Subject:

Big Issues of Our Time

[BIG]   Hours: 325    ECTS: 13    Exam: in 2nd Yr 

Study modules in the 1st year (100 hours) and 2nd year (225 hours)

In the modules, students will:

• conduct field investigations into: poverty, water scarcity, Climate Change
• learn about armed conflicts, terrorism, and Human and Civil Rights
• identify and analyse these and many more of the biggest issues that the world is facing today
• participate in and organise conferences about Climate Justice and Peace Justice
• investigate and propose some sustainable solutions to these issues

More about the subject

This subject is one of the core subjects, or anchor themes. The teachers have provided a list, to get started. Students are welcome to add to that list of Big Issues of Our Time:

• We need a future that is bright, green and free
• We need a new model of sustainable prosperity
• We need an answer to our ecological crisis
• We need greater security for all
• We must insist on the spreading of open business practices
• We must redesign the whole material basis of human civilisation
• We must aim for a one-planet practice with three common conditions
• We must stop destroying the natural system of our planet
• We must produce food locally, organically and more than enough
• We must support efforts to adapt to Climate Change
• We must ally with The Poor to fight their fate
• We must decide which type of capitalism or no capitalism
• We must defy and defeat capitalist globalisation
• We must clear the globe of chaotic, destructive megacities
• We must doubt superpower politics and its constant wars
• We need women’s self-help groups
• We must support the green urban environment of a future China
• We must go Danish by building many more Tvindkraft inspired wind turbines
• We must design hope for humanity, creating forceful future bodies
• Lousy dictators must be substituted with non-violent revolution

The above list tends to highlight issues of a similar kind. It lacks issues such as “Local Performance of Global Music” or “Access for all to modern technology” or “Making other people’s children part of your life” or “Learn from the old revolutionaries” or “Support hydrogen-driven electricity production”.

The students take action

The list lacks all the ideas and input of the current student population. The idea of this core subject (or anchor theme) is to have the students engage in multiple methods while they vest time in this anchor theme. One such method should of course be addressing people in the public arena.

The sheer immensity

The magnitude of these issues is so big, and the almost infinite, overwhelmingly immense quantity of them so countless, making them impersonate the vastness of 7 billion people, adding a kind of immeasurableness to any big issue.

The big issues have never in the history of mankind been bigger, never more in number, and never so global in character. These are important reasons and sufficient reasons for including the Big Issues of Our Time as an anchor theme in this training.