Recollecting the “prodotti vegetali” of the Natural History Museum, University of Florence

Barthold analyzes the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to illustrate how city networks are powerful actors in the global dissemination of eco-modernization strategies aimed at decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.

Creating Safety, Courting Disaster on the Lower Shinano River, Japan

by Philip C. Brown

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Arcadia, Autumn 2017, no. 26

Read more about Creating Safety, Courting Disaster on the Lower Shinano River, Japan

“The Most Beautiful Valley in Japan”: Kamikōchi, the Japan Alps, and National Parks in Japan

by Tom Jones

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Arcadia, Summer 2016, no. 8

Read more about “The Most Beautiful Valley in Japan”: Kamikōchi, the Japan Alps, and National Parks in Japan

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 author

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 author

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.

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RCC Perspectives

Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration through Letters

About the author

Browse the exhibition

Letter from Rachel Shindelar to Tim Jackson

Beyond Doom and Gloom: An Exploration through Letters

About the author

Browse the exhibition