The role of emotions on policy support and environmental advocacy

Research indicated that emotions experienced in relation to the climate crisis are important predictors of environmental attitudes and behaviours. However, the affective milieu is changing rapidly over the years along with the change in societal appraisal. Thus, more research is required to identify the relevant emotional drives and their contextual impact on governance scenarios.Here we presented respondents with three sets of proposed United Kingdom policies which differ by their extent of reformative aspiration. In a cross-sectional online web survey, respondents (n=260) rated their support (or opposition) for the Conservative Government’s manifesto, the Climate and Ecology Bill (CEE Bill) and the Green New Deal.We asked if distinct emotions linked to the emergency predict the type of policy support, if policy support mediates the relationship between emotions and active engagement (i.e., number of advocacy actions), and if the degree of engagement predicts the type of policy support.Using a combination of linear mixed models and mediation analysis, we found that respondents who reported higher levels of anxiety and worry were generally more prone to support environmental policies. Only respondents who reported the greatest intensity of disappointment were more likely to support the CEE bill. The support expressed for the CEE policies mediated the relationship between active engagement and both worry and disappointment, respectively. Finally, greater active engagement accounted for greater CEE bill support.Our findings dovetail with previous literature and provide new insights into the analysis of the complex relationship between emotions, policy support, and environmental advocacy.

Advancing Paulinian Core Values As SPUP’s Response To Climate Change

With the adverse effects of Climate Change in the environment, it is necessary to critically examine attitudes and behaviors relevant to environmental values. Highlighting the incorporation of the Paulinian Core Values, St. Paul University Philippines (SPUP) fostered environmental programs, projects, activities, and partnerships towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on Climate Change. Utilizing the descriptive research design, this study examined the extent of integration of the Paulinian Core Values, namely: Christ-centeredness, Commission, Charity, Charism, and Community in the implementation of SPUP’s Climate Change initiatives. With participants composed of teachers, students, alumni, and members of partner-communities, the results showed that the degree of integration of the Paulinian Core Values in the realization of the University’s Climate Change-related endeavors is gauged to a “Very Great Extent”. Moreover, the findings also demonstrated the ability of SPUP to foster relevant and responsive environmental advocacy in engaging its academic and partner-communities towards the advancement of its Climate Change undertakings. This is reflected in the paradigm on SPUP Environmental Core Values, where the principles of ecological spirituality, environmental integrity, environmental justice, environmental engagement, and environmental stewardship are advanced vis-à-vis the Paulinian Core Values. KEYWORDS: St. Paul University Philippines, Climate Change initiatives, Paulinian Core Values, Environmental advocacy, SPUP Environmental Core Values

A participatory action research on the care for water and life on Earth: a case study of interreligious and intercultural engagements in the time of the pandemic in Thailand

This article presented a report on an ongoing research project that integrates culture, religion and the environment. Dialectically, the Bible guides this study in the same way that this project responded to the water crisis and the environmental realities obtaining in the real world today. The paper problematizes the lack of direct citizen action on the burning issue of caring for water and life on Earth. Specifically, this article presented a case study in Thailand that deals with a community participatory action research that involves environmental advocacy in the classroom at the university level on the one hand and environmental care through a planting project with the local intercultural and interreligious community on the other hand. The pandemic determines the ebb and flow of the progress of the project, including its sustainability.

“Earth Girl Won’t Stand For It!”: Representations of Environmental (In)Justice in Mayah’s Lot

As the global climate crisis escalates, environmental disaster and extreme weather will play a defining role in the lives of many of today’s children, particularly those from impoverished communities and communities of color. However, environmental children’s literature has overwhelmingly failed to educate readers about environmental injustice or equip them with the tools to combat these pressing issues. Rebecca Bratspies and Charlie La Greca’s Mayah’s Lot counters this troubling silence by empowering children to pursue environmental justice. The comic centers on Mayah, a young Black girl who discovers that a corporation plans to transform a vacant lot in her urban neighborhood into a toxic waste storage facility. Mayah joins forces with her neighbors to halt the development, participating in protests, community meetings, and legal action. The comic concludes with the community defeating the corporation and collaborating to turn the lot into public green space. By highlighting the intersections between environmental and racial inequalities, along with showcasing a range of viable community activist strategies, I argue that Mayah’s Lot demonstrates how environmentally-justice oriented comics can empower young readers to participate in environmental advocacy and develop resilience in the face of environmental disruption.

EcoDragons: A Game for Environmental Education and Public Outreach

Environmental education is crucial to tackling the pressing ecological and societal issues on our planet. Although there are various ways to approach environmental education and raise public awareness, games are potentially an effective vehicle of knowledge and engagement because they vulgarize the scientific information in a universal ‘language’ and bring people together. Here, we designed a game, EcoDragons, that integrates principles of ecology, biological conservation, life history, and taxonomy. The protagonists of the game are dragonflies and damselflies. The aim of the game is to colonize habitats with different species and use ecological processes (e.g., predation, competition, and mutualism) and conservation measures (e.g., restoration and reintroduction) to face random environmental disturbances (e.g., climate warming, drought, pollution, and biological invasion). The version of the game presented in this paper was based on European species. The game includes 50 species (25 dragonflies and 25 damselflies). The winner of the game is the one who occupies more habitats, establishes and maintains the largest number of species, and solves more anthropogenic disturbances. EcoDragons has a global outreach potential to educate the public about ecology, conservation, and organismic life history, and will probably engage people in environmental advocacy.

The Comparative Politics of Environmental Justice

Although the terms “environmental justice” and “environmental racism” emerged due to race-based mobilization in the United States, justice is a constant feature of environmental struggles around the world. Pursuing social justice in environmental advocacy can be difficult, but case studies of activism in places including New Zealand, Mexico, Jamaica, Brazil, and the United States show that it is possible. Environmental injustice emerges when populations that are already politically and socioeconomically marginalized disproportionately bear the costs of environmental consumption, and they are often systematically excluded from the benefits of this consumption. Although different political systems vary in how they structure marginalization, this close association of social injustice with environmental injustice characterizes cases like fossil fuel extraction in industrialized countries and agricultural development in the Global South alike. While skeptics have argued that promoting environmentalism is counterproductive to social justice, because environmental regulations often constrain economic growth, combining the two can lead to more sustainable environmental practices.

Indigenous Publicity in American Public Lands Controversies: Environmental Participation in the Fight for Bears Ears National Monument

Environmental decision-making scholars have attended closely to the role of publics and counterpublics in environmental controversies. However, this body of work has undertheorized the ways that Indigeneity may complicate access to or desirability of American publicity as a driving force in environmental advocacy. Inclusion within the American national body both functions as an advocacy tool for Native people and as a colonial discourse that may undermine sovereignty goals. Through a critical rhetorical analysis of documents at the center of the controversy over Bears Ears National Monument, this essay explicates the deployment of American publicity both to support and to undermine Native advocacy for the Monument. Scholars of rhetoric and environmental decision-making must re-orient toward publicity in a way that accounts for settler colonialism and decolonization.