Environmental Studies Commons^™

Eco-Tourism And Sustainable Community Development In Cuba: Bringing Community Back Into Development, Jack Thornburg Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

This paper focuses on community development and its relationship to eco-tourism as a means of creating a sustainable future for local Cuban communities. If communities control local resources to create economic opportunities for local goals, there is a greater chance that community development will be more effective and sustainable. Local empowerment can play a key role in community development through ecological and cultural tourism. The focus of this paper is Cuba’s potential to develop into a major ecological and cultural tourism center within international tourism. Recent policy announcements regarding the intention to diversify Cuba’s economy and move people into private …

Stoler, A.L. Duress: Imperial Durabilities In Our Times, Durham And London: Duke University Press, 2016., Shirin Saeidi Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Brown, R.A. The Chinese And Indian Corporate Economies: A Comparative History Of Their Search For Economic Renaissance And Globalization. London And New York: Routledge, 2017., Katon Lee Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Williams, M.S. Indonesia, Islam, And The International Political Economy: Clash Or Cooperation? London And New York: Routledge, 2017., Michael G. Vann Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Li, Ji-Young. China’S Hegemony: Four Hundred Years Of East Asian Domination. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017., Brian Arendt Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Bell, D.A. The China Model: Political Meritocracy And The Limits Of Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015., Sharon R. Wesocky Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Book review.

Horticulture For Pollinator Conservation, Carter M. Westerhold

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Pollinators worldwide are declining. Consequently, the agricultural and ecological services these insects provide are in danger of being lost. Land use intensification, via urbanization, has greatly influenced this decline in pollinators. Luckily, through targeted horticultural practices, stable populations of pollinators can be sustained within urban areas. The horticultural practices of planting diverse floral resources and managing pollinator habitat in urban areas can sustain these populations. Two studies were conducted with the intent to identify horticultural knowledge gaps that could be reduced to aid in pollinator conservation efforts. First, a study to compare Nebraska native and non-native ornamental plants was conducted. …

Moving Mountains : A Study Examining Long-Term Impacts Of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining On Mortality In The Appalachian Region Using Geographic Information Sciences Techniques., James Howard Kent Pugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last hundred years, the Appalachian region has been dominated by the coal industry. It has also been and currently is one of the unhealthiest regions in the United States. Recent scholarship has examined the relationship between coal mining and health and mortality rates in the Appalachian region. The first study incorporates air quality and pollution data to examine if coal mining counties have higher levels of pollution and if this pollution contributes to mortality disadvantage. In the second study, I construct a population-based coal-exposure measure to better evaluate the relationship between coal mining and health I find that …

Quantity And Quality Limit Detritivore Growth: Mechanisms Revealed By Ecological Stoichiometry And Co-Limitation Theory, Halvor M. Halvorson, Erik Sperfeld, Michelle A. Evans-White

Faculty Publications

Resource quantity and quality are fundamental bottom-up constraints on consumers. Best understood in autotroph-based systems, co-occurrence of these constraints may be common but remains poorly studied in detrital-based systems. Here, we used a laboratory growth experiment to test limitation of the detritivorous caddisfly larvae Pycnopsyche lepida across a concurrent gradient of oak litter quantity (food supply) and quality (phosphorus : carbon [P:C ratios]). Growth increased simultaneously with quantity and quality, indicating co-limitation across the resource gradients. We merged approaches of ecological stoichiometry and co-limitation theory, showing how co-limitation reflected shifts in C and P acquisition throughout homeostatic regulation. Increased growth …

Evaluating Social Network Dynamics Of Bigg’S Killer Whales (Orcinus Orca) And Vessel Traffic Within A Transboundary Region: Implications For Conservation Management, Courtney Smith

Dissertations

The social lives of animals are defined by group dynamics based on the nature and strength of associations and movements between individuals, often resulting in highly complex and interconnected social networks. However, understanding of how environmental variables may shape this structure is poorly understood. Within the inland waters of Washington State and southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, mammal-eating Bigg’s (transient) killer whales occur in relatively small, but stable social groups. Group size and occurrence in recent years has increased, coinciding with a growing whale watching industry. Given the central importance of the social network within killer whale population dynamics, such …

Only The Earth Remains: Exploring The Machine In Selected Lyric Poetry Of Robinson Jeffers, Mark Hutton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Idea in America, Leo Marx “evaluates the uses of the pastoral ideal in the interpretation of American experience” (Marx 4). While Marx explores ways that pastoralism has been impacted by factors such as industrialism, it is the purpose of this project to explore Marx’s assertion regarding the presence of the figurative and literal machine within the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.

Jeffers’ poetry is generally located within the landscapes of California. His lyric poetry has a distinct connection to the land and is driven by inhumanism, which works to shift …

Our Land Is Not Just Soil: Knowing, Feeling, And Doing Environmental Activism In The Arkansas Ozarks, Ramey Arlen Moore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Ozarks is a holey place, an ancient plateau formed from ancient rocks and the sediment of millions of years of living things. The Ozarks is also, from another perspective a place made from a mesh of overlapping lines, lines of migration, lines of living things, lines of water movement over and through the land. This dissertation engages with the practice of conservation and environmentalism as it is performed and lived by Ozarkers and Arkansawyers, natives and transplants. Based on more than a year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, Save the Ozarks, Arkansas Master Naturalists, …

Land Use Dynamics And Implications For Water Management In The Urbanizing Wasatch Range Metropolitan Area Of Utah, Enjie Li

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the USA. Utah’s Wasatch Range Metropolitan Area (WRMA), where 80% of Utah’s population resides, is growing at unprecedented rates and has seen extensive urban landscape transformation in the last half century. Many of Utah’s agricultural lands, grasslands, and wetlands have been transformed into urban areas during this time. Local residents have watched and experienced these changes to their local environment, but without a clear understanding of the processes and impacts of urbanization. It is not until we study these landscapes from a spatial perspective and the time scale of decades that …

Connecting Land Ethics And Entrepreneurship Through Experiential Learning In Bobwhite Centric Outdoor Education Program, Greta M. Bowling, Ashleigh P. Tynes, Kelly S. Reyna

National Quail Symposium Proceedings

The majority of today’s youth have the ability to utilize consumer technology on a regular basis. This access has exacerbated the disconnect between adolescents and the natural environment by reducing the amount of time spent outdoors. To compound this disconnect, the continued use of traditional classroom settings along with the ‘‘sit-and-get’’ style of facilitation, widens the gap between inert knowledge and applied knowledge. The transformation from theory to practice witnessed in outdoor science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education has been shown to foster the assimilation and retention of STEM concepts. Therefore, educational institutions have begun to cultivate the implementation …

"Not Yet The End Of The World": Political Cultures Of Opposition And Creation In The Global Youth Climate Justice Movement, John Foran, Summer Gray, Corrie Grosse

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with two dozen young climate justice activists at the U.N. climate summit COP19 in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2013, this research uses the concepts of “political cultures of opposition and of creation” to analyze the political orientations, discourse, and actions of global climate justice activists attempting to impact the negotiation of a universal climate treaty. Capturing relationships among experience, emotions, ideology, idioms, and organization, the concepts of political cultures of opposition and of creation shed light on the ability of these actors to fashion social movements of their own making. Through an analysis …

Global Garbage Cans: Towards Better Household Hazardous Waste Management In Asia's Developing Countries, Kustini Lim-Wavde, Robert J. Kauffman

Asian Management Insights

Towards better household hazardous waste management in developing countries in Asia.

From Local To Global: The Role Of Interdisciplinary Place-Based Research In Teaching Environmental Economics, Sean P. Macdonald

Publications and Research

This chapter examines the value of student engagement in interdisciplinary place-based research - where the exploration of “place” assumes a central component of students’ semester research projects in an undergraduate Environmental Economics class. It considers the benefits of teaching from an interdisciplinary perspective while employing the resources of the local community as a laboratory where students engage in research linked to place - the local community, urban space or a virtual location - encouraging students to make meaningful connections between the theoretical study of local and global environmental problems and the actual observation and investigation of those challenges in real …

Inklings And Tentacled Things: Grasping At Kinship Through Video Games, Melissa Bianchi

Communication, Media, and Arts Faculty Articles

Connecting Haraway’s recent observations about “making kin” to video games, this essay examines how particular elements of the medium might cultivate nuanced considerations for multispecies relations. To fully grasp how video games broadly redefine relations between human and nonhuman animals, we must consider the role of game aesthetics and play mechanics in players’ experiences of becoming-with. These elements of games fundamentally shape players’ engagements with the medium and are inextricably linked to their storytelling and production. Moreover, game aesthetics and play mechanics (in conjunction with storytelling) demand that players take specific actions and inhabit distinct roles during play, enabling players …

Nature And Nurture: Planner And Architect Mina Amundsen Sees Connections As She Oversees Colby's Growth, Sue Repko

Colby Magazine

Since her childhood in India, Minakshi "Mina" M. Amundsen, assistant vice president for facilities and campus planning, has always been curious about the interconnectedness of the natural world, the built environment, and the humans who navigate both. That fascination with connections has informed her work at Colby in myriad ways.

Uneven Urban Metabolisms: Toward An Integrative (Ex)Urban Political Ecology Of Sustainability In And Around The City, Innisfree Mckinnon, Patrick T. Hurley, Colleen C. Myles, Megan Maccaroni, Trina Filan

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Expanding cities present a sustainability challenge, as the uneven proliferation of hybrid landscape types becomes a major feature of 21^st century urbanization. To fully address this challenge, scholars must consider the broad range of land uses that being produced beyond the urban core and how land use patterns in one location may be tied to patterns in other locations. Diverse threads within political ecology provide useful insights into the dynamics that produce uneven urbanization. Specifically, urban political ecology (UPE) details how economic power influences the development decision-making that proliferate urban forms, patterns of uneven access, and modes of decision-making, …

A Climate Action Plan For Liu Post, Andrew Kay, Samantha Goldwasser, Tyler Huffman

Discovery Day (formerly Post & Beyond)

To continue to advance LIU’s sustainability leadership, LIU needs clear policies

to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Using national planning tools,

we are constructing a greenhouse gas profile for LIU Post and developing a

range of actions that LIU can follow in future years to reduce emissions. A

Climate Action Plan is the best management platform for achieving tangible

results. Our plan calls for a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035. The

plan tracks emissions related to campus vehicles and heating systems,

electric consumption, commuting patterns, and solid waste. To derive our

carbon reduction plan, we will analyze similar …

Urban Foraging: A Ubiquitous Human Practice Overlooked By Urban Planners, Policy, And Research, Charlie M. Shackleton, Patrick T. Hurley, Annika C. Dahlberg, Marla R. Emery, Harini Nagendra

Environment and Sustainability Faculty Publications

Although hardly noticed or formally recognized, urban foraging by humans probably occurs in all urban settings around the world. We draw from research in India, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States to demonstrate the ubiquity and varied nature of urban foraging in different contexts. Across these different contexts, we distill seven themes that characterize and thereby advance thinking about research and the understanding of urban foraging. We show that it is widespread and occurs across a variety of urban spaces and places. The species used and the local practices vary between contexts, and are in constant flux as urban …

Measuring And Disseminating Organizational Leadership Through Impact, Sarah Baumer, Alfredo Karduss

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Our service learning experience as teaching assistants for Professor Brett Crawford’s Foundations of Organizational Leadership course (TLI112) included collaborating with community partners such as the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation, successfully acquiring grant funding as principal investigators, inventorying needs for native plants to replace weeds and invasive species, and disseminating our experiences through various measures of impact. Our efforts fit within a transformation of a large lecture course, moving away from passive learning and toward experiential activities that included 1,340 hours of community service during a single semester. Community service impacts were measured, including links between the Global Reporting Initiatives and …

An Assessment Of Tourism Sustainability In Abaco, Bahamas, Joshua Carroll Ph.D., Melissa Brown

Journal of Tourism Insights

This paper analyzes tourism sustainability within Abaco, Bahamas through the three spheres of sustainability, social, economic, and environmental. The study investigates the perceptions of tourism business operators in order to identify the current conditions of tourism in the Abaco islands, and to identify areas in need of improvement. Ten business operators across the Abacos were asked specific survey questions to determine the circumstances of each sphere of sustainability. Currently in Abaco, both the economic and social spheres seem healthy and functional. The environmental sphere seems to be facing difficulty, however, coupled with limited concern by business owners, …

An Exploratory Examination Of Perceptions Of Impacts To A Coastal Destination: Tourists Versus Locals, Eric Frauman

Journal of Tourism Insights

Do tourists believe they positively or negatively impact the destinations they visit, particularly those that rely on coastal nature and heritage-based environments to attract visitors? How do tourist’s perceptions compare to residents, and what additional insight might this information provide for destination management organizations (e.g., Convention and Visitors Bureau’s) and local government officials? Furthermore, how do residents perceive their own impacts to the communities they live in? As such, this exploratory study, unlike previous studies, compared tourists and residents perceived impacts to a coastal destination. Statistically significant mean differences were found across the social, economic, and environmental condition impact items …

Mobile-Based Sidewalk Inventory App For Smart Communities, Health, And Safety, Madhav Erraguntla, Dursun Delen, Rupesh K. Agrawal, Karthic Madanagopal, Richard Mayer

Suburban Sustainability

As the United States and other nations strive to cope with the obesity epidemic (NCHS, 2015), progressive communities are developing sidewalk infrastructure to promote physical activity and health. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that community-based interventions like neighborhood walk, bike programs etc. have shown to be effective in promoting physical activity and health. Smart cities are embracing the development of community trails and promoting their use to increase physical activity among youth and adults. System implementation, data collection, and analysis were performed from January 2015 through July 2015. To promote these objectives, communities and cities need accurate information …

Researching Peers And Disaster Vulnerable Communities: An Insider Perspective, Stern M. Kita

The Qualitative Report

Conducting research among peers and communities that a researcher also serves may be both daunting and rewarding. Researching peers may make the researcher feel uncomfortable raising certain questions that are sensitive or that could be construed to be testing their competencies. This paper is inclined more towards showing that it is advantageous to be an insider, whose position can facilitate collection of information that could not have been accessed, or revealed to an outsider. The paper reports on fieldwork conducted in a low-income country in Sub-Sahara Africa as part of a doctoral study with communities affected by disasters and those …

Examining Water Quality Along Cozine Creek, Noah Berg, Hayden Cooksy, Gabrielle Esparza, Kyle Huizinga, Peri Muellner, Mehana Sabado-Halpern, Connor Sende

Environmental Studies Student Papers

Water is an essential resource for all life. Water sustains ecological processes that are important to the survival of fish, vegetation, wetlands, and birds. It contributes to humans by providing drinking water, irrigation, and also is an inspiration for recreational, cultural, and spiritual practices. Anthropogenic activities affect water quality in various ways, and a significant portion of the human population is currently experiencing water stress. The quality of water, as well as its social and economic value, share a positive relationship. Therefore, as water quality becomes degraded by pollution, the environmental, social, and economic value also decrease. The recognition of …

Philosophy Bakes No Bread, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Philosophy Bakes No Bread

Far from baking bread, far from practical applicability, philosophy traditionally sought to explain the world, ideally so. Thus, when Marx argued that it was high time philosophy “change the world,” his was a revolutionary challenge. Today, philosophy is an analytic affair and analytic philosophers seek less to explain the world than to squirrel out arguments or, more descriptively, to resolve the minutiae of this or that name problem. Faced with diminishing student demand, analytic philosophers have taken to urging that everyone from primary school students to scientists be required to study (analytic) philosophy. Just so, applied …

Man And Land: Competing Ontologies, Colonial Legacies, And The Quest For Food Sovereignty, Savannah Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Land is an ontological reality, which is at the center of different relationships to land. These relationships are situated in and a product of historical and spatial process that have an under lying power geometry. These different understandings of land tenure can create conflict when they intersect with competing interests in the same space. In Cameroon, this is currently the case in the form of large-scale land acquisitions, which often conflict with local communities as multinational corporations and local elites acquire land concessions with facilitation by the government in the name of development. This paper aims to understand this issue …