Environmental Philosophies & Ethics

EVR 3020

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Session 12: Framing and Re-Framing Environmental Issues

 

Reading Assignments: Wimberley and Pellegrino's Ecopragmatics - Chapters 5 & 6; Pluralism Lost: Sustainability's Unfortunate Fall (Edward Wimberley); Lakoff, George (2010) "Why It Matters How We Frame the Environment," Environmental Communication. Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 70-81.

Video Assignment:Life of a Lumberjack, Northwest Old Growth Forest Campaign; Future Forest Management in the Pacific Northwest; America's Forests; West Coast Logging Legacy; Timber Industry Turmoil; Controversy and Challenges of Conserving the Northern Spotted Owl, USIS Film (1952) "Men of the Forest (Georgia)" Slavery by Another Name"

Homework Assignment:

  1. Explain "satisficing" and how it relates to "bounded rationality" in decision making.
  2. Define "decision frame" and "frame logic."
  3. Explain "goal framing theory."
  4. What is Haidt's contribution to framing?
  5. How would mill owners "frame" their shortage of logs for cutting in their mills?
  6. Similarly, how would timber companies who export logs "frame" their situation?
  7. How would you expect loggers to frame the controversy regarding the shortage of logs to be milled domestically in the Pacific Northwest?
  8. Historically logging in the Deep South expanded after the Civil War using convict leasing and debt peonage in which charges were made on the basis of flimsy or "fabricated" evidence by local law enforcement officials to ensnare principally citizens of African descent into the court systems and then later sold as cheap slave labor to mine, timber, railroad and other private owners where they were abused, tortured and even killed at the discretion of their "owners." The film Slavery by Another Name documents that abuse in the mines. Please view this film and explain how social justice coincides with environmental justice.
  9. In the article Pluralism Lost describe the frame logic employed in the development of FGCU's environmental colloquium.
  10. What is "framing?"
  11. What is the trap of Enlightment reason?
  12. How can framing be misunderstood?
  13. What is "environmental hypocognition" and how does it pertain to discussions of the environment?

     

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