Focus: the science and policy of global and regional climate change. 

This elective will address:

• The science of global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, including the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Current strategies to reduce GHG emissions, such as carbon cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and renewable energy
• Potential impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on the Pacific Northwest, including the Pacific Coast, Puget Sound, rivers and streams, agriculture, forests, arid lands, and human infrastructure and communities
• Current efforts to adapt to impacts
• The interactions of the scientific, economic, legal, political, cultural and social aspects of the problem
• New and emerging ideas about the problem and how to make progress in solving it

2013 Syllabus

Faculty Biography:

Paul Pickett, M.Eng., has worked in water resources engineering for over three decades. His career focus has been on water quality, hydrology, water supply, watershed functions, and climate change. He received a Bachelor of Science in Renewable Natural Resources from the University of California at Davis in 1984, and a Masters of Engineering in Environmental Civil Engineering from U.C. Davis in 1989. Since 1988 he’s worked for the Washington Department of Ecology as an environmental engineer. From 2001 through 2012 he served as an elected Commissioner for the Thurston Public Utility District, a water utility with about 3,000 customers in five counties. He has taught at Evergreen since 2009, and also occasionally writes feature articles for local publications. He lives with his wife on acreage in rural Thurston County, along with cats, chickens, blueberries, fruit trees, noxious weeds, and mud.