Hi Professor Bradley,
I invite you to take a look at the resources I have posted on the discussion page. There's certainly a great deal that I would like to say, but as you requested in our conversation last week I will do my best not to dominate the conversation. I want to introduce the concept of "paradigms" and explore how ideological/rhetorical frames can influence our attitudes perceptions and behaviors. I will draw the tri-polar "spectrum of environmental ideologies;" Ecocentrism ----- Ethnocentrism ----- Technocentrism(Cornucopian), and include key words/phrases/frames associated with each as well as the show the major schools of environmental thought. I plan to pull from Julia Corbett's, Communicating Nature, to highlight "nature" …show more content…
I want to introduce my peers to Global North/South disparities (and their roots to colonialism/neoliberalism) and demonstrate how those who will experience the most significant and immediate effects of climate change are also those who have contributed least to the sources of the underlying problems. The costs will not be borne evenly and I think it's important to examine both our collective complicity with regards to the current situation as well as the questions this raises for collective …show more content…
I truly don't mean to be patronizing, this may be a topic of which you are already familiar, but I will say, a great deal has been written about the manner in which neoliberal economics have co-opted "sustainability" to suit their needs. This construction has been so thoroughly propagated in the public discourse as to be uncritically accepted by the "masses." I would argue that "sustainability" as such, is almost entirely devoid of meaning, it's an empty shell of phrase that be reconstituted to fit every situation. Barbara Harris-White writes, “sustainable capitalism is a fiction.” Sustainability has never been given a testable definition… it has been watered down to ‘resources sustainably available in the environment’ and even leached into mere ‘growth.'” I think the term can and should be reclaimed and reoriented towards radical environmental justice, but to utilize it in an unexamined manner is to do a disservice to the discourse in my
I invite you to take a look at the resources I have posted on the discussion page. There's certainly a great deal that I would like to say, but as you requested in our conversation last week I will do my best not to dominate the conversation. I want to introduce the concept of "paradigms" and explore how ideological/rhetorical frames can influence our attitudes perceptions and behaviors. I will draw the tri-polar "spectrum of environmental ideologies;" Ecocentrism ----- Ethnocentrism ----- Technocentrism(Cornucopian), and include key words/phrases/frames associated with each as well as the show the major schools of environmental thought. I plan to pull from Julia Corbett's, Communicating Nature, to highlight "nature" …show more content…
I want to introduce my peers to Global North/South disparities (and their roots to colonialism/neoliberalism) and demonstrate how those who will experience the most significant and immediate effects of climate change are also those who have contributed least to the sources of the underlying problems. The costs will not be borne evenly and I think it's important to examine both our collective complicity with regards to the current situation as well as the questions this raises for collective …show more content…
I truly don't mean to be patronizing, this may be a topic of which you are already familiar, but I will say, a great deal has been written about the manner in which neoliberal economics have co-opted "sustainability" to suit their needs. This construction has been so thoroughly propagated in the public discourse as to be uncritically accepted by the "masses." I would argue that "sustainability" as such, is almost entirely devoid of meaning, it's an empty shell of phrase that be reconstituted to fit every situation. Barbara Harris-White writes, “sustainable capitalism is a fiction.” Sustainability has never been given a testable definition… it has been watered down to ‘resources sustainably available in the environment’ and even leached into mere ‘growth.'” I think the term can and should be reclaimed and reoriented towards radical environmental justice, but to utilize it in an unexamined manner is to do a disservice to the discourse in my