Environmental Advocacy: From Interest to

Recognition, prevention and resolution of environmental problems depends on effective environmental advocacy, but what constitutes effective collective action? Advocates typically argue that they represent the collective interests of the general public and underrepresented groups, and use a variety of tactics to express themselves over a range of scale.  Government regulation and environmental science also often rely upon the product of advocacy to different degrees. How much has advocacy influenced environmental policy and political and civic engagement? This class examines the role of advocacy and science inside and outside the US environmental policy-making process, and addresses different approaches to environmental advocacy from the local to the global. Using both historical and contemporary sources, the course investigates how different groups experience the natural and built worlds, the interplay of citizens and science, the treatment of science by advocates and the media, and the role of advocates of various types in legislative, administrative and judicial decision making. It also takes a comparative approach of how other political systems (e.g. China) experience and responds to environmental advocacy. Along the way, we will explore connections between environmental change and social inequality, the rise of modern environmental politics, environmentalism and nationalism, and differing visions for the future of nature.