RCC Perspectives

To read the RCC Perspectives issue “Beyond Doom and Gloom. An Exploration through Letters” please click on the image and the issue will open in a new tab.

Cover of the Perspectives issue Beyond Doom and Gloom

Contents

Introduction

Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration through Letters

“Doom and gloom” has become the de facto cultural construct not only for environmental communication but for the environmental science it seeks to communicate. We are interested in engaging in deep conversation about what it means to shift beyond “doom and gloom,” and to create movement toward more hopeful, solutions-oriented environmental narratives.

Elin Kelsey

About the authors

Kelsey, Elin

Royal Roads University, Canada

My work intersects conservation biology, environmental communications, and creative non-fiction. I focus on the prevalence of “doom and gloom” environmental narratives; the hopelessness, shame and other emotional issues that arise from them; and their impact on conservation scientists, environmental communicators, children, and the broader quest for public engagement with environmental issues.

I am particularly interested in the capacity for community and ecological resilience that emerges through social networks—human, and other-than-human. While human social networks crowd-source humanitarian responses to crises, fungal networks that trees use to communicate, support faster recovery of forests following disasters. Elephants with stronger social networks have higher breeding successes. Social networks between humpback whales drive humpback population recoveries in the north Pacific, even as the marine environments in which they live grow noisier and more impacted by pollution, shipping and overfishing. For a richer exploration of these themes, please watch this video of a lunchtime colloquium I delivered at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

Recognition of the emotional impact of fear-based environmental narratives, and their implications for engagement with conservation, biodiversity and sustainability initiatives is gathering momentum in both academic and popular contexts. In May 2014, Elin Kelsey built upon the interest in hope generated through the RCC walking colloquium, by co-hosting a 48-hour workshop in London, England with a small group of conservation biologists, young journalists, environmentalists and designers. Together, they launched an #OceanOptimism twitter hashtag and encouraged others to share hopeful, marine conservation successes. On World Oceans Day (8 June 2014) the tweets came in thick and fast, going viral to reach over 30 million users in its first year. More than 58 million users were using the #OceanOptimism by the time this virtual exhibit opened in March 2016. See more at www.elinkelseyandcompany.com.

Browse the exhibition

Letter from Rachel Shindelar to Tim Jackson

A chapter of the virtual exhibition “Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration through Letters,” this letter discusses sustainability without growth in relation to a hopeful view on possible outcomes of climate change. The exhibition is curated by environmental educator Elin Kelsey.

Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration through Letters

“Doom and gloom” has become the de facto cultural construct not only for environmental communication but for the environmental science it seeks to communicate. We are interested in engaging in deep conversation about what it means to shift beyond “doom and gloom,” and to create movement toward more hopeful, solutions-oriented environmental narratives.

Elin Kelsey

About the authors

Kelsey, Elin

Royal Roads University, Canada

My work intersects conservation biology, environmental communications, and creative non-fiction. I focus on the prevalence of “doom and gloom” environmental narratives; the hopelessness, shame and other emotional issues that arise from them; and their impact on conservation scientists, environmental communicators, children, and the broader quest for public engagement with environmental issues.

I am particularly interested in the capacity for community and ecological resilience that emerges through social networks—human, and other-than-human. While human social networks crowd-source humanitarian responses to crises, fungal networks that trees use to communicate, support faster recovery of forests following disasters. Elephants with stronger social networks have higher breeding successes. Social networks between humpback whales drive humpback population recoveries in the north Pacific, even as the marine environments in which they live grow noisier and more impacted by pollution, shipping and overfishing. For a richer exploration of these themes, please watch this video of a lunchtime colloquium I delivered at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

Recognition of the emotional impact of fear-based environmental narratives, and their implications for engagement with conservation, biodiversity and sustainability initiatives is gathering momentum in both academic and popular contexts. In May 2014, Elin Kelsey built upon the interest in hope generated through the RCC walking colloquium, by co-hosting a 48-hour workshop in London, England with a small group of conservation biologists, young journalists, environmentalists and designers. Together, they launched an #OceanOptimism twitter hashtag and encouraged others to share hopeful, marine conservation successes. On World Oceans Day (8 June 2014) the tweets came in thick and fast, going viral to reach over 30 million users in its first year. More than 58 million users were using the #OceanOptimism by the time this virtual exhibit opened in March 2016. See more at www.elinkelseyandcompany.com.

Browse the exhibition

Wild Earth 13, no. 1

Wild Earth 13, no. 1, features essays that present contrasting views on mountain biking in the wilderness, the Clovis culture and origins of ecological awareness, as well as the National Wilderness Preservation System and wilderness abuse.

Read more about Wild Earth 13, no. 1

Wild Earth 9, no. 1

Wild Earth 9, no. 1 features essays on wilderness and spirituality. They center around two slogans: “Rewilding Ourselves” and “Rewilding the Land.”

Read more about Wild Earth 9, no. 1

The Great Fire of 1910

A massive wildfire, commonly referred to as the Big Blowup, ravished 3 million acres of woods and burned down everything in its path. In response to the devastation the US Forest Service changed their fire management strategies and policies.

Tags:

Themes:

Environmental Knowledge

Environmental Politics

Regions:

Shaped by the Imagination: Myths of Water, Women, and Purity

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Perspectives Issue 2012/2

Our notions of water are closely linked to the female body and to discourses of objectification and control. It is this critical interlacing of ideas about gender, purity, and power that makes water intensely political.

Sierra Club Photography and the Exclusive Property of Vision

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Perspectives Issue 2013/1

Under the direction of David Brower, the Sierra Club issued photographic books, cards, and calendars featuring charismatic images of nature in a state of pristine grandeur or untrammeled intimacy to expand its membership and promote its environmentalism.

Imagining Indians and Revisiting Reclamation Debates

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Perspectives Issue 2013/1

This article examines how activists on both sides of the debate about the construction of dams along the Colorado River used images of Native Americans to argue their position.

Advertising the Environmental Movement: Vickers and Benson’s Branding of Pollution Probe

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Perspectives Issue 2013/1

An advertising campaign by Vickers and Benson helped the Canadian environmental organization Pollution Probe brand itself during the early years of its existence.

Eco-Images and Environmental Activism: A Sociosemiotic Analysis

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Perspectives Issue 2013/1

This essay will focus on the use of eco-images in unconventional visual environmental campaigns.