Common topics and commonplaces help develop arguments and shape understanding. When used in argumentation, they may help interested parties more effectively communicate valuable information. The purpose of this edited collection on topics of environmental rhetoric is to fill gaps in scholarship related to specific, targeted, topical communication tactics. The chapters in this collection address four overarching areas of common topics in technical communication and environmental rhetoric: framing, place, risk and uncertainty, and sustainability. In addressing these issues, this collection offers insights for students and scholars of rhetoric, as well as for environmental communication practitioners looking for a more nuanced understanding of how topic-driven rhetoric shapes attitudes, beliefs, and decision-making.

This book considers the nature, causes, and consequences of extreme pro- and anti-sustainability rhetoric, exploring how and why the expressions of radical views on sustainability-related themes may prevent real sustainable development. Following a thorough introduction on sustainability rhetoric, on dialogue, and on the role played by ideologies in the building of environmental beliefs, Fracarolli Nunes and Lee Park examine positions and statements expressed or made by individuals, companies, governments, and NGOs in the last decades. The outcomes of these considerations lead to the classification of expressions in different categories of sustainability rhetoric, laying the groundwork for the development of a ‘sustainability spectrum’: a metric for the level of radicalization of sustainability positions, which ranges from apocalyptic views to ultimate denial. Through the combination of historical perspectives, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual developments, this book provides a foundation for a more informed and productive dialogue between radically opposing views on sustainability issues. This volume will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners researching and working in the areas of environmental communication and media, environmental politics, and sustainable development.

In this volume, rhetoricians, literacy scholars, and humanists have come together to examine the complex discursive constructions of sustainability. Touching on topics including conservation efforts in specific locales; social and political constructions of rhetorical place and space; community literacy; historical and archival analysis of institutional politics, policies, and practices concerning the environment and economic growth and development; town planning and zoning issues; and rhetorics of environmental remediation and sustainability, this collection of essays provides rhetoricians and environmentalists a window into the complex and often contradictory arena of discourse on sustainability.

Understanding how rhetoric, and environmental rhetoric in particular, informs and is informed by local and global ecologies contributes to our conversations about sustainability and resilience — the preservation and conservation of the earth and the future of human society. This book explores some of the complex relationships, collaborations, compromises, and contradictions between human endeavor and situated discourses, identities and landscapes, social justice and natural resources, movement and geographies, unpacking and grappling with the complexities of rhetoric of presence. Making a significant contribution to exploring the complex discursive constructions of environmental rhetorics and place-based rhetorics, this collection considers discourses, actions, and adaptations concerning environmental regulations and development, sustainability, exploitation, and conservation of energy resources. Essays visit arguments on cultural values, social justice, environmental advocacy, and identity as political constructions of rhetorical place and space. Rural and urban case studies contribute to discussions of the ethics and identities of environment, and the rhetorics of environmental cartography and glocalization. Contributors represent a range of specialization across a variety of scholarly research in such fields as communication studies, rhetorical theory, social/cultural geography, technical/professional communication, cartography, anthropology, linguistics, comparative literature/ecocriticism, literacy studies, digital rhetoric/media studies, and discourse analysis. Thus, this book goes beyond the assumption that rhetorics are situated, and challenges us to consider not only how and why they are situated, but what we mean when we theorize notions of situated, place-based rhetorics.

This Handbook approaches sustainable development in higher education from an integrated perspective, addressing the dearth of publications on the subject. It offers a unique overview of what universities around the world are doing to implement sustainable development (i.e. via curriculum innovation, research, activities, or practical projects) and how their efforts relate to education for sustainable development at the university level. The Handbook gathers a wealth of information, ideas, best practices and lessons learned in the context of executing concrete projects, and assesses methodological approaches to integrating the topic of sustainable development in university curricula. Lastly, it documents and disseminates the veritable treasure trove of practical experience currently available on sustainability in higher education.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Story and Sustainability explores the role of story in planning theory and practice, with the goal of creating U.S. cities able to balance competing claims for economic growth, environmental health, and social justice. In the book, urban practitioners and scholars from fields as diverse as American studies, English, geography, history, planning, and criminal justice reflect critically on the traditional exclusionary power of storytelling and on its potential to facilitate the transformations of imagination, theory, and practice necessary to create sustainable, democratic American cities. The book begins with an editors' introduction identifying story, sustainable U.S. cities, and democracy as the three key themes. Part I advances and refines these concepts, connects them to contemporary U.S. urban planning, and provides tools that can be used when reading and interpreting the texts in part II. Part II exemplifies, amplifies, and modifies the key themes and arguments through the presentation of eight texts: theoretical and experiential, academic and nonacademic, expository and narrative, and familiar and unfamiliar. The combined focus on story and urban sustainability makes this book a unique contribution to planning literature.

This project is a critical, rhetorical study of the digital text we call the Internet, in particular the style and figurative surface of its many pages as well as the conceptual, design patterns structuring the content of those same pages. Handa argues that as our lives become increasingly digital, we must consider rhetoric applicable to more than just printed text or to images. Digital analysis demands our acknowledgement of digital fusion, a true merging of analytic skills in many media and dimensions. CDs, DVDs, and an Internet increasingly capable of streaming audio and video prove that literacy today means more than it used to, namely the ability to understand information, however presented. Handa considers pedagogy, professional writing, hypertext theory, rhetorical studies, and composition studies, moving analysis beyond merely "using" the web towards "thinking" rhetorically about its construction and its impact on culture. This book shows how analyzing the web rhetorically helps us to understand the inescapable fact that culture is reflected through all media fused within the parameters of digital technology.

Water Communication aims at setting a first general outlook at what communication on water means, who communicates and on what topics. Through different examples and based on different research and contributions, this book presents an original first overview of “water communication”. It sets its academic value as one distinct scientific domain and provides tips and practical tools to professionals. The book contributes to avoid mixing messages, targets and discourses when setting communication related to water issues. The book facilitates coordination within the water sector and its organizations as water is a wide field of applications where inadequate words and language understanding between its stakeholders is one of the main obstacles today. Water Communication provides and describes: a general outlook and retrospective of the history of the water sector in terms of communication the landscape of organizations communicating on water and classification of topics the differences between communication, information, mediation, raising awareness examples of communication campaigns on water Water Communication is a vital resource for communication managers, utility managers, policy makers involved in water management and students in water sciences and environment. Colour figures from the book are available to view on the WaterWiki at: http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/WaterCommunicationAnalysisofStrategiesandCampaignsfromtheWaterSector Editor: Celine Herve-Bazin, Celsa - Sorbonne University, Paris, France