Environmental Activism

This case teaches activists how to respond when they get SLAPPed. It introduced a defense mechanism to prevent lawsuits launched by big corporations to silence criticisms. North American lawyers commonly refer to these lawsuits as ‘strategic litigation (or lawsuits) against public participation (SLAPP). Two scholars from the United States of America (US) coined this acronym.2 And, in 2021, for the first time in South Africa, a court recognized the SLAPP phenomenon and accepted a defense against this kind of lawsuits.

When big corporations SLAPP activists and journalists, and their lawyers, judges should not slap back those corporations by accepting anti-SLAPP pleas. They could resolve defamation claims more effectively by both assessing the reasonableness of those claims and by applying the existing rules on abuse of process.

This article draws upon my doctoral fieldwork conducted between 2019 and 2021 among scuba trash divers in Stockholm, Sweden. The article provides an overview of developments in waste management in Stockholm, explaining how water has turned from a dump for waste to a resource. We will dive with the divers into these cold and dark Nordic waters, following their quest to clean the waters and educate the larger public about the issue of growing amounts of underwater waste. The divers use the underwater waste from the past, as also from current times, as a ‘moral punctuation’ (Ahmann 2018), stressing the urgent need to engage with the waste that has accumulated over time. The outreach by the divers is largely done via social media, where
images are used to tell a story about those issues which normally remain invisible. Furthermore, I will emphasise the importance of engaging the field sensuously to understand the conditions during trash dives.

Analyse Die Proteste in Shifang und Qidong lassen sich in einen größeren Trend zunehmender Umweltproteste einordnen, der spätestens mit den „Spaziergängen“ in Xiamen im Jahr 2007 bekannt geworden ist. Beide Fälle sind typisch für diese neue Form des Bürgeraktivismus, der die chinesische Regierung vor erhebliche Herausforderungen stellt. Bürgerliche Aktivisten in China bedienen sich unkonventioneller Formen des Protests und greifen auch zur Gewalt. Dahinter steht nicht kleinbürgerlicher Egoismus, sondern eine tiefe Krise des Vertrauens zwischen Bürger und Staat.

Page 1. Cultural Production of Environmental Activism: Two Cases in Southern Taiwan JeffreyHou Ph.D. Candidate Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning ... Armonk, New York: ME Sharpe, Inc. Kondolf, G. Mathias and Jeffrey Hou. 1998. ...

In this article, we present Toxic Bios, a public environmental humanities (EH) project that aims to coproduce, gather, and make visible stories of contamination and resistance. To explain the rationale of the project and its potentialities, first we offer a brief reflection on the field of the EH and its (possible) contribution to environmental justice research, then, we illustrate the guerrilla narrative strategy experimented through the project

This essay documents the ongoing struggles of three such activist groups and tells the stories of the women who have inspired and organized them: the Chipko Andolan (Tree-hugging Movement) in the Himalayan foothills of Northwest India; the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada River Movement) in Central India; and the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.

Despite these risks, some Laotians still dedicate their lives to fight inside the country for rights and freedom of the people and the conservation of the environment. One of most famous among them is a woman named “Muay” or Houayheuang Xayabouly, aged 30. She is a social media influencer—or “net idol” as is the term in Laos and Thailand. Tens of thousands follow her, but, last September she was arrested after posting a video criticizing the government’s delayed response to a flood. Her videos regularly have tens of thousands of views.

El objetivo del presente artículo es proporcionar conocimiento sobre el papel de las emociones en la defensa del medioambiente a través del análisis de dos conflictos socioambientales en dos de las áreas urbanas más grandes de México: la Ciudad de México y la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara. La comparación de dos casos de estudio permite destacar algunos patrones comunes que emergieron del análisis de los datos cualitativos recopilados a través de observación participante, entrevistas en profundidad y grupos focales entre 2015 y 2018. Con base en la literatura sobre movimientos sociales y emociones, se mostrará cómo los apegos al lugar, vinculados con valores biosféricos, al interactuar con los compromisos afectivos y las emociones morales, permiten comprender lo que mueve lo sujetos a defender el medio ambiente. Palabras clave: emociones, conflictos socioambientales, ciudad, valores.

Abstract The aim of this article is to provide knowledge regarding the role of emotions in the defense of the environment through the analysis of two socio-environmental conflicts in two of the largest urban areas in Mexico: Mexico City and the Metropolitan Zone of Guadalajara. The comparison of two case studies allows us to highlight some common patterns that emerged from the analysis of the qualitative data collected through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and focus groups between 2015 and 2018. Based on literature on social movements and emotions, I will show how place attachments, which are linked with biospheric values, when interacting with affective loyalties and moral emotion, allow to undertand what makes people to defend the environment.

Reviewed By K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite, Five Stars
Resist: Goals and Tactics for Changemakers is an extensive work of non-fiction in the field of government, politics, and activism, penned by author Gayle Kimball. Written from a progressive and democratic perspective, this comprehensive guidebook promotes positive change through ten extensive chapters. The format allows the author to produce real solutions to complex problems, often addressing the criticism that democrats have ‘no real plan’ of how to effect change. More than this, the work extends to real examples of powerful activists who are already making the kinds of social changes that the book calls for, as well as ideas on communication, encouraging youth generations into activism and more.

Dr. Gayle Kimball has produced a superb and extensive reference work which gives both hope and education to progressive thinkers and those who want to effect change against the current state of affairs in many countries of the modern world. For those not fully up on their politics, the guide offers a good grounding in global issues and spotting authoritarianism in its many forms, as well as many practical examples of how revolutionary change can and is being achieved worldwide. The Changemakers of the title include those who have historically never been given the chance or choice to make changes, creating inspirational examples, but also realistic plans as to how we as people can become changemakers ourselves. Overall, Resist: Goals and Tactics for Changemakers provides a powerful and effective manifesto and advocacy for the much-needed changes our current society and government systems require.

Two foreign families hold communities as their personal wide labour sink.
They sink whole lakes in heavy toxic pollutants, pay a really shameful pittance not sufficient for an even indecent life, cause death, of people and other living things, are defended by their diplomats. There is No minimal wage, so their 20 euro wages facing up to 14 hours in toxic glasshouses are deemed 40% above average by Fairtrade, brilliant foreign accomplishes of the ecocriminals.
Paradisiac lakes, parks, like our future are being stolen every day.
He who stays silent is an accomplish.

We desperately need, Now, Enviromental Activists.

In this contemporary folk tale, the two-spirit s/hero, Ochumaré the Rainbow Serpent comes to the defense of Water in the fight against the Black Snake. Inspired by the real events of 2016 at the Standing Rock Reservation protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, scholar of U.S. myth and culture, Dr. Kat Williams, imagines the unseen forces at play in these historic events. With original artwork by José Anguiano.

www.thunderbirdbrings3fish/rainbowserpent/

first in the series
NEW MYTHS FOR THE NEW PARADIGM

Every so often, I get asked various versions of the following question: How does it feel to be an environmental activist? They are referring to my environmental activism in which I've participated for the past 24 years, protecting Intag's forests, rivers, and its biodiversity. The answer  varies according to the state of mind I happen to find myself at the moment. It is also surprisingly complex, due to to the many spheres of life affected by my activism.

This chapter develops the concept of heterogeneous political space as an alternative to the exclusively human political sphere which dominates Western political thinking about collective action and justice. The aim is to make evident that capacities for action are constituted in heterogeneous milieus and to argue that insofar as political thought does not register this it is inadequate to thinking justice and flourishing in a world where ecological change renders human and nonhuman modes of life increasingly precarious. Heterogeneous political spaces are constituted by compositions of material, affect and desire which are occluded by humanist and individualist theories of action that theorize collective action at the register of a macro-political order made up of unified rational subjects with clear intentions and commitments. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts of following and assembling enable accounts of a molecular or micro-political register composed of heterogeneous collectivities in processes of composition. In their insistence that human action cannot be separated from the productions of nature, we find that heterogeneity, rather than human plurality, is given as a condition of action. Conceiving of political action in terms of heterogeneity brings into view the processes by which capacities for political action are constituted by nonhuman forces, entities, and elements. It focuses attention on that in virtue of which political action occurs rather than on the intentional aspect of actions which aim to achieve an individualized interest (whether it be the interests of a human individual or individuated group). Heterogeneous political space complexifies our thinking about political action and diffuses the agency of political subjects so as to render our thinking more adequate in several significant regards. It provides a conceptual resource that brings the diverse human-nonhuman entanglements to the fore and thus acknowledges the differing ways that capacities for political action are constituted in different assemblages that are always comprised of nonhumans. This disrupts the liberal, humanist view of politics where nonhumans are excluded from the domain of action and appear only as passive resources to be exploited for human plans and actions. Further, by both challenging the view of the more than human world as passively “standing-reserve”  for the purposes of human agents the concept of heterogeneous political space invites a critical questioning of whether the conception of political space as exclusively human is capable of attending to issues of ecological justice where the well-being of humans and ecosystems is inextricable. In short, when the more than human world is excluded from conceptions of political space neither the needs of nonhumans (plants, animals, ecosystems, waterways) nor the constitution of human capacities in relation with nonhumans (co-habitation, dependence, care) register as politically significant. This, in effect, obscures the ways that different human-nonhuman assemblages increase and diminish capacities for action.

Beauty is the symbol of morality, according to Immanuel Kant. We interpret this to imply that by achieving aesthetic pleasure, humankind can somehow replace the need for ethical satisfaction. We apply this idea to the project of constructing scenic waterways in urban areas, and ask "What purpose is served by organizing debris removal along the channels and banks of polluted urban waterways if they become aesthetically pleasing but remain nearly devoid of life?" A footnote to recent scientific research that measures the effect of woody debris on stream channel processes reveals that woody debris contributes to aquatic habitat. Adding woody debris to a stream can create protected zones and improve fish habitat by increasing pool types and sizes, sediment storage, and local scour We discuss this current research and its implications in the changing contexts of American history and environmental ethics. The systematic removal of natural woody "snags" (for example the spectacular "Great Raft" on the Red River) that helped open the interior of the United States to commerce once fit the prevailing public morality of American Manifest Destiny Today, Americans who can find little ethical satisfaction in the condition of their urban waterways yet strive to make them scenic. We explore the scenic and recreational potentials for "treating" urban streams with the addition of woody debris m order to contribute to aquatic habitat. We also indulge m semantic games and ask why the debris must be woody m order to contribute. This leads to a provocative discussion about wooden pallets, shopping carts, and automobile tires. Perhaps debris removal in urban waterways disrupts and diminishes aquatic habitat, yet results in an aesthetic pleasure that helps make our ethical dissatisfaction with polluted rivers and streams more palatable. If so, the social construction of scenic urban waterways is just an aesthetic movement driven by a political desire for utopia

(David Nemeth's co-author is Dr. Deborah J. Keirsey).

The stereotype many people have about the "save the planet" NGOs is that their members consist of unrea-sonable activists, who rarely question their methods of collecting “true” information, who think their opinion is the one and only divine truth, who never listen to any other argument.  In short, that theirs is the ultimate truth, their methods to achieve their aims are always justified and proper and anyone with a slight difference of opinion, even in the chosen method to achieve the same aim, is suspect and probably a money-thirsty environmental criminal.

Today, one organizational misstep can sink a company’s reputation. Social media can be a strict ethical enforcer, with the power to convince thousands to boycott products and services. Executives are fixated on appeasing shareholders and stakeholders – employees and consumers. They too often stumble with shapeholders—regulators, the media, and social and political activists who have no stake in an organization but significant power to determine a company’s risks and opportunities, if not its survival.
Mark Kennedy reveals insights from his book Shapeholders – Business Success in the Age of Activism on how organizations can engage shapeholders to sidestep conflict, find ways to profitably collaborate, and when necessary to win political skirmishes. Publishers Weekly calls Shapeholders "an easy, well-organized read" that is a "thought-provoking...way to frame the new responsibilities of the business world."

This is a bibliographic resource for U.S. Latino/a, Brazilian, and Latin American Religious and Civic Environmentalism. More resources will be added throughout the year. Materials for a case study in environmental justice on Chicano civil rights activist César Chávez and the National Farm Workers Association are included.

Despite a peak in activism against climate change in the UK, new environmental direct action networks have not yet received much academic attention. Taking perhaps the most prominent of such networks – the Camp for Climate Action – which held several high-profile protest events between 2006 and 2011 as a case study, and using a theoretical framework that understands society as being distinctly ‘post-political’ in character, we ask questions about the knowledge claims that form the foundations of radical environmental politics. Drawing on published statements and press releases, as well as from our insights as active participants in the Camp, we analyse the strategy of environmental protest where climate change has become its focus. The Camp for Climate Action was a contested political arena. We argue that the Camp's strategy was characterised by ‘scientised’, ‘post-political’ politics which operated within an ethical framework that prescribed individual responsibility as the primary basis for action.

In the following essay, I offer and explain the concept of wild public networks as a tool for social movement scholars interested in taking a networked approach to contemporary protests via post-structuralism. Wild public networks offer scholars an alternative means of approaching social movements that moves away from rational/irrational and rational/affect binaries by turning our attention to movement. The concept of wild public networks asks that scholars of social movements consider changes to the movement of (mis)information and how the movement of the social can be witnessed in changes to relationships between actors including citizens, government officials, chemical companies, and the land upon which they live. To explicate this new concept, I turn to contemporary environmental protests in China.

Paganism, like every religion, is a complex mixture of concepts that can be used to either rationalize environmental neglect or encourage ecological harmony. Rather than characterizing Paganism, or any other religion, as “green” or “not green,” we might rather speak about the “greening of religions,” an ongoing, never-to-be-complete process. In this way, we can understand the history of contemporary Paganism as a “greening,” one that is still going on, and A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment, as one small but valuable part of that process.

This is a statement concerning the rationale for a petition to the the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management demanding the cancellation of the next oil lease auction and an end to all future oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This text appears on the "It Is what It Isn't" blog at Changing Suns Press.

The recent uranium and current mining disputes
in Finland are located within the context of the Finnish
environmental protest waves. There were five main such
mobilizations in Finland. The last one of these was the
anti-globalization movement at the end of 1990’s and
beginning of 2000’s. The anti-globalization movement
struggled against global structures, neglecting Finland and
the environment. After its end, the environmental
movement lost its impetus that was followed by years of
latency. The climate change debate buried other
environmental questions and re-emerged nuclear energy.
Uranium exploration re-started at 2005, what raise
opposition. If the anti-globalization movement represented
the "return of politics", the uranium dispute restored the
environment back to Finland as a local question. It
refreshed the environmental movement and opened up
spaces for resistance in the countryside. However, it
ceased rapidly when uranium exploration companies left
Finland due to recession. The activists' attention shifted
towards new mining and development projects.
Environmental problems of the Talvivaara nickel mine
increased opposition. A discussion on corporate social
responsibility began and social scientists started to
investigate mining. The Mining Act was renewed, the
Finnish government is promoting responsible mining and
the industry looks for the best practices and dialogue with
its stakeholders.

... HTML Code: MLA Citation: Wolfe, Dylan. ... APA Citation: Wolfe, DP , 2008-11-20 "A Confusion of Woodys: Soundbytes and Expertise in Celebrity Activism" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the NCA 94th Annual Convention, TBA, San Diego, CA Online <PDF>. ...

This essay discusses how The Meatrix, an animated criticism of factory farming, functions to entice and engage its viewers in productive dissemination. Widely distributed online, The Meatrix is often categorized with other popular new media phenomena as a viral video. This essay ...

Here I analyze expressions of spirituality in radical activism, especially the women's and transgender direct action forest defense movement in the US Pacific Northwest, to explore questions related to ecofeminism, politics, spirituality, and the charge of essentialism. I utilize theoretical ...

This essay attempts to develop the foundations of what Val Plumwood calls a "dialogical ethical ontology." I defend Plumwood's analysis situating the conceptual roots of the environmental crisis in dualistic thinking, but disagree that a solution is arrived at in an intentional, teleological ...