The Nature of Hope

Grassroots Organizing, Environmental Justice, and Political Change

Char Miller, Jeff Crane, Char Miller, Jeff Crane

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781607329077, 9781607328476
• eBook ISBN: 9781607328483
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Nature of Hope focuses on the dynamics of environmental activism at the local level, examining the environmental and political cultures that emerge in the context of conflict. The book considers how ordinary people have coalesced to demand environmental justice and highlights the powerful role of intersectionality in shaping the on-the-ground dynamics of popular protest and social change.
 
Through lively and accessible storytelling, The Nature of Hope reveals unsung and unstinting efforts to protect the physical environment and human health in the face of continuing economic growth and development and the failure of state and federal governments to deal adequately with the resulting degradation of air, water, and soils. In an age of environmental crisis, apathy, and deep-seated cynicism, these efforts suggest the dynamic power of a "politics of hope" to offer compelling models of resistance, regeneration, and resilience. The contributors frame their chapters around the drive for greater democracy and improved human and ecological health and demonstrate that local activism is essential to the preservation of democracy and the protection of the environment. The book also brings to light new styles of leadership and new structures for activist organizations, complicating assumptions about the environmental movement in the United States that have focused on particular leaders, agencies, thematic orientations, and human perceptions of nature.
 
The critical implications that emerge from these stories about ecological activism are crucial to understanding the essential role that protecting the environment plays in sustaining the health of civil society. The Nature of Hope will be crucial reading for scholars interested in environmentalism and the mechanics of social movements and will engage historians, geographers, political scientists, grassroots activists, humanists, and social scientists alike.
 

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate illustrative material.

9to5 Working Women, 247n42

350.org, 17, 20, 22

Abbott, Carl, 87

ACE (Army Corps of Engineers), 89, 90, 110, 117–18n20, 152n14, 321

Action NC, 308

Activist San Diego, 152n21

Adams, John, 291

AEC (Atomic Energy Commission), 159–60, 162–63

African Americans: and environmental racism, 28–33, 104; settlement in North Portland, 83–84, 86, 91–92

agnotology, 200n39

agricultural labor abuse, 205–7. See also workers’ rights advocacy

Alar (daminozide), 190–94, 200n29

Aleman, Hector, 112

Alkon, Alison Hope, 214

Allard, LaDonna Brave Bull, 12, 320, 323, 333

Allen, Bill, 74n20

Allen, Erika, 210

Allen, Will, 209

Altged Gardens Community Farm, 210

Amalgamated Transit Union, 282n59

American Civil Liberties Union (San Diego and Imperial Counties), 152n21

American Friends Service Committee, 152n21, 322

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), 311

Ames, Bruce, 192

Anderson, Anne, 186–87, 188, 190

Andersson, Jenny, 196

Andrews, Richard N. L., 52

Antal, Jim, 21

Appalachian Voices, 308

apples, chemicals in, 190–94

Arana Camarena, Ricardo, 147–48

Archambault II, David, 322

Argüello, Emigdio, 150n7

Argüello, Santiago, 150n7

Arita Hachiro, 136n48

Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), 89, 90, 110, 117–18n20, 152n14, 321

Aspinall, Wayne, 253–54, 269, 281n53

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 159–60, 162–63

atomic testing. See nuclear testing

Audubon Society, 56

Babbitt, Bruce, 68

Backstrom, Henry, 264–65, 279n38

Barber, William, 309

Beatrice Foods, 187–88, 189

Beaver...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Building Agency
• Spatial Dynamics
• Healthy Politics
• Challenging Resources
• About the Authors
• Index