Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Course description
Embark on a journey that explores the convergence of speculative fiction and cutting-edge scientific advancements. This course delves into the realm of geoengineering technologies, designer genes, carbon removal technologies, renewable energy, and various transformational technologies that shape our understanding of society, the environment, and the climate. Contrary to its portrayal in cinematic works such as Dune, Jurassic World, and Snowpiercer, controlling the earth's climate is not mere science fiction. With a focus on ethical considerations and governance, this discussion-based course critically examines the potential consequences, both positive and negative, of manipulating the environment.
[Source: ORC/Catalog, 04/07/2025]; Dist:TAS
In the Library's collections
You can use one of the subject headings below to start your research in the library's online catalog:
Introductory reading(s)
Anthropocene: 101 questions and answers for understanding the human impact on the global environment by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781788215121The Anthropocene is an authoritative desk-top reference work for students of geography, the environment and sustainability. Through a series of 101 interconnected questions and answers spanning ten thematic sections, the book provides a comprehensive survey of humankind's impact on the global environment from the Late Stone Age to the present day. ...
The control of nature by Call Number: Baker-Berry TD 170 .M36 1989ISBN: 9780374128906... Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.
Ending the war between humanity and nature: rethinking everything by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781527555457This book offers plausible explanations for people's puzzling unwillingness to address the human-nature interactions that have led us to the precipice that is climate change today. Humanity and nature are at war; the evidence is all around us: catastrophic weather events, rising sea levels, extinction of species, famine, wildfires, melting polar ice, millions of environmental refugees, and toxic pollution of air, water, and soil. The list goes on and on. What is causing this war, and how can it be stopped? ...
The ideal river: how control of nature shaped the international order by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781526154385... The ideal river examines nineteenth-century efforts to establish international commissions on three transboundary rivers - the Rhine, the Danube, and the Congo. It charts how the Enlightenment ambition to tame the natural world, and human nature itself, became an international standard for rational and civilized authority and informed our geographical imagination of the international. This relationship of domination over nature shaped three core IR concepts central to the emergence of early international order: the territorial sovereign state; imperial hierarchies; and international organizations. The book contributes to environmental politics and international relations by highlighting how the relationship between society and nature is not a peripheral concern, but one at the heart of international politics.
Subjugate the Earth: the beginning and end of human domination of nature by Call Number: Baker-Berry GF 75 .B5613 2025ISBN: 9781509561322Subjugate the Earth traces the biography of a strange idea: the idea that human beings can subdue nature and rule over it. Born in Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilization, the idea of subjugating the Earth was included in the Bible, reached Europe through Christianity, and spread to the entire world through colonialism. The Enlightenment gave a scientific appearance to the ambition of controlling nature but did not change the ambition itself. Yet every birth presages a death. Only with the climate crisis has it become apparent that the subjugation of nature must be a self-defeating ambition, because it alters and deregulates natural systems which humans depend on for their survival, precisely because they are part of nature and not separate from it. ...
Selected book title(s)
The age of low tech: towards a technologically sustainable civilization by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781529213287People often believe that we can overcome the profound environmental and climate crises we face by smart systems, green innovations and more recycling. However, the quest for complex technological solutions, which rely on increasingly exotic and scarce materials, makes this unlikely. A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on how we should be marshalling our resources to preserve the planet and secure our future. ...
Human transformations of the Earth by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781789259209This book charts and explains how human activities have shaped and altered the development of soils in many parts of the world, taking advantage of five decades of soil analytical work in many archaeological landscapes from around the globe. The core of this volume describes and illustrates major transformations of soils and the processes involved in these that have occurred during the Holocene and how these relate to human activities as much as natural causes and trajectories of development, right up to the present day. ...
We are alone: how humans have conquered the planet and can also save it by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780300256321A thoughtful exploration of how humans have endangered the Earth but can pull it back from the brink, as told by a renowned conservationist This personal and thoughtful book by renowned Kenya conservationist David Western traces our global conquest from Maasai herders battling droughts in Africa to the technological frontiers of California. Western draws on a half century of research in the savannas and his own life’s journey to argue that conservation is not a modern invention. ...
Other library resource(s)
Human-landscape interactions from the Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199874002Human-landscape interactions, also often described as nature-society or human-environment interactions, is a topic examined by multiple disciplines and subdisciplines, including but not limited to geography, anthropology, ecology, human ecology, cultural ecology, political ecology, environmental sociology, environmental anthropology, and earth systems science. The concept of “landscape” varies within and among disciplines, not to mention different languages. It is typically used to describe a distinctive combination of natural and cultural features, and often serves as the basic unit of analysis for social and natural science studies. ...
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References
Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.
Keeping up with Environmental Science journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Environmental Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.