, please refer to the online Schedule of Classes.
ENERES C100/C200 – Energy and Society
(Cross-listed with Pub Pol C184/C284.)
You will develop an understanding – and a real working knowledge – of our energy technologies, policies and options. This will include analysis of the different opportunities and impacts of energy systems that exist within and between groups defined by national, regional, household, ethnic, and gender distinctions. Analysis of the range of current and future energy choices will be stressed, as well as the role of energy in determining local environmental conditions and the global climate. ER C100 is open to undergraduates. ER C200 is open to graduate students.
ENERES 102 – Quantitative Aspects of Global Environmental Problems
Instructor: Lara Kueppers
Human disruption of biogeochemical and hydrological cycles; causes and consequences of climate change and acid deposition; transport and health impacts of pollutants; loss of species; radioactivity in the environment; epidemics.
ENERES C124 – Gender and Environment
Instructor: Youjin Chung
This course examines the centrality of gender and intersectionality in understanding nature-society relations across time and space. During the first half of the semester, students will become familiar with key feminist theoretical approaches to studying environmental problems, including ecofeminism, feminist environmentalism, feminist critiques of science, feminist political ecology, and queer and more-than-human ecologies. In the remainder of the semester, students will apply the theories learned to explore contemporary feminist environmental movements and analyze key topics, such as resource politics, pollution and toxins, environmental and reproductive justice, climate change, and the ethics of care.
ENERES 131 – Data, Environment, and Society
Instructor: Duncan Callaway
(This course will use Python, and students must have taken Data 8 before enrolling)
This course will teach students to build, estimate and interpret models that describe phenomena in the broad area of energy and environmental decision-making. Students leave the course as both critical consumers and responsible producers of data-driven analysis. The effort will be divided between (i) learning a suite of data-driven modeling and prediction tools (ii) building the programming and computing expertise to use those tools and (iii) developing the ability to formulate and answer resource allocation questions within energy and environment contexts.
ENERES 140 – Environmental Justice and Economics
Instructor: Paige Weber
This course covers: one, economic frameworks for understanding environmental justice, and two, empirical approaches for evaluating environmental justice outcomes. This course emphasizes empirical applications and the assignments involve working with data and evaluating data sources and metadata.
ENERES 160 – Climate Justice
Instructor: Meg Mills-Novoa
Climate change is transforming our world in ways we are only beginning to understand, and in many ways we cannot yet imagine. The emerging theoretical and practical lenses of social and environmental justice (EJ) provide tools with which to examine and understand this new world. Using literature, media, and engaged field experiences, this course brings together the scholarship, scientific and engineering innovation, policy, literature and media, and activism around the interacting themes of climate change and social justice.
ENERES C176/276 – Climate Change Economics
Instructor: David Anthoff
This course is a self-contained introduction to the economics of climate change. Climate change is caused by a large variety of economic activities and many of its impacts will have economic consequences. Economists have studied climate change for more than two decades and economic arguments are often powerful in policy decisions. The course will familiarize students with these arguments and equip them with the tools to participate in discussions of climate change policy through an economic lens.
ENERES C223 – Agrarian Questions
Instructor: Youjin Chung
The seminar offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of critical agrarian and food studies, which brings together Marxian agrarian political economy, historical and political sociology, postcolonial and subaltern studies, post structural feminist theory, critical development studies, and political ecology. Students should come out of this class with a genealogical understanding of key debates and emergent issues in the field. Our goal is to think theoretically and empirically about the social relations of land, labor, and livelihoods and how these relations articulate with broader political economic processes.
ENERES 254 – Electric Power Systems
Instructor: Duncan Callaway
(Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: Physics 7B or 8B or equivalent)
Provides an understanding of concepts in the design and operation of electric power systems, including generation, transmission, and consumption. Covers basic electromechanical physics, reactive power, circuit and load analysis, reliability, planning, dispatch, organizational design, regulations, environment, and end-use efficiency, and new technologies.
ENERES C266 – Political Ecologies of Climate Change Adaptation
Instructor: Meg Mills-Novoa
As the climate crisis escalates and mitigation efforts stagnate, adaptation has come to the forefront of public debates and funding priorities. This course will explore the varied political ecologies of climate change adaptation. By drawing on political ecology, this course will include both foundational and emerging scholarship that explores how climate change adaptation is shaping and being shaped by the material impacts of climate change, the political economy of climate governance and finance, and the agency of experts, funders, promoters, and the individuals and collectives adapting to climate change. We will examine the history of climate change adaptation concepts and governance while also exploring emerging frontiers in the field.
ENERES 290 – Qualitative Research Methods
Instructor: Youjin Chung
The seminar has three goals. First, to examine the theoretical foundations, epistemological and methodological debates, and current trends in qualitative research as applied to humanistic social sciences. Second, to provide an opportunity for students to experiment with key methods in qualitative research. Third, to practice linking theory, research questions, hypotheses, and methods by developing a research proposal. The seminar will be the most useful for first or second year doctoral students who are in the research design stage, but other graduate students interested in ethnographic research are also welcome. Some prior exposure to qualitative methods is desired, but not required.
ENERES 290 – Climate Science and Society
Instructor: Andy Jones
Science plays a key role in shaping our understanding of climate change, its impacts on society, and the option space for responding to it. An emerging field examines the space of actionable knowledge generation for climate-related decision-making, including efforts to support decision-making within the context of deep uncertainty. Meanwhile, climate resilience and mitigation efforts take place within the backdrop of and have the potential to exacerbate existing environmental injustice. Ultimately our ability to and act upon scientific information in support of enhanced resilience and justice is constrained by the ways human cognitive and emotional processes make sense of information. In this primarily reading- and discussion-based seminar we will engage with key theoretical frameworks and case studies to advance student understanding at the intersection of climate science, climate resilience, decision-making, environmental justice, and human cognition. A term project will give students an opportunity to apply the course themes within the context of their ongoing research and/or policy interests. While we will engage with technical topics, the class does not require the application of quantitative methodological approaches. Students may choose to pursue quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approaches for their term project. A basic understanding of climate science, climate change, and the challenges associated with adaptation and mitigation is expected.
ENERES 290 – Nature-Based Climate Solutions
Instructor: Lara Kueppers
Scientists, conservation advocates and policymakers are increasing emphasis on use of land and coastal regions as an inexpensive way to mitigate climate change by storing carbon. Some natural systems are also important to societal climate change adaptation and conservation. Yet these same ecosystems are increasingly exposed to climate and other global changes, and some may be degraded by prioritizing carbon storage over other ecological and social values. As a result, some see nature-based climate solutions as risky or a distraction from reducing emissions. In this seminar, we will address two critical questions: (1) What are the promises and risks of nature-based climate solutions? (2) Can policy goals and ecological realities be aligned and under what circumstances? To address these questions, we will review key ecological and climate system concepts, examine policy ambitions related to nature-based climate solutions, and critically examine case studies spanning the range of actual and proposed projects and initiatives.
ENERES 290A – Computational Methods in Economics
Instructor: David Anthoff
This course teaches graduate students how to write software that solves mathematical problems from economics and other disciplines. While the applications in the class are mostly from economics, the methods and tools that form the core of the course are widely applicable in disciplines other than economics. As such this course is targeted at any graduate student who wants to learn modern numerical methods to conduct quantitative research. The course has three broad objectives. First, we will study a large number of algorithms and numerical methods developed in the applied math field that one can use to solve mathematical problems with a computer that cannot be solved with pen and paper. Second, students will get a thorough introduction to scientific programming. Third, we will study software development tools and practices that are useful in the scientific programming world.
ENERES 293A – Master’s Seminar I: Interdisciplinary Analysis and the Environment
ENERES 293A is the first of 4 required seminars of the ERG Masters’ sequence. It provides an intellectual and practical orientation to the Energy and Resources Group and to what makes us “ERG”. It’s at once an understanding interdisciplinary approaches class and a cohort-building class. ERG is a community of scholars and researchers who are actively engaged in academic research, policy design, and engagement with civil society. ENERES 293A provides a space in which interdisciplinary approaches to domains, methods / tools and worldviews are explored, individually and collaboratively,for the fields that comprise energy and resources research.
ENERES 293B – Master’s Seminar II: Methods for Interdisciplinary Analysis
This is the second semester of the ENERES 293 sequence for all ERG Master’s Degree students. The primary purpose of the sequence is to support students in the process of doing independent interdisciplinary research. ENERES 293B is designed to help students learn to identify and develop tractable and impactful interdisciplinary research projects.
ENERES 293C – Master’s Seminar III – Master’s Project Development for Interdisciplinary Analysis, Part 1
This is the third semester of the ERG master’s seminar series. This semester shifts from a focus on intellectual exploration to the design and execution of the master’s project. While some students may have already started their projects through summer research and/or fieldwork experiences, others may be starting fresh. This semester is designed to meet students wherever they are in the process of developing their research. It will also focus on building communication/translation skills and continuing the professional development work started in ENERES 293B.
ENERES 293D – Master’s Seminar IV: Master’s Project Development for Interdisciplinary Analysis, Part II
Required of, and open only to, fourth-semester Energy and Resources Master’s Degree students. Topics include structuring and writing a research paper, crafting and delivering a clear, engaging presentation on the Master’s project, supporting classmates with these goals, and professional development. In addition to whole-class sessions, students will work in small groups throughout the semester and conduct individual professional way-finding exercises. Students will apply the interdisciplinary approaches and perspectives learned in the core curriculum and previous courses in this series.
ENERES 295 – ERG Colloquium: Special Topics in Energy and Resources
Presentations of research by faculty, students, and visiting lecturers. Master’s degree students are required to enroll for two semesters.
ENERES 296 – Doctoral Seminar
Presentations of current PhD research. Limited to ERG graduate students.
ENERES 298 – Grant Writing Seminar
Instructor: Isha Ray with grad student facilitation
Offered to all ERG students who are planning to submit a fellowship or grant application during the current academic year. The primary purpose of the course is to help students develop a solid foundation in effective proposal writing and to advance their work on a fellowship or grant application of their choice. These grant-writing skills are transferable to both academia and the professional world and are often critical for maintaining funding across different sectors of work.
ENERES 299 – Independent Research
For information on independent research units with individual faculty members please contact the department at erggrad@berkeley.edu.