This fall, Scott Montgomery, JSIS faculty member, is teaching ARCTIC 391: Climate Change – An International Perspective: Science, Art, and Activism.
“Scientists have discovered global climate change, identified its human origins, and are forecasting the consequences for every corner of the globe. There is overwhelming consensus about the facts underpinning our knowledge of climate change. But powerful economic and social forces are aligned against implementing policies necessary to address climate impacts” argues Robert Pavia, former instructor for ARCTIC 391. “By introducing uncertainty and doubt about scientists’ motives, complexity has been transformed into doubt and disagreement, undermining the public’s belief in science and leading the planet into a climate crisis.” Pavia goes on to describe how ARCTIC 391 can create “dialog across disciplines to allow us to understand the policies necessary for people and nations to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.”
ARCTIC 391 has not been offered since Pavia retired a few years ago. However, this fall Scott Montgomery is offering the course once again. Students from across the University of Washington with interests in the Arctic and international studies are collaborating this fall to evaluate the scientific, geographic, and social context necessary for mitigating the ecological and human impacts of global climate change.
Scott L. Montgomery is an author, geoscientist, and affiliate faculty member in the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. He writes and lectures on a wide variety of topics related to energy (geopolitics, technology, resources, climate change), American politics, intellectual history, language and communication, and the history of science. He is a frequent contributor to online journals such as The Conversation, Forbes, and Fortune, and his articles and op-eds are regularly featured in many outlets, including Newsweek, Marketwatch, The Huffington Post, and UPI. For more than two decades, Montgomery worked as a geoscientist in the energy industry, writing over 100 scientific papers and 70 monographs on topics related to oil and gas, energy technology, and industry trends.
Montgomery is the author of 12 books, including, The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How They Built the Modern World (Princeton, 2015), co-authored with Dan Chirot, which The New York Times selected as one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2015. Shape of the New has been widely praised for its themes regarding the power of ideas in the shaping of modern history, using such thinkers as Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and the founders of American democracy, particularly Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, as examples of how influential Enlightenment thought has been. The book also examines how such thought has been opposed by forms of often-violent reaction and extremism, such as fascism, totalitarianism, and religious fundamentalism.
The Center is delighted to have ARCTIC 391 offered once again and to welcome Scott Montgomery as one of our affiliated faculty.