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Browsing by Subject "Environmentalism"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Book Review: Triumph of the City, Edward Glaeser
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2013) Good, Max; Derrible, Sybil
    The authors review the book Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser (Penguin Press, 2011).
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    Branding Environmentalism for TV: The Rise and Fall of Planet Green
    (2015-08) Zimmerman, Heidi
    This dissertation analyzes the rise and fall of Planet Green, Discovery Communications Inc.'s short-lived multiplatform, environmentalism-themed media brand. Launched in 2008, Planet Green billed itself as "the first 24-hour network devoted to the green lifestyle."� It promised to "bring green to the mainstream"� with a full lineup of environmentalist lifestyle and reality television, environmental news and documentaries, and two websites with a wide array of eco-games and quizzes, consumer advice, DIY projects, an open-ended discussion forum, and short-form videos. But despite a huge and successful launch and a significant programming budget, by 2012, Discovery announced that Planet Green would be cancelled and replaced with Destination America, a male-targeted lifestyle network aimed at a "between the coasts crown,"� said Discovery spokespeople. With shows like BBQ Pitmasters, United States of Food, Fast Food Mania, and Epic RV's, the new channel offered a kind of macho celebration of patriotism and consumerist excess that seemed to applaud the very things that Planet Green cautioned viewers against. My dissertation argues that Planet Green's rise and fall must be understood at the place where contemporary branding meets neoliberal governmentality. It was structured by the simultaneous industrial impulses to "govern through television"� on the one hand, and to maximize profits in an increasingly competitive cable TV market on the other. When it came to branding environmentalism in particular, these simultaneous impulses were in deep conflict and generated a great deal of anxiety among industry insiders. I show that Planet Green took shape in a manner designed to ease these anxieties through branding. In the end, however, even with Discovery's extensive resources and professed commitment to the environment, Planet Green was unable to overcome the tensions between profits and planet saving.
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    Designing a Volunteer Experience: Waders, Pipe Cleaners, and Glitter
    (2014-02-17) Gray, Jena
    In order to face current and future environmental challenges, we need to have more people engaging with the environment in a positive way. This thesis explores the motivations and satisfactions of volunteers of an environmentally-focused volunteer program. Design thinking is examined as a tool to improve volunteer satisfaction by allowing the volunteers to develop their own innovative solutions.
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    Developing the Next Generation of Conservation Leaders: Promoting Environmentally Responsible Behavior through the Student Climate and Conservation Congress
    (2014-05) Blood, Nathaniel
    This project examined the Student Climate and Conservation Congress (SC3), a joint educational effort between the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Green Schools Alliance. It examined the effect of SC3 on variables identified in the literature as influencing environmentally responsible behavior. These variables included perceived environmental knowledge, perceived knowledge of citizen participation and action strategies, perceived action skills, environmental attitudes, locus of control, personal responsibility, and intention to act. Furthermore, it explored whether or not these variables could be used to predict environmental action and continued commitment to conservation action. Perceived environmental knowledge, perceived knowledge of citizen participation and action strategies, perceived action skills, environmental attitudes, locus of control, and personal responsibility increased after participation in the program. Locus of control was found to significantly predict intention to act. None of the variables could be used to predict environmental action or continued commitment to conservation action. However pretest levels of environmental attitudes were significantly related to environmental action, and pretest levels of environmental attitudes and pretest levels of personal responsibility were significantly related to continued commitment to conservation action. In this study, intention for action was not related to action, nor was action related to continued commitment toward environmental action. Program implications and suggestions for future research were generated out of this study's findings.
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    Journeying through despair, battling for hope: the experience of one environmental educator.
    (2011-06) Andre, Elizabeth Kathryn
    Environmentalism and environmental education can lead people to experience feelings of despair as they learn more about the severity and complexity of environmental challenges. Environmental educators often grapple with questions of how to remain hopeful without being naively optimistic and how to balance professional responsibilities with personal doubts about the efficacy of the field and the sustainability of the human enterprise. Using tools of autoethnography, this study examines the experience of one environmental educator as she struggles with these questions. Insights come from literature in education, cognitive psychology, sociology, medicine, theology, and philosophy.
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    Peak Politics: Resource Scarcity and Libertarian Political Culture in the United States
    (2013-06) Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew
    My dissertation uses the "peak oil" movement as a lens to analyze the convergence of apocalyptic environmental thinking and libertarian political culture in the recent United States. The "peak oil" movement was a twenty-first century American social movement of Americans who came to believe that oil depletion and other environmental problems would lead to the imminent collapse of global industrial society. Dedicated adherents developed a rich subculture, primarily online, and prepared themselves for the "post-carbon" future by conserving energy, changing occupations, and even purchasing land. Drawing on surveys of over 1,500 participants, ethnographic research, discourse analysis of peak oil websites and literary analysis of subcultural fiction, my research reveals a group of mostly white, male, liberal Americans struggling with the perceived threat of economic, environmental and geopolitical decline while the country undergoes a broad shift in political culture: the continued rise of libertarian ideals, accelerated by the influence of Internet technology. I view this apocalyptic subculture in the context of petroleum dependence, eco-apocalyptic discourses, the environmental discourse of "limits to growth," white masculinity, climate change, and the influence of conservative individualism on American political culture.
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    Redefining citizenship: lessons from environmental theory, practice, and rhetoric
    (2011-06) Prody, Jessica Mary
    Redefining U.S. citizenship for our current global sociopolitical context is necessary. Drawing on environmental theory and practice, I argue for a community-building project that encourages citizenship built on forethought and emphasizes participatory justice, an inclusive notion of security, and sustainable intergenerational justice. The theoretical claims of the project are supported by six case studies that use textual analysis to examine how social movement and governmental discourse has paired environmental concerns and citizenship. These case studies demonstrate and need for and challenges of constructing a citizenship around the above principles. Throughout the project I illustrate the need for global and local consideration of citizenly issues and highlight the tension between urging immediate action on environmental problems and the need for action to be undertaken in a way that addresses philosophical questions of justice, fairness, sustainability, and democratic participation.