FSEM 120   Climate Change Across Cultures

Faculty Profile for Professor Graybill

Human-induced climate change is a defining issue of our time. Human alteration of the climate is now the consensus in the global scientific community. Potential short- and long-term impacts include biodiversity loss, sea-level rise and coastal flooding, more intense storms, threats to human health, and disruptions of freshwater supplies and food security. While the global community increasingly understands the processes driving climate change and is starting to appreciate the consequences of a warmer world, the cultures (different societies, scientists, policymakers, to name a few) grappling with the dynamics of global warming are complex and the issue remains controversial and less well addressed globally than needed to stem dramatic climate change in your lifetime. Understanding climate-society relationships requires examining both the climatic effects of human activity as well as the cultural responses to addressing climate throughout history. Students examine climate change in cultural context to create engaged global citizens who grapple with the science and scientific uncertainty of climate change alongside the social, political, ethical, and economic matrix of society’s responses. Students who successfully complete this seminar earn credit for CORE S193 satisfy the Core Sciences requirement.

Jessica Graybill is an interdisciplinarian with expertise in the geosciences and in social, cultural, and environmental studies of Russia and Eurasia. She can't wait to share her passion for understanding climate change and how societies think about it with you, while also asking hard questions about our climate future, in your first semester at Colgate! When not teaching, Prof. Graybill’s current research carries her to the Arctic where she studies the cultural impacts of climate change.