New Climate Resilience & Adaptation Minor
George Mason University is pleased to announce a new minor, Climate Resilience and Adaptation (CRA). The program was approved this spring and will appear in the George Mason University catalog for the upcoming academic year.
Climate resilience refers to the ability of human and natural systems to withst>and changes in the environment due to climate variability, both human-caused and natural. Climate adaptation describes actions taken to improve how society copes with anticipated changes to climate due to emissions of greenhouse gases and land use change.
You may be studying a field touched by climate change without knowing it. Interested in public health? Communities will be dealing with changing exposure to extreme temperatures, tropical and vector-borne diseases, and allergies. Economics? That will help us handle resource scarcity caused by climate change and how to judge the costs and benefits of climate solutions. Engineering? You will be building the infrastructure and designing the communities that can withstand storms and wildfires intensified by climate change.
Ecology, geography? You probably know that these are already being altered by climate change.
The CRA minor, being hosted jointly by the departments of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences (AOES) and Environmental Science and Policy (ESP), is designed to help students from many different majors combine their subject expertise with an understanding of the fundamentals of climate change and its impacts. All students take a 7-credit core of courses in climate science and climate policy. They can then choose 9 credits of electives from a wide range of GMU departments, many including the department housing their major. Finally, all students do an internship, independent research project, or capstone course. Many such projects may be done in collaboration with the Virginia Climate Center (VCC), a multi-disciplinary research center at Mason.
“A big part of the value of the minor is the practical experience project,” says Jim Kinter, one of the founders of the VCC. “Students get to work on real issues that people in Virginia and elsewhere are facing now because of climate change.”
