Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere

Phaedra C. Pezzullo is Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, and a dual citizen with the US and Italia. Her interdisciplinary background informs her research on environmental justice, climate justice, just transition, public advocacy, and tourist studies. Her book, Toxic Tourism (University of Alabama Press, 2007), won four awards, including the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award and the National Communication Association’s Environmental Communication Division Book Award. Among other publications, she coedited Green Communication and China (Michigan State University Press, 2020) and Environmental Justice and Environmentalism (MIT Press, 2007). She was a founding editor of the journal Environmental Communication and serves on its editorial board. She has volunteered on the Sierra Club’s national Environmental Justice Committee and Affinity Group Working Group, consulted with cities and counties on a just transition, and was a delegate at COP21 in Paris. Pezzullo is a founding co-director of the Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change (C3BC) on her campus. She also enjoys outdoor recreation and cooking a plant-based diet.Robert Cox is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His principal research areas are environmental and climate change communication and strategic studies of social movements. A internationally-recognized leading scholar who helped found the field of environmental communication, Cox is coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication (2015; second edition forthcoming), editor of the four-volume reference series Environmental Communication (Sage, 2016), and the author of numerous studies of environmental and climate change campaigns. He has served three times (1994-1996; 2000-2001; 2007-2008) as president of the Sierra Club, the largest grassroots U.S. environmental organization, and was also on the board of directors for Earth Echo International, whose mission is “to empower youth to take action that restores and protects our water planet.” Cox also continues to advise environmental groups on their communication programs. He regularly participates in environmental and climate change initiatives and has campaigned with former vice president Al Gore, singer Melissa Etheridge, and other public figures. He also enjoys hiking and trekking in the Himalayas, Europe, and the southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States.

• Preface to the Sixth EditionIntroduction: Speaking for/About the EnvironmentAbout the AuthorsPart I: Communicating for/About the EnvironmentChapter 1: Defining Environmental CommunicationStudying Environmental CommunicationCommunication, the Environment, and the Public SphereDiverse Environmental Voices in the Public SphereSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 2: Contested Meanings: A Brief HistoryTurtle IslandLearning to Love NatureWilderness Preservation Versus Natural Resource ConservationPublic Health and the Ecology MovementEnvironmental Justice: Linking Social Justice and Public HealthContemporary Movements for Sustainability and Climate JusticeSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 3: Symbolic Constructions of the EnvironmentA Rhetorical PerspectiveDominant and Critical DiscoursesSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 4: Environmental Media and SustainabilityThe Environment and Popular CultureSustainability: An Interdisciplinary ApproachSustainability DiscoursesCorporate Sustainability Communication: Reflection or Deflection?GreenwashingSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsPart II: Environmental Campaigns and MovementsChapter 5: Environmental Advocacy CampaignsEnvironmental AdvocacyEnvironmental Advocacy CampaignsThe Campaign to Protect Zuni Salt LakeSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 6: Digital Environmental OrganizingGrassroots Activism and Digital MediaEnvironmental NGOs and Digital Campaign DilemmasMultimodality and Networked CampaignsSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 7: Visual and Market AdvocacyVisual Rhetoric and Nature AdvocacyMoving Images of DisastersSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 8: Environmental Justice and Climate Justice MovementsEnvironmental Justice: Challenges, Critiques, and ChangeHonoring Frontline Knowledge and Traveling on Toxic ToursThe Global Movement for Climate JusticeSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsPart III: Environmental Discourses and Public SpheresChapter 9: Environmental JournalismEnvironmental Journalism in the Public SphereBreaking News and Environmental JournalismMedia Effects and InfluencesDigital Storytelling and Environmental NewsSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 10: Science and Climate CommunicationScientific ArgumentationEarly Warners: Environmental Scientists and the PublicResisting (Climate) ScienceCommunicating Climate ScienceSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 11: Public Health and Environmental Risk CommunicationDangerous Environments: Assessment in a Risk SocietyCommunicating Environmental Risks in the Public SphereThe Precautionary PrincipleCitizens Becoming ScientistsVoices of Environmental RiskSummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsPart IV: Green Governance and Legal SpheresChapter 12: Public Participation and Democratic RightsRights of Public ParticipationRight to Know: Transparency and Access to InformationRight to Comment: InvolvementSLAPP: Strategic Litigation Against Public ParticipationGrowth of Public Participation InternationallySummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsChapter 13: Voice and Public DissentRight of Expression and Right of AssemblyRight of Standing: Who Legally Can Speak?Landmark Cases on Environmental StandingReversing, Slowing, or Reducing Global Warming as InjuryWho Should Have a Right of Standing?SummarySuggested ResourcesKey TermsDiscussion QuestionsEpilogue: Imagining Stories of/for Our FutureGlossaryReferencesIndex