Semester:
Offered:
Professor, Rand Wentworth
Monday & Wednesday 4:30-5:45pm
The world is on fire. Smoke darkens the sky. Scorching heat. Violent storms. Mass extinction.
In this perilous moment in human history, the world desperately needs leaders with the courage, drive and political skills to fight climate change and help restore the natural world. At the same time, we need leaders who will advocate for racial and social justice – recognizing how pollution and climate change disproportionately harm marginalized communities.
Leadership is difficult in any enterprise, but it is especially difficult for environmental leaders who face opponents with vastly more power and money. In this course, students will learn three core skills to build power and drive change:
- Persuasion: Use persuasive speaking and stories to inspire action. Strengthen communications by cultivating self-awareness, empathy and listening skills. Build public support through print and digital media.
- Advocacy: Build winning coalitions, mobilize activists, and lobby elected officials. Drive change through legislation, regulation and private markets.
- Negotiation: Understand the target point, reservation point, zone of possible agreement, BATNA, interests vs. positions, and the role of trust and relationships in negotiating complex, multi-party agreements.
Students will develop these skills through negotiation simulations, role plays and case studies – all grounded in academic research, real-world lessons from global environmental leaders, and the instructor’s 30 years of on-the-ground environmental leadership. The course will explore the perspectives of government officials, NGO activists, business leaders, and indigenous peoples in environmental conflicts.
The cases and simulations include the Paris Climate Agreement, the protection of tropical rainforests in Indonesia, the fight for sacred indigenous lands in South America, and stopping the largest polluter in Uganda. From the U.S., the course will analyze the negotiation of an Energy Bill, the passage of the Clean Air Act, and the battle over a toxic waste incinerator in an African American community.
For students who have taken other classes in leadership or negotiation, this course offers an opportunity to strengthen and apply these skills to environmental protection. Although the course focuses on climate and the environment, the lessons can be applied to any campaign for social change. There are no prerequisites for the course, but students who have not completed a graduate course in negotiation are required to attend a half-day negotiation workshop during the first week of class. The course is open to cross registration of students at Harvard, MIT and Tufts but it is not open to auditors.