Taking the Romance out of Extraction: Contemporary Canadian Artists and the Subversion of the Romantic/Extractive Gaze

As in many nation-states, Canadian modernity viewed nature through two seemingly opposed gazes: the extractive and the romantic. In many ways, the Romantic movement was a response to the de-humanizing effects of industrial extraction, a process that summarily stripped the natural world of spirit and meaning. For many working within this representational tradition, however, the search for ontological meaning was a question of developing techniques and technologies that will allow us to “see” the spiritual qualities of nature, to see that it can also be mined, assayed, and sold as a spiritual resource that will provide us with metaphysical comfort in the cold and meaningless universe created by the extractive gaze. In this essay, we examine the work of four contemporary Canadian artists who deploy postmodernist strategies of citation and parody to reveal the hidden connection between Canadian landscape art and extractive processes. In so doing, their work seeks to destroy the comforting and familiar pleasures of the extractive and romantic gazes and force Canadians to develop new ways of thinking about our relationship to nature.     

Greenwashing Consumption: The Didactic Framing of ExxonMobil's Energy Solutions

Corporate advertising campaigns increasingly use environmental frames to promote their products and processes, many of which are neither sustainable nor environmentally friendly. This study examines ExxonMobil's recent efforts at green advertising, focusing specifically on their widely aired “Energy Solutions” television advertisements. We argue that ExxonMobil's use of a didactic, greenwashed frame stifles criticism and discourages examination of ideologies of consumption by exploiting the ethos of the scientist and highlighting technological solutions to problems that are deeply tied to a culture of consumerism. The definition of green energy is controlled by those with the power to generate persuasive public messages about the sources and production of energy. Counterframes, however, can be employed to turn a questioning eye upon the solutions advanced by ExxonMobil. We issue a call for green frames that help citizens and consumers critically examine the ecological integrity of all means of energy production, and that call attention to the ways in which the greenwashing of research and development initiatives can dissuade necessary action, including reduction of US energy consumption.     

Nature's Nation: Improvisation,Democracy, and Ken Burns' National Parks

In his recurrent examination of what makes Americans “American,” documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has particularly focused on the twin themes of democracy and improvisation. The National Parks: America's Best Idea links the national park ideal with America's “democratic spirit.” Through an examination of its visual methods, I argue that the “Ken Burns gaze” is more consistent with the contemplative and magisterial visuality that shaped the origins of the national park movement—a visuality that sees nature as “out there” and a “finished product”—than it is with the improvisational spirit that both democracy and ecology demand in our time.     

Depictions of sustainability in children’s books

Images in children’s books can leave a more lasting impression in young learners’ minds than text. Therefore, it is important for children’s books to use images as a teaching tool, especially regarding global issues such as environmental sustainability. This study examined how the images in nonfiction children’s books approach the topic of sustainability and whether these images support the overall goals of environmental education. We selected seven easy-to-access trade books which yielded 384 images for analysis. Two coders analyzed the images according to the following categories: (a) gender and age, (b) actions of people, (c) depictions of nature, (d) depictions of objects, (e) structures, and (f) habitation. Results show that nearly half of the images (48 %) depicted non-natural objects (16 %) or humans (31 %). One half of the images portrayed humans as consumers. Gender bias was evident, with 33 % of females portrayed as consumers and only 16 % of males portrayed as consumers. Similarly, 12 % of the images with males showed them engaged in recycling behavior, while only 4 % of the images showed females recycling. Of the 32 % of images depicting nature, individual plants rather than ecosystems were portrayed. Depictions of man-made systems predominated the images, a surprising finding. No images established the connection between consumerism and the depletion of natural resources or pollution, and further sustainable actions or lifestyles were not portrayed, implying that consumption is a societal norm. We conclude with recommendations for the use of images in children’s literature focusing on environmental education and sustainability.     

Reframing Ecotage as Ecoterrorism: News and the Discourse of Fear

This study examines how certain Western institutional discourses reproduce particular human relationships with nature. The analysis focuses upon the institutional setting of the zoo, examining long-standing multi-voiced debates about zoos and exploring the contemporary zoo's conservation discourses and cultural, lexical, and spatial elements of gaze and power. The author contextualizes zoo discourses within Western ideological environmental dialectics, including those of Mastery–Harmony, Othering–Connection, and Exploitation–Idealism. The author relates these discussions to her empirical observations of how certain discursive themes are reproduced and complicated within a leading American zoo. In the tradition of critical research that advocates for social change, the essay concludes with analysis-driven discussion about possibilities for zoos to transform their core configurations to more progressively work as agents for systemic cultural and environmental change.     

Ecolinguistics,GIS, and Corpus Linguistics for the Analysis of the Rosemont Copper Mine Debate

This article details an integration of geographical information system (GIS) and corpus linguistics (CL) techniques for an ecolinguistic analysis of a contentious, environmental debate in Arizona, USA. The application of GIS and CL procedures enabled the mapping of place name mentions present within two interest group corpora as well as the mapping of particular meanings and representations of specific places prominent in the debate, that is, maps representing both places and the discursive representations of those places were produced. The corpus-aided analysis and the GIS visualizations exhibit how different interest groups refer to and represent geographical places within their texts and how these references to and representations of places index ideological positions towards the mine and the environment. This integrated CL–GIS approach to the study of environmental discourse provides insights into the discursive representation of place and the importance that references to places serve within environmental discourse. The article briefly discusses the ecolinguistics framework underpinning the work, explains the GIS–CL approach, displays and interprets corpus findings and GIS visualizations, and details implications for additional GIS–CL research for environmental discourse.     

The Nature of Time: How the Covers of the World's Most Widely Read Weekly News Magazine Visualize Environmental Affairs

Scholars of environmental communication acknowledge the importance of visual representations in shaping perceptions and actions in relation to environmental affairs. Unlike with other media, including newspapers, television and film, research on the visualization of nature and environmental issues in magazines is rare. This study focuses on the covers of Time magazine, one of the world's most influential news weeklies. A dataset that includes all relevant covers from 1923 to 2011 is examined using a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis to analyze the visual representation of nature and environmental issues. The results show that the presence of environmental issues and nature on the covers has increased over the decades. Furthermore, Time takes an advocacy position on some environmental issues, but it is a shallow one that is weakly argued through less-than-engaging imagery and fails to offer much in the way of solutions or agency to the reader.     

The Performer Metaphor: “Mother Nature Never Gives Us the Same Show Twice”

This study ethnographically identifies and examines a common-sense performer metaphor entangled within deep-rooted Western ecocultural conceptions, in which humans are perceived as separate from and audience to a spectacular nature. I illustrate the cultural cohesiveness of the performer metaphor in a Western nature tourism setting to draw attention to the term's pervasiveness, its network of metaphoric entailments, and its generally unreflected upon meaning and reverberations. I examine struggles in using alternative metaphors and demonstrate ways the performer metaphor mediates processes of involvement with/in nature.     

Achieving the promise of transdisciplinarity: a critical exploration of the relationship between transdisciplinary research and societal problem solving

Transdisciplinarity is often presented as a way to effectively use scientific research to contribute to societal problem solving for sustainability. The aim of this paper is to critically explore this statement. This is done in two ways. First, a literature survey of transdisciplinary research is used to identify the assumptions that underlie the positive relationship between transdisciplinarity and societal problem solving for sustainability. This mapping identifies the claim that in-depth participation of users and the integration of relevant knowledge from both practice and research in real-world problem contexts produce socially robust results that contribute to sustainability. Second, the ability to live up to this claim is presented and discussed in five case study projects from Mistra Urban Futures, a transdisciplinary center in Göteborg, Sweden. The conclusions show that transdisciplinary processes, which fulfill the above conditions, do produce different types of socially robust knowledge, but this does not necessarily result in the ability to influence change in a sustainable direction. This instead creates a paradox in that the participation of stakeholders and the integration of knowledge from diverse sources require spaces that are both embedded in and insulated from practice and science proper. Such spaces produce results that are not easily aligned with sector-based target groups and formal policy processes. Institutionalizing transdisciplinarity in a boundary organization therefore solves some problems regarding participation and balanced problem ownership. However, it also creates new, hybrid problems, regarding knowledge transfer and scalability, which bridge the boundaries and challenge the praxis of planning and policy making.     

New rig on the block: spatial policy discourse and the new suburban geography of energy production on Colorado's Front Range

ABSTRACT

Drawing from the Critical Discourse Analysis and Cultural Sociology of Space frameworks, this empirical analysis explores the discursive struggle between stakeholders of divergent viewpoints as they respond to the newfound spatial proximity of oil and gas extraction to homes and schools in suburban residential areas on Colorado's northern Front Range. Through an analysis of media, policy-making, and neighborhood meeting discourse, this study examines the social construction of space through policy narratives and regional debates about the American West's relationship to extractive industries. Results reveal that the discursive struggle over suburban drilling hinges upon the question of whether industrial activities belong in residential areas and is carried out through competing policy narratives that invoke differing (spatial versus aspatial) policy solutions. The deliberative quality of these policy narratives is constrained by existing spatial policy practices and further constrains democratic engagement.     

Nature Documentaries,Connectedness to Nature,and Pro-environmental Behavior

We investigate the effects of nature documentaries on pro-environmental cognition and behavior. Of central interest is the concept of connectedness to nature, which describes an individual's sense of being connected to nature. Based on previous research showing that a direct nature experience in zoos can increase connectedness to nature, we questioned whether watching a nature documentary could increase connectedness to nature and pro-environmental behavior. An experiment using one control group (watching a documentary about Einstein's theory of relativity) and one treatment group (watching a nature documentary) revealed that a mediated nature experience is not sufficient to elicit an increase in connectedness to nature. However, we found that exposure increased actual donation behavior for animal and environmental protection organizations. It is important to note that nature documentary exposure increased pro-environmental donation behavior only in those already having a strong sense of connectedness. We discuss real-world implications for donation-accepting, non-profit organizations.     

Audience Response to Values-based Marketplace Advocacy by the Fossil Fuel Industries

A form of issue advocacy, marketplace advocacy campaigns often arise in response to burgeoning societal concerns, especially those faced by energy industries. Although these campaigns may include brief and selective references to corporate activities, most campaigns place a much stronger emphasis on commonly shared societal values. This study examines audience response to values-based environmental marketplace advocacy messages by the fossil fuel industries through a series of focus groups. Four instrumental values were identified in campaign videos (innovation, community, resilience, and patriotism), and the terminal value of pragmatism, especially as it relates to environmental issues, was identified as a result of identification with one or more of the instrumental values. The findings are discussed through the lens of extant research on marketplace advocacy and organizational values as well as Habermas's theory of refuedalization, shedding light on the ways corporations appeal to commonly held societal values in an effort to generate support for a given industry.     

The political ecology of water metabolism: the case of the Cobre las Cruces copper mine,southern Spain

Access to extractive resources relies as much on technology and prices as it does on the power to designate ecological and economic meanings to water and other environmental goods. This paper examines the ways in which the mining industry uses scientific models to create meanings for water that in turn legitimizes their access to and control over it. To do so, this paper explores the relevance of combining biophysical analyses—in this case water metabolism—with an examination of those power relations and social constructions that coexist with and affect the flows of water. Based on empirical research, this paper analyzes the evolution of water management in the process of copper production at the Cobre las Cruces mine in southern Spain to identify present contradictions in the strategies adopted by the mining company to avoid water degradation. These contradictions are revealed by examining how water has been framed as a resource not susceptible to being used for purposes other than mining processes. We argue that those framing this environmental explanation—the regional government and the mining industry—are promoting net subtractions of water from an aquifer against current regulations.     

A perspective on radical transformations to sustainability: resistances,movements and alternatives

A transformation to sustainability calls for radical and systemic societal shifts. Yet what this entails in practice and who the agents of this radical transformation are require further elaboration. This article recenters the role of environmental justice movements in transformations, arguing that the systemic, multi-dimensional and intersectional approach inherent in EJ activism is uniquely placed to contribute to the realization of equitable sustainable futures. Based on a perspective of conflict as productive, and a “conflict transformation” approach that can address the root issues of ecological conflicts and promote the emergence of alternatives, we lay out a conceptual framework for understanding transformations through a power analysis that aims to confront and subvert hegemonic power relations; that is, multi-dimensional and intersectional; balancing ecological concerns with social, economic, cultural and democratic spheres; and is multi-scalar, and mindful of impacts across place and space. Such a framework can help analyze and recognize the contribution of grassroots EJ movements to societal transformations to sustainability and support and aid radical transformation processes. While transitions literature tends to focus on artifacts and technologies, we suggest that a resistance-centred perspective focuses on the creation of new subjectivities, power relations, values and institutions. This recenters the agency of those who are engaged in the creation and recuperation of ecological and new ways of being in the world in the needed transformation.     

Heidegger and Being at the Hanford Reservation: Standing Reserve,Enframing, and Environmental Communication Theory

This essay examines the potential of Heidegger's phenomenology as a foundation for environmental communication theory, emphasizing his critiques of modern science, technology, humanism, and metaphysics. A phenomenological approach to environmental communication provides resources for recognizing metaphysical assumptions that endanger both humans and nature. The Hanford nuclear reservation serves as an illustrative text, exemplifying Heidegger's reading of nuclear energy as a culmination of both Western metaphysics and the instrumental stance that he calls “enframing.” In Heidegger's view, the ordering and control accomplished through enframing obscures the mutually constitutive relationship between humans and nature, and in doing so, diminishes the possibilities for authentic human existence. The chapter examines how both representational and constitutive models of communication contribute to those conditions, and adopts a set of concepts from Heidegger's phenomenology as a foundation for an alternative, “bounded constitutive” model.     

Environmental Communication as Nexus

This essay examines zoos as a site of struggle in the construction of meanings and memories of human–nature relations. Modern zoos are symbols of imperial power and celebrations of the domination of nature. The grafting of “tropic worlds” onto these monuments of modernity renders the meaning of zoos more ambiguous, reflecting discursive struggles over the meaning of nature, questions about the wisdom of development and progress, recognition of the need for conservation and preservation, and nostalgia for a nature that has been lost. Through a close textual reading of “The Rainforest” at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, this essay explores the simulation of nature in zoos and “tropic worlds” in North American cities. These hyperreal spaces contain an extraordinary amount of the history and politics of the culture that constructs them for fascination, edification, conservation, commodification, and salvation. At stake in these simulated natures is not only the constructions of nature as spectacle and animals as commodities, but also the use of knowledge to maintain certain forms of domination and the “writing” of industrial culture's historical memory of nature and human–nature relations.     

A developmental perspective on early-life exposure to neurotoxicants

BackgroundStudies of early-life neurotoxicant exposure have not been designed, analyzed, or interpreted in the context of a fully developmental perspective.ObjectivesThe goal of this paper is to describe the key principles of a developmental perspective and to use examples from the literature to illustrate the relevance of these principles to early-life neurotoxicant exposures.MethodsFour principles are discussed: 1) the effects of early-life neurotoxicant exposure depend on a child's developmental context; 2) deficits caused by early-life exposure initiate developmental cascades that can lead to pathologies that differ from those observed initially; 3) early-life neurotoxicant exposure has intra-familial and intergenerational impacts; 4) the impacts of early-life neurotoxicant exposure influence a child's ability to respond to future insults. The first principle is supported by considerable evidence, but the other three have received much less attention.DiscussionIncorporating a developmental perspective in studies of early-life neurotoxicant exposures requires prospective collection of data on a larger array of covariates than usually considered, using analytical approaches that acknowledge the transactional processes between a child and the environment and the phenomenon of developmental cascades.ConclusionConsideration of early-life neurotoxicant exposure within a developmental perspective reveals that many issues remain to be explicated if we are to achieve a deep understanding of the societal health burden associated with early-life neurotoxicant exposures.     

Green Screen or Smokescreen? Hollywood's Messages about Nature and the Environment

This paper examines ideologies about nature and the environment in popular, animated Hollywood films—including The Lorax, Wall-E, and Ice Age 2—through a symptomatic reading. The primary goal of the analysis is to elucidate key omissions in these texts through an assessment of the problematic—defined in this research as an a-priori answer to perceived audience concerns regarding the role of consumerism and corporate culture in environmental problems. Silences in the films revolve around: how environmental problems are defined; what the consequences are; who the responsible parties are; and what potential solutions exist to mitigate them. The significance of the research is underscored by the formation of an increasingly intimate relationship between children, consumer culture, and commercial media in the USA, as well as the increasingly dire information emerging about global environmental issues. This analysis reveals the dual, often conflicting, messages that commercial film provides for its young audiences about pivotal environmental problems and their potential resolution.     

The role of learning in transdisciplinary research: moving from a normative concept to an analytical tool through a practice-based approach

Transdisciplinary (TD) research is an example of a participatory research approach that has been developed to address the complexity of societal problems through the exchange of knowledge and expertise across diverse groups of societal actors. The concept of knowledge exchange is central to the ability of TD research to produce usable knowledge. There is, however, limited theoretical attention to the processes that enable knowledge exchange, namely learning. In this article, we analyze the “transferability” of knowledge generated in TD research settings from a practice-based approach. In this approach, learning and knowing are seen as situated in social practices, in meaning making processes where the involved participants make sense of what they do and why they do it. We describe and analyze three TD projects, and discuss the role of practitioners’ perspectives in the interpretation of the tasks and realization of TD, and in the consequences this has for the organization of the research process and the usability of its results. The analysis shows that while the project teams were given the same task and framework, they did not understand or enact TD in a similar fashion. The three projects created different goals and organizations. They also resulted in different challenges, which could be identified and analyzed by the use of a practice-based approach to learning. In the conclusions, we identify aspects for both practice and research that are important for creating sufficient conditions for learning in TD research processes so that they can better promote contributions to societal change.     

Dwelling in the biosphere: exploring an embodied human–environment connection in resilience thinking

Resilience has emerged as a prominent paradigm for interpreting and shaping human–environment connections in the context of global environmental change. Resilience emphasizes dynamic spatial and temporal change in social–ecological systems where humans are inextricably interwoven with the environment. While influential, resilience thinking has been critiqued for an under-theorized framing of socio-cultural dynamics. In this paper, we examine how the resilience concepts of planetary boundaries and reconnecting to the biosphere frame human–environment connection in terms of mental representations and biophysical realities. We argue that focusing solely on mental reconnection limits further integration between the social and the ecological, thus countering a foundational commitment in resilience thinking to social–ecological interconnectedness. To address this susceptibility we use Tim Ingold’s ‘dwelling perspective’ to outline an embodied form of human–environment (re)connection. Through dwelling, connections are not solely produced in the mind, but through the ongoing interactivity of mind, body and environment through time. Using this perspective, we position the biosphere as an assemblage that is constantly in the making through the active cohabitation of humans and nonhumans. To illustrate insights that may emerge from this perspective we bring an embodied connection to earth stewardship, given its growing popularity for forging local to global sustainability transformations.