The Discourses Of Environmental Collapse

In recent years, ‘environmental collapse’ has become an important way of framing and imagining environmental change and destruction, referencing issues such as climate change, species extinction and deteriorating ecosystems. Given its pervasiveness across disciplines and spheres, this edited volume articulates environmental collapse as a discursive phenomenon worthy of sustained critical attention. Building upon contemporary conversations in the fields of archaeology and the natural sciences, this volume coalesces, explores and critically evaluates the diverse array of literatures and imaginaries that constitute environmental collapse. The volume is divided into three sections— Doc- Collapse, Pop Collapse and Craft Collapse —that independently explore distinct modes of representing, and implicit attitudes toward, environmental collapse from the lenses of diverse fields of study including climate science and policy, cinema and photo journalism. Bringing together a broad range of topics and authors, this volume will be of great interest to scholars of environmental communication and environmental humanities.

The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, Third Edition, provides an accessible introduction to environmental politics by examining the ways in which people use language to discuss environmental issues. Leading scholar John S. Dryzek analyzes the various approaches that have dominated the field over the last three decades--approaches that are also likely to be influential in the future--including survivalism, environmental problem- solving, sustainability, and green radicalism. Dryzek examines and assesses the history, interplay, and impact of these perspectives, concluding with a plea for ecological democracy. An engaging writing style and helpful boxed material make this complex subject more understandable to students. NEW TO THIS EDITION * Coverage of the most modern discourses, including discussions surrounding climate change * More material on global environmental politics * Updated and expanded examples, including more material on China * Further discussion of environmental justice, with a particular focus on climate justice * Reworked material on green radicalism, including coverage of new developments like transition towns and radical summits

This book focuses on the uses of scientific evidence within three types of environmental discourses: popular nonfiction books about the environment; traditional and social media texts created by a grassroots environmental group; and a set of data displays that make arguments about global warming in a variety of media and contexts. It traces the operations of eight commonplaces about science and shows how they recur throughout these contexts, starting with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and ending with contemporary blogs and social media. The commonplaces are shown to embed ideological assumptions and simultaneously challenge those assumptions. In addition, the book addresses the potential dangers involved in relying too heavily on aspects of these commonplaces, and how they can undermine the goals of some of the writers who use them.

The human-environment relationship - intimately intertwined and often contentious - is one of the most pressing concerns of the 21st century. Explored through an array of critical approaches, this book brings together case studies from across the globe to present significant cutting-edge research into political ecologies as they relate to multi-form contestations over environments, resources and livelihoods. Covering a range of issues, such as popular discourses of environmental 'collapse', climate change, water resource struggles, displacement, agro-food landscapes and mapping technologies, this edited volume works to provide a broad and critical understanding of the narratives and policies more subtly shaping and being shaped by underlying environmental conflicts. By exploring the power-laden processes by which environmental knowledge is generated, framed, communicated and interpreted, Contentious Geographies works to reveal how environmental conflicts can be (re)considered and thus (re)opened to enhance efforts to negotiate more sustainable environments and livelihoods.

This book examines the arguments made by political actors in the creation of antagonistic discourses on climate change. Using in-depth empirical research from Sweden, a country considered by the international political community to be a frontrunner in tackling climate change, it draws out lessons that contribute to the worldwide environmental debate. The book identifies and analyses four globally circulated discourses that call for very different action to be taken to achieve sustainability: Industrial fatalism, Green Keynesianism, Eco-socialism and Climate scepticism. Drawing on risk society and post-political theory, it elaborates concepts such as industrial modern masculinity and ecomodern utopia, exploring how it is possible to reconcile apocalyptic framing to the dominant discourse of political conservatism. This highly original and detailed study focuses on opinion leaders and the way discourses are framed in the climate change debate, making it valuable reading for students and scholars of environmental communication and media, global environmental policy, energy research and sustainability.

The human-environment relationship - intimately intertwined and often contentious - is one of the most pressing concerns of the 21st century. Explored through an array of critical approaches, this book brings together case studies from across the globe to present significant cutting-edge research into political ecologies as they relate to multi-form contestations over environments, resources and livelihoods. Covering a range of issues, such as popular discourses of environmental 'collapse', climate change, water resource struggles, displacement, agro-food landscapes and mapping technologies, this edited volume works to provide a broad and critical understanding of the narratives and policies more subtly shaping and being shaped by underlying environmental conflicts. By exploring the power-laden processes by which environmental knowledge is generated, framed, communicated and interpreted, Contentious Geographies works to reveal how environmental conflicts can be (re)considered and thus (re)opened to enhance efforts to negotiate more sustainable environments and livelihoods.

In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted.