Strange Bedfellows: Science and Environmental Policy
MIT's 12.103 examines how scientific knowledge and argument function, and sometimes malfunction, inside real environmental policymaking. The course works through case studies of science-intensive controversies, including global warming, biodiversity loss, and nuclear waste disposal siting, asking where science informed decisions well and where it was misused or overstated. Readings and discussions weigh idealistic accounts of how science should shape policy against realistic accounts of how it actually does. Students get intensive practice writing and presenting position statements on environmental science issues, mimicking the kind of argument scientists and advocates make in actual policy debates. Materials come from MIT OpenCourseWare and include the syllabus, assignments, and case study materials used in the original course, free to access with no certificate attached.