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Earth Day Resources!

April 22, 2021 2016 Conference, 2017 Conference, 2018 Conference, AESS News Bulletins, AESS Voices, Branded Books Series

Happy Earth Day from the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences! This Earth Day, AESS wanted to share these great resources for educators and students to use.

Books:

  • American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
    • Edited by Bill McKibben
    • “As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, writer and activist Bill McKibben offers this unprecedented, provocative, and timely anthology, gathering the best and most significant American environmental writing from the last two centuries.”
  • A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
    • By Bill Bryson
    • “A 1998 autobiographical book by travel writer Bill Bryson, describing his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend “Stephen Katz”. The book is written in a humorous style, interspersed with more serious discussions of matters relating to the trail’s history, and the surrounding sociology, ecology, trees, plants, animals and people.”
  • Arctic Dreams
    • By Barry Lopez
    • “This bestselling, groundbreaking exploration of the Far North is a classic of natural history, anthropology, and travel writing.”
  • Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
    • By Michael Braungart and William McDonough
    • “In nature, the “waste” of one system becomes food for another. Everything can be designed to be disassembled and safely returned to the soil as biological nutrients, or re-utilized as high-quality materials for new products as technical nutrients without contamination.”
  • Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality
    • By Robert D. Bullard
    • “Starting with the premise that all Americans have a basic right to live in a healthy environment, Dumping in Dixie chronicles the efforts of five African American communities, empowered by the civil rights movement, to link environmentalism with issues of social justice.”
  • Lessons in Environmental Justice
    • Edited by Michael Mascarenas
    • “Lessons in Environmental Justice provides an entry point to the field by bringing together the works of individuals who are creating a new and vibrant wave of environmental justice scholarship. methodology, and activism. The 18 essays in this collection explore a wide range of controversies and debates, from the U.S. and other societies.”
  • Silent Spring
    • By Rachel Carson
    • “Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.”
  • Small Wonder
    • By Barbara Kingsolver
    • “Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author’s belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth’s remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places.”
  • The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century
    • By Alex Prud’homme
    • “Alex Prud’homme’s remarkable work of investigative journalism shows how freshwater is the pressing global issue of the twenty-first century.”
  • The World Without Us
    • By Alan Weisman
    • “The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared.”

Film and Television:

Podcasts:

Websites and Apps:

  • Endangered Species Conservation Site 
    • “The goal of The Endangered Species Conservation Site is to help inform people about the importance of protecting endangered plant and animal species, profile success stories of species recovery, emphasize the critical role of the Endangered Species Act, and highlight the individual actions that we can take.”
    • Website: www.esconservsite.org
  • Endangered Species Database
    • “Search by species, state, or county in this database maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service .”
    • Website: www.fws.gov/endangered/
  • iNaturalist (app)
    • “Every observation can contribute to biodiversity science, from the rarest butterfly to the most common backyard weed. We share your findings with scientific data repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to help scientists find and use your data. All you have to do is observe.” 
    • Website: https://www.inaturalist.org/
  • SHARE Greater Lynchburg 
    • “SHARE Greater Lynchburg is a community engagement conduit offering simple ways for neighbors, nonprofits, and businesses to come together and strengthen our local community.” 
    • Website: sharegreaterlynchburg.org/

Other Opportunities:

 

Thank you to the AESS members who contributed to this list and the Randolph College Lipscomb Library for sharing their collaborative list of recommended resources!

 

Other Sources:

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Celebrating BIPOC and Women’s History Through the Recognition of Up-And-Coming Environmentalists

March 19, 2021 Environmentally Speaking

Today, environmentalism is being featured in the media more than ever and we see many accomplished people who have gone to great lengths to contribute to the environmental movement. Recognizing these people is important and they deserve to be celebrated, but there is another group that sometimes goes overlooked: the younger, up-and-coming environmentalists who are in the early stages of changing the world. In recognition of Women’s History Month, this post will feature a few women environmentalists who are just beginning to make their mark on environmentalism.

Source: https://www.gen-green.org/team/audre%27ana-ellis

Audre’ana Ellis is a senior at Howard University in Washington DC, she is majoring in Environmental Studies and minoring in Political Science. During her time at Howard University, Ellis has found a passion for representing people of color in the environmental movement. She has completed an internship with Howard University’s Office of Sustainability, served as the Sustainability Department Policy Advisor for Howard University’s student government, studied abroad in Jaipur, India, and co-founded the Howard University Student Sustainability Council alongside Destiny Hodges and Travis Flowers to bridge the gap between students and administration while advocating for sustainability on campus. Ellis is currently a Curriculum and Project Specialist at Generation Green, a youth-led organization of Black environmentalists that addresses Black social justice issues. After graduation, Ellis wants to work as an Environmental Justice Advocate and obtain a Juris Doctor degree. She plans to use her knowledge of sustainable development and social change to fight for environmental justice and represent marginalized communities that are impacted the greatest by environmental hazards.

Source: https://fortune.com/40-under-40/2020/isra-hirsi/

Isra Hirsi is a high school student in Minneapolis, Minnesota that has been advocating for the environment since her freshman year after joining her school environmental club. Hirsi is the daughter of congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the US Youth Climate Strike, which led hundreds of strikes across the country in 2019 for climate justice, and former Development Director for a Gravel Institute think tank. Hirsi has often told crowds that “Climate change is the fight of [her] generation, and it needs to be addressed urgently.” This is because she knows what impacts climate change can have on people and has seen how people in other parts of our world are suffering – especially people like her family in Somalia experiencing rising temperatures and drought. Her dreams to change the world and diversify the environmental movement are what drive her to strike and speak out as an environmental justice organizer, progressive political consultant, Black Lives Matter activist, and a leader of other young voices who otherwise not have the opportunity to be heard.

Source: https://browngirlgreen.org/

Kristy Drutman is a 2017 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and a climate activist who is passionate about her work that integrates media, diversity, and environmentalism. While studying at UC Berkeley, she helped to create the Students of Color Environmental Collective to encourage diversity in the environmental movement on campus. Her interests include environmental storytelling and organizing which she uses in her current positions of Assistant Lecturer at UC Berkeley, Marketing Content Coordinator at Mayfield Renewables, and Content Producer for her own podcast Brown Girl Green. In this podcast and her associated social media accounts, she is able to strategize new approaches to and advocate for environmental education. She hopes to use her platform as a bridge for traditionally left-out communities to reach the current environmental narrative. In Brown Girl Green, Drutman interviews environmental leaders and promotes diversity and inclusion, especially in the workplace. As a proud Filipina American, she would like to see more people of color involved in the environmental field and hopes to influence what a 21st-century environmentalist looks like. Drutman believes that art, mindfulness, and relationship building are at the center of successful sustainable activism and stresses the importance of self-care in the environmental movement as well.

 

AESS will be continuing to recognize young environmentalists and telling the stories of how they are working to save the planet.

 

If you or someone you know may be interested in being featured in a blog post like this one, reach out to us by email.

 

June 27: Title edited to use appropriate acronym for racial, ethnic, cultural and political groups. Thank you Tess (comments) for sharing this style guide resource.

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JESS Issue Release

December 3, 2016 AESS News Bulletins, JESS

Announcing the December 2016 issue of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

Below are a few of the articles you will find in this issue:

Goodsite, M. E., Bertelsen, R. G., Cassotta Pertoldi-Bianchi, S., Ren, J., van der Watt, L.-M., & Johannsson, H. (2016). The role of science diplomacy: a historical development and international legal framework of arctic research stations under conditions of climate change, post-cold war geopolitics and globalization/power transition. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6(4), 645-661. doi:10.1007/s13412-015-0329-6 

The lead essay identifies and assesses the science diplomatic role of Arctic research stations. It explores three questions on the science diplomacy role and international legal framework of research stations in an Arctic characterized by transformation driven by climate change, post-Cold War geopolitics and globalization/ power transition. Arctic research stations play the role of diplomatic “intermediaries” bridging science, geopolitics and globalization. At least in the case of the USA, the primary motivation for establishing research stations in the Arctic has shifted from military security purposes (especially surveillance) to stations having broader mandates, related to environmental security, with climate change as a main driver. From an international law perspective, there is a need to have a stronger regulation on the interconnection between science and law clarifying the role of research stations to ensure that research stations are used effectively for peaceful purposes. The role of stations in the Arctic can become a constructive example to address issues of the nexus between climate change, science diplomacy, geopolitics, law and globalization that is shaping the future of the Arctic in the coming years. Stations have, in many cases, and will continue to reinforce international cooperation and collaboration through international research initiatives and programs. Results of the 2016 US election and the actual current geo-political environment underscore their relevance and the importance of continue to explore the three questions and other issues around the role of science diplomacy.

Bratman, E., Brunette, K., Shelly, D. C., & Nicholson, S. (2016). Justice is the goal: divestment as climate change resistance. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6(4), 677-690. doi:10.1007/s13412-016-0377-6

This article explores campus fossil fuel divestment as a movement that politically engages resistance to the actions, forces, and structures that are producing climate change. Through re-politicizing sustainability, the divestment movement creates new challenges to traditional power structures and offers new modes and frameworks for environmental action. The case study in this paper explores the Fossil Free American University campaign and deploys an auto-ethnographic approach to understand specific elements including the place of climate justice, radical perspectives, and inside-outside strategies informed the campaign. We argue that the campus fossil fuel divestment movement holds potential to change the university’s expressed values from complicity with fossil fuel economies toward an emergent paradigm of climate justice. As a form of ecological resistance, the campus divestment movement approaches the political economy of fossil fuel exploitation as the foundation for shifting the paradigm of climate change discourse and action.

Linquiti, P., & Cogswell, N. (2016). The Carbon Ask: effects of climate policy on the value of fossil fuel resources and the implications for technological innovation. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 6(4), 662-676. doi:10.1007/s13412-016-0397-2 

Linquiti and Cogswell compute the Carbon Ask – the reduction in wealth that will be experienced by the global fossil fuel enterprise as the result of policies to limit global warming – at $185 trillion. The fossil fuel enterprise is not just big multinational oil and gas companies, but also includes the governments, investors, firms, and workers who explore for, produce, transport, distribute, and sell oil, natural gas, and coal. Common sense suggests that when the holders of $185 trillion in wealth are asked to surrender it for the greater good of the planet, they will have powerful incentives to resist a strong climate policy. To the extent they also hold political power, they may be able to impede progress. Accordingly, they speculate that if climate advocates continue to push tough carbon policies, then the political fights in America’s coal country are probably a harbinger of things to come in all fossil fuel industries. Transitional assistance to workers, communities, and possibly even firms, could not only improve the welfare of those entities on the receiving end of the Carbon Ask, it might also temper political opposition to climate policy.

PETER J. JACQUES, PH.D.
Professor of Political Science
University of Central Florida
MANAGING EXECUTIVE EDITOR,
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND SCIENCES
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2017 Theme, Environment, Wellness,, Community

AESS 2017 Conference Theme

October 19, 2016 2017 Conference, AESS News Bulletins

2017 Conference Theme Announced

AESS is pleased to announce the theme for our 9th annual conference:

2017 Theme, Environment, Wellness, Community

AESS 2017 Conference Theme

 

And with this announcement, a challenge from AESS president David Hassenzahl:

Soon, the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) will issue a call for proposals for the June 21 – 24 AESS Conference in Tucson. Our theme this year is Environment, Wellness, and Community. I encourage all of you to begin conversations around this theme before we get to Tucson, and continue those conversations afterwards.

Interdisciplinarity is a foundational AESS principle, but is not a goal per se. Rather, working across disciplines is what we must do when important questions cannot be answered by a single discipline. But to effectively address “environment, wellness, and community,” even working across disciplines is likely to be inadequate and unsatisfying. At AESS 2017 I look forward to presentations, papers, posters, panels, and performances that explore how AESS can engage AND BE ENGAGED BY communities whose wellbeing is impacted by environmental conditions.

I challenge AESS to explore how we can broaden our conception of environmental wellbeing by considering:

  • Who poses questions and establishes research agendas?
  • Who provides, synthesizes, and shares information?
  • Who generates and evaluates solutions?
  • Do our answers to the three questions above represent a just approach to environment, wellness, and community?

Please engage in this exploration through the AESS listserve, at the AESSonline.org site, and at our Facebook page by suggesting topics, seeking collaborators, and extending (or counterchallenging) my list.

I also welcome suggestions for keynotes and plenary sessions, and as always welcome AESS volunteers! dhassenzahl@aessonline.org

Calls for proposals will come out in the fall. If you would like to receive updates about this conference, please sign up for email updates below.

NOTE: AESS Members will receive updates to their account email, as long as they have opted in to receive correspondence from us. All conference details will be shared with the listserv members, too.

[email-subscribers namefield=”YES” desc=”AESS 2017 Conference Updates” group=”AESS Conference”]

Conference sponsorship opportunities will be available for both groups and individual donors. Look for a future announcement with details.

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The Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) is an independent faculty-and-student-based professional association in higher education, designed to serve the needs of environmental scholars and scientists who value interdisciplinary approaches to research, teaching, and problem-solving.

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