Read the latest research from our department
Under the guide of science: how the US Forest Service deployed settler colonial and racist logics to advance an unsubstantiated fire suppression agenda
Kirsten Vinyeta, ENVS PhD Student
Over the last century, the United States Forest Service (USFS) has reversed its stance on the ecological role of fire – from a militant enforcer of forest fire suppression to supporting prescribed fire as a management tool. Meanwhile, the Karuk Tribe has always prioritized cultural burning as a vital spiritual and ecological practice, one that has been actively suppressed by the USFS. This article examines the discursive evolution of USFS fire science through the critical lens of settler colonial theory. A content analysis of agency discourse reveals how the USFS deployed anti-Indigenous rhetoric to justify its own unsubstantiated forest management agenda. USFS leadership racialized light burning by deridingly referring to it as ‘Piute Forestry.’ The agency has also discredited, downplayed, and erased Indigenous peoples and knowledges in ways that invoke tropes of the ‘Indian savage,’ the ‘Vanishing Indian,’ and the concept of ‘Terra Nullius.’ It wasn’t until the 1960s – in the context of the Civil Rights and American Indian Movement – that the USFS began contemplating the value of prescribed fire. This research illustrates the complicated relationship between the settler state and Western science, as well as the malleability of scientific discourse in the face of changing social contexts.
Read the published research in the Environmental Sociology journal.
Reducing the web's carbon footprint: Does improved electrical efficiency reduce webserver electricity use?
Ronald Mitchell, Professor, Political Science and Environmental Studies and Richard York, Professor, Sociology and Environmental Studies
Webservers are major consumers of electricity and, therefore, offer important opportunities for energy conservation. Server electrical efficiency has increased dramatically in recent years, suggesting that technological innovation can curtail electricity consumption. We investigate how much recent gains in server efficiency have translated into lower electricity use. We show that electricity reductions typically equal only one-quarter to one-third of a given improvement in electrical efficiency, suggesting a conservation-offsetting “rebound” that reduces the gains we might otherwise realize from improved webserver efficiency.
Read the published research in ScienceDirect.
Fostering relationships between elementary students and the more-than-human world using movement and stillness
Sarah Riggs Stapleton, Professor, Education and Environmental Studies and Kathryn Lynch, Professor, Environmental Studies and Co-Director of Environmental Leadership Program
In this ethnographic study, we sought to understand the process of relationship-building between children and the more-than-human world. The project studied in this paper was designed on the premise that children need repeated, scaffolded interactions to build relationships with the more-than-human beings in their community. The project entailed bringing students to a local arboretum for outdoor science education three times each year, all six years of students’ K-5th grade elementary career. We found that stillness is important because it provides space and opportunity to notice and see the more-than-human world. In other words, stillness ushers in meaningful ways to interact with the more-than-human.
Read the published research in the Journal of Environmental Education.
Literature and the Environment: Critical and Primary Sources
Stephanie LeMenager, Professor, English and Environmental Studies
Stephanie LeMenager is the co-editor with Teresa Shewry of this anthology of 100 influential critical essays and literary works that contribute to the field of the environmental humanities: Literature and Environment: Critical and Primary Sources (Bloomsbury). The anthology includes five introductory essays (one for each volume, plus a general introduction) co-written by LeMenager and Shewry, each of which offers insight into this dynamic, interdisciplinary field.
Read the published research in Bloomsbury.
Four Lessons on Land, Space, and Resistance
Erin Moore, Professor, Architecture and Environmental Studies
Moore offers four perspectives on the spatiality of fossil fuel pipeline resistance: In pinch points of protest in the linear space of pipeline construction, in the temporal symmetry of healing pasts and futures, in the material inseparability of human, fuel, and water, and in the construction of domestic structures to demonstrate land as home.
Read the published research in Survivance, a project of e-flux Architecture and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Magnitude and Distribution of the Untapped Solar Space-Heating Resource in U.S. Climates
Alexandra Rempel, Professor, Environmental Studies
Space heating is the single greatest source of building-related greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialized world, giving urgency to the development of carbon-free heating. Direct solar heating is a promising, low-cost approach, but the amount of solar radiation useful for heating during cold weather has not previously been evaluated at large scales. To understand this quantity, we integrated datasets characterizing solar radiation on tilted surfaces, outdoor temperatures, and heating energy use across U.S. climates, finding that solar heating resources are much greater than previously realized: the untapped U.S. solar heating potential is comparable to one-third of the national residential space-heating need, showing that extensive reductions in space-heating emissions are possible with adoption of contemporary direct solar heating methods.
Read the published research in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review.
Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change
Emily Scott, Professor, Art History and Environmental Studies
International in scope, this volume brings together forty leading and emerging voices working at the intersection of contemporary art, visual culture, activism, and climate change, asking among other questions: why and how does art matter with regard to a world increasingly shaped by climate breakdown? Foregrounding a decolonial and climate-justice-based approach, it joins efforts within the environmental humanities in seeking to widen considerations of climate change as it intersects with social, political, and cultural realms while, simultaneously, it expands the nascent branches of ecocritical art history and visual culture.
Read the published research at Taylor & Francis.
The Effects of Enhanced Information Utilization in Collaborative Hazard Mitigation Planning
Richard Margerum, Professor, School of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM) and Environmental Studies
Natural hazard mitigation plans should be developed collaboratively using the best available data to reduce risks. Data enhancement efforts had limited effect because of mismatched perceptions of risk, difficulties with data translation, lack of integration, and limited engagement. Practitioners need to articulate specific outcomes connected to emotion, social norms, and peer attitudes. Data and analysis should be part of an interactive process to promote shared understanding.
Read the forthcoming published research in the Journal of the American Planning Association.
Hogs and hazelnuts: solutions to conserve oaks in the agricultural matrix
Lauren Hallett, Professor, Biology and Environmental Studies
Hazelnut production is a booming industry in the Willamette Valley. A moth called the filbertworm is a primary pest in hazelnuts, and pressure from this pest is compounded by the fact that the moth can be hosted by Oregon white oaks. Oregon white oaks are of conservation concern, and remand oaks are often embedded in hazelnut farms. Here we worked with a local organic hazelnut farm, My Brothers’ Farm, to develop and test a pig grazing scheme to remove filbertworm-infested acorns from oak stands adjoining the farm's orchards. Our approach successfully reduced pest-pressure and creating a “win-win-win” strategy for conservation and agriculture.
Read the published research in Agroforestry Systems.
Towards An Indigenous Environmental Sociology
Kari Norgaard, Professor, Sociology and Environmental Studies
Indigenous perspectives on society, nature, state power, health, justice and more hold the potential to powerfully reframe conversations integral to environmental sociology. Indigenous perspectives on environmental justice expand understanding of the origins of the environmental and environmental justice movements, whether the state is conceived as a potential ally or explicit foe, and especially the desired goals and outcomes of social action. This article highlights Indigenous contributions to environmental sociology, showing how scholars and voices from Indigenous communities point to a deep reframing of prevailing notions of health, relationships across species and “the other worlds that are possible” beyond either capitalism or colonialism.
Read the published research in the Handbook of Environmental Sociology.