Green Voices

Description

The written works of nature's leading advocates—from Charles Sumner and John Muir to Rachel Carson and President Jimmy Carter, to name a few—have been the subject of many texts, but their speeches remain relatively unknown or unexamined. Green Voices aims to redress this situation. After all, when it comes to the leaders, heroes, and activists of the environmental movement, their speeches formed part of the fertile earth from which uniquely American environmental expectations, assumptions, and norms germinated and grew. Despite having in common a definitively rhetorical focus, the contributions in this book reflect a variety of methods and approaches. Some concentrate on a single speaker and a single speech. Others look at several speeches. Some are historical in orientation, while others are more theoretical. In other words, this collection examines the broad sweep of US environmental history from the perspective of our most famous and influential environmental figures.
Foreword
Philip C. Wander

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Green Voices in the Swelling Chorus of American Environmental Advocacy
Richard D. Besel and Bernard K. Duffy

1. Coming to Grips with the Size of America’s Environment: Charles Sumner Says Farewell to Montesquieu
Michael J. Hostetler

2. “I had been crying in the wilderness”: John Muir’s Shifting Sublime Response
Richard D. Besel and Bernard K. Duffy

3. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Impulses of Conservation
Leroy G. Dorsey

4. See America First! The Aesthetics of Environmental Exceptionalism
Anne Marie Todd

5. A Call to Partnership, Health, and Pure Fire: A Vital Vision of the Future in Aldo Leopold’s “The Farmer as a Conservationist” Address
Melba Hoffer

6. “Conserving not scenery, but the human spirit itself”: The Environmental Oratory of Sigurd Olson
C. Brant Short

7. “What’s wrong with a little emotion?”: Margaret E. Murie’s Wilderness Rhetoric
Elizabeth Lawson

8. Rachel Carson’s War of Words against Government and Industry: Challenging the Objectivity of American Scientific Discourse
Michel M. Haigh and Ann Marie Major

9. Mortification and Moral Equivalents: Jimmy Carter’s Energy Jeremiad and the Limits of Civic Sacrifice
Terence Check

10. Lois Gibb’s Rhetoric of Care: Voicing a Relational Ethic of Compassion, Inclusivity, and Community in Response to the Toxic Disaster at Love Canal
Katie L. Gibson

11. Frank Church’s Natural Place in American Public Address: Light Green Orations That Saved “The River of No Return Wilderness”
Ellen W. Gorsevski

12. We will live to piss on their graves”: Edward Abbey, Radical Environmentalism, and the Birth of Earth First!
Derek G. Ross

13. “I’m angry both as a citizen and a father”: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Melodramatic Discourse on the Environmental Consequences of “Crony Capitalism”
Ross Singer

14. Ashley Judd’s Indictment of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: A Stain on the Conscience of America
Beth M. Waggenspack and Matthew Vandyke

15. Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice: Benjamin Chavis Jr. and Issues of Definition and Community
Richard W. Leeman

About the Contributors
Index

Sujets

• USA
• United States of America
• Discourse analysis
• Stylistics
• Semantics
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 25 février 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438458519
• Langue: English

Extrait

GREEN VOICES
GREEN VOICES

Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse
EDITED BY
Richard D. Besel and Bernard K. Duffy
Cover art from Fotolia.com
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles
Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Green voices : defending nature and the environment in American civic discourse / edited by Richard D. Besel and Bernard K. Duffy.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5849-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4384-5851-9 (e-book) 1. Green movement—United States. 2. Environmentalism—United States. 3. Environmentalism—Social aspects—United States. I. Besel, Richard D., editor of compilation. II. Duffy, Bernard K., editor of compilation.
GE197.G74 2015
363.700973—dc23
2014047341
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword
PHILIP C. WANDER
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Green Voices in the Swelling Chorus of American Environmental Advocacy
RICHARD D. BESEL AND BERNARD K. DUFFY
1. Coming to Grips with the Size of America’s Environment: Charles Sumner Says Farewell to Montesquieu
MICHAEL J. HOSTETLER
2. “I had been crying in the wilderness”: John Muir’s Shifting Sublime Response
RICHARD D. BESEL AND BERNARD K. DUFFY
3. Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Impulses of Conservation
LEROY G. DORSEY
4. See America First! The Aesthetics of Environmental Exceptionalism
ANNE MARIE TODD
5. A Call to Partnership, Health, and Pure Fire: A Vital Vision of the Future in Aldo Leopold’s “The Farmer as a Conservationist” Address
MELBA HOFFER
6. “Conserving not scenery as much as the human spirit itself”: The Environmental Oratory of Sigurd Olson
C. BRANT SHORT
7. “What’s wrong with a little emotion?” Margaret E. Murie’s Wilderness Rhetoric
ELIZABETH LAWSON
8. Rachel Carson’s War of Words against Government and Industry: Challenging the Objectivity of American Scientific Discourse
MICHEL M. HAIGH AND ANN MARIE MAJOR
9. Mortification and Moral Equivalents: Jimmy Carter’s Energy Jeremiad and the Limits of Civic Sacrifice
TERENCE CHECK
10. Lois Gibbs’s Rhetoric of Care: Voicing a Relational Ethic of Compassion, Inclusivity, and Community in Response to the Toxic Disaster at Love Canal
KATIE L. GIBSON
11. Frank Church’s Natural Place in American Public Address: Light Green Orations That Saved “The River of No Return Wilderness”
ELLEN W. GORSEVSKI
12. “We will live to piss on their graves”: Edward Abbey, Radical Environmentalism, and the Birth of Earth First!
DEREK G. ROSS
13. “I’m angry both as a citizen and a father”: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Melodramatic Discourse on the Environmental Consequences of “Crony Capitalism”
ROSS SINGER
14. Ashley Judd’s Indictment of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: A Stain on the Conscience of America
BETH M. WAGGENSPACK AND MATTHEW VANDYKE
15. Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice: Benjamin Chavis Jr. and Issues of Definition and Community
RICHARD W. LEEMAN
About the Contributors
Index
Foreword
PHILIP C. WANDER
Although in a sense, nature is silent, others—politicians, business leaders, environmentalists, and the media—claim the right to speak for nature or for their own interests in the use of natural resources. Hence, here’s the dilemma: If nature cannot speak (at least not in public forums), who has the right to speak on nature’s behalf?
—Robert Cox, Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere 1
Books, essays, films, documentaries, poems, songs, and scientific research about nature exist in the midst of a life-or-death political struggle, a nonviolent struggle, for the most part, fought out in the cultural/public sphere, where arguments, public debates, questions about principles, assumptions, evidence, and credibility still count for something. 2 This is especially true when debate rises above good and evil cartoon characters to explore how existing socioeconomic and political arrangements are and are not coping with a real and expanding crisis.
Cox asks a subtle question: Since nature cannot speak for itself, who then speaks for nature? It is an important question, however, because it raises an issue of credibility. Why is credibility so important? Because great concentrations of wealth and power, with PR firms, ad agencies, and “experts,” in tow, have been speaking for nature all over the world for over a century, not only through mass media but also, and this should be kept in mind, through their representatives in Congress who depend on them for donations, speaker fees, and potential employment after public service. 3
The impact of special interests on American politics is not easy to measure. But it is most certainly bipartisan. Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, Democrat of Arizona, cochairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tells us in the Op-Ed page of the New York Times , February 26, 2014:
When I was elected to Congress in 2002, George W. Bush was president and big business wrote environmental policy. We all remember Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force—a who’s who of mining and oil interests—and the administration’s constant questioning of climate science.
President Obama won the White House by running as an agent of change: change from Mr. Bush’s way of doing business with business, and change from Washington’s habitual corporate favoritism.
I was an enthusiastic supporter of the president then and I still am—I consider his environmental record a tremendous improvement over his predecessor’s. But that record is still being written, and it is heading in the wrong direction. If the president approves the Keystone XL pipeline on the basis of the lobbying and bad science that has been offered to support it, much of his good work will be undone and a business-as-usual atmosphere will settle back on Washington like a heavy cloud. It would be a bad end to what could still be a very strong environmental legacy.
Who speaks for nature? Who speaks for the environment? Who is in a position to shape what is and what is not being said and what is being done and what is not being done in relation to government policy? Cox’s question is important for another reason. When we know who gets to speak, we are in then in a position to ask who does not get to speak for nature/the environment.
Who does not get to speak for nature/the environment? Common sense tells us that the answer is probably the poor. The poor among us do not speak, are not heard, and are not taken seriously, even if they have something to say about a whole range of issues. So, let us ask a couple of questions, in relation to nature/the environment: Who among us is least likely to enjoy the benefits of clean air, land, and water? Who among us is most likely to live on or near spills, leaks, dumps, and burial sites?
Common sense has its limits. So, let us place dots representing peoples on the map who live nearest to toxic waste and then consider their net worth. And the result is an imbalance of almost biblical proportions That is to say, it is all about the poor. It is the poor who are most likely to live in or near to the most barren and polluted areas. The dots stand for those who have the greatest need for and the least ability to fight for and promote environmental justice. 4
In their textbook, Environmental Science , Professors Richard T. Wright and Dorothy F. Boorse write:
The largest commercial hazardous-waste landfill is located in Emelle, Alabama. African Americans make up 90% of Emelle’s population. This landfill receives wastes from Superfund sites and every state in the continental United States.
A Choctaw reservation in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was targeted to become the home of a 466-acre hazardous waste landfill. The reservation population is entirely Native American.
A recent study found that 870,000 U.S. federally subsidized housing units are within a mile of factories that have reported toxic emissions to the EPA. Most of the occupants in these apartments are minorities. 5
The larger category in these facts, though, is socioeconomic status. So, while poor minorities live near such sites, it is also true that the poor members of the majority, in this country, are also more likely to live near these sites. The poor among us is most inclusive: It includes peoples of every race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and age group.
To call the previous facts biblical reminds us, believers and nonbelievers, that religion can be and has been a source of critique over the centuries. This truth, however, has become too easy to ignore and to forget. In America and throughout th