Environmental Studies Commons^™

Intensive Archeological Survey For The Proposed East Williamson County Events Center Access Road (Bill Pickett Trail), Williamson County, Texas, Chris Dayton

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

In December 2015, a pedestrian archeological survey was completed in order to inventory and evaluate any archeological resources on public and private land for 1.2 miles of proposed new-location roadway between Chandler Road and Northpark Boulevard in Taylor, Williamson County, Texas. The project is associated with the development of the East Williamson County Events Center (EWCEC), currently under construction near the south end of the project. The road will be owned and funded by Williamson County, rendering it subject to the Antiquities Code of Texas. No federal nexus is known.

The archeological area of potential effects (APE) consists of the …

Cultural Resources Surveys Conducted During February 2016 Central Eagle Ford Zone De Witt, Gonzales, Karnes, Lavaca, And Wilson Counties, Phil Schoch, Reign Clark, Ron Ralph

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

During February 2016, Goshawk Environmental Consulting, Inc. (Goshawk) conducted one cultural resources survey within the Eagle Ford Play, Central Eagle Ford Zone at the request of EOG Resources, Inc. (EOG). The project subjected to cultural resources investigation was the proposed Denali Unit #101H Access Road right-of-way (ROW). The Area of Potential Effect (APE) for the project was a 75-foot (23-meter [m]) wide ROW, consisting of a 50-foot (15-m) wide permanent easement and a 25-foot (8-m) wide temporary construction easement. The investigation was conducted by Goshawk archeologist Phil Schoch with Bear Aspra. Phil Schoch served as primary author and Reign Clark …

Cultural Resources Investigations For The Proposed Espada Road Widening Project City Of San Antonio Bexar County, Texas, Michael Smith, Melanie Nichols, Brandy Harris, Kelley Russell

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Between February 2014 and October 2015, Atkins North America, Inc. (Atkins), conducted cultural resources investigations for the City of San Antonio’s (COSA’s) proposed Espada Road Widening Project. The project area extends from Southeast Interstate Loop 410 to approximately 137 meters (450 feet) west of the intersection of East Ashley Road and Espada Road, a distance of approximately 1.6 kilometers (1.0 mile), comprising 7.99 acres (3.2 hectares). The project area was subjected to an intensive pedestrian survey, which was supplemented by mechanical trenching. In total, 27 shovel tests and 9 backhoe trenches were placed in locations across the Area of Potential …

Enmu La3324-25313 3d Puzzle, Robert Z. Selden Jr.

CRHR: Archaeology

Three-dimensional (3D) model of a Clovis point (ENMU LA3324-25313) from Blackwater Draw NHS, curated at Eastern New Mexico University.

Spatial Variation In Characterized Buried Soils And Legacy Sediments Of The Northeast Usa, Anna Marshall

Environmental Studies Honors Papers

The role of historical mill dams in transforming river systems, especially throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic Piedmont regions of the United States has recently emerged as a topic of debate amongst the scientific community. In both physiographic provinces, large postsettlement alluvium “legacy” deposits originating from colonial-era deforestation, agriculture, and ongoing hillslope land-use disturbances characterize the floodplains. Furthering land-use impacts, water-powered milling from the late 17th to early 20th century was historically intensive throughout Southeastern New England and Pennsylvania, aiding in the floodplain storage of legacy deposits behind mill dams. These geologically recent legacy sediments overlay comparatively organic-rich, pre-colonial buried …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 9, Spring 2016

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

Avoiding Extinction, Graciela Chichilnisky

The Chautauqua Journal

No abstract provided.

Corporate Environmentalism: How Green Is It Actually?, Emma Rotner

Environmental Studies Honors Papers

Beginning in the 1980s, corporations began participating in voluntary environmental initiatives; this phenomenon has come to be known as corporate environmentalism. As corporate environmentalism has evolved, more and more corporations are beginning to participate and are making voluntary environmental initiatives, working with third-party certifiers, and are partnering with environmental NGOs to improve their environmental performances. For my honors thesis, I analyzed the effect the corporate environmentalism is having on corporations’ impacts on the environment and on the environmental movement. I also investigated different methods of corporate accountability, including environmental NGOs, third-party certifiers or certification schemes, and consumers. Using corporate Global …

Environmental Nonprofit Advocacy Guide, Diana Truncali

Capstone Projects 2015-Present

By reviewing existing literature and interviewing nonprofit and government professionals, I have created a nonprofit strategic advocacy guide for environmental organizations at the local and regional level.

The Greening Of Faith: God, The Environment, And The Good Life (20th Anniversary Edition), John E. Carroll, Paul Brockelman, Mary Westfall

University of New Hampshire Press: Open Access Books

The recent release of Pope Francis’s much-discussed encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, has reinforced environmental issues as also moral and spiritual issues. This anthology, twenty years ahead of the encyclical but very much in line with its agenda, offers essays by fifteen philosophers, theologians, and environmentalists who argue for a response to ecology that recognizes the tools of science but includes a more spiritual approach—one with a more humanistic, holistic view based on inherent reverence toward the natural world. Writers whose orientations range from Buddhism to evangelical Christianity to Catholicism to Native American …

"Discursion And Excursion:" Poetry Of Bodies, Place, And Landscape In The Ecocritical Movement, Haley N. Littleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis project focuses on the current literary field of Ecocriticism, its historical transmutations, and the correlation of the pastoral genre, as one begins to understand current human understandings of "nature." By applying a deeper understanding of the Deep Ecology movement, along with shifting understandings of the human and the non-human, specifically in our usage and attention to landscape and wilderness, I hope to explore the role that the aesthetic, and the function of the poem, can play a crucial role in the environmental movement. By building a foundational understanding of our cultural context and critical theories of Environmental criticism, …

Beyond Baby Steps An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Environmental Justice Executive Order 12898, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman, Gunwant Gill, Miriam Jovanovic

Publications and Research

This study evaluated the impact of Executive Order (EO) 12898 to advance environmental justice. We conducted a review evaluating the frequency and effective use of EO 12898 since execution with particular focus following President Obama’s Plan EJ 2014. We found that both EO 12898 and Plan EJ 2104 had little, if any, impact on federal regulatory decision making. To the extent federal agencies discussed EO 12898, most did so in boilerplate rhetoric that satisfied compliance but was devoid of detailed thought or analysis. In the 21st year, with the exception of the Environmental Protection Agency, very little federal regulatory activity …

Drilling For Common Ground: How Public Opinion Tracks Experts In The Debate Over Federal Regulation Of Shale Oil & Gas Extraction, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

Public interest in environmental and health impacts from shale oil and gas extraction (what the public calls “fracking”) is growing. Industry claims the public outcry against the new technology is not grounded in science. In February 2013, Resources for the Future (“RFF”) published a list of high priority “risk pathways” that experts from NGOs, academia, government, and industry all agreed were real concerns about fracking. This article used the risk matrix to evaluate whether public comments in dockets of federal agencies that proposed regulation concerning hydraulic fracturing tracked expert concern. The article found that the public tracked many of the …

Oil & Gas Drilling In National Parks, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

While a great deal of public attention addresses the Halliburton loophole of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and Bureau of Land Management efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public lands, less attention has been paid to the National Park Service “9B Regulations,” which provide a national regulatory framework governing the exercise of nonfederal oil and gas rights in national parks. This article begins with a review of law pertaining to oil and gas drilling in national parks. The article examines the tension in striking a balance between environmental protection, conservation of national lands and achieving energy independence, including National …

Essays On Farmer Willingness To Participate In Best Management Practices In The Kentucky River Watershed, Hua Zhong

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation explores the adoption of Best Management Practices (BMPs) in the Kentucky River watershed. Through a survey of farmers in the Kentucky River watershed, chapter two investigates farmers’ current BMP adoption and their willingness to engage in additional adoption incentivized through a proposed Water Quality Trading (WQT) program. This chapter includes two parts: the first part is to investigate the factors influencing farmers’ current usage of BMPs; the second part is to estimate farmers’ willingness to implement BMPs given different levels of compensation specified in the survey. Farmers’ experiences about BMPs are more likely to persuade them to adopt …

The Developmental Effect Of State Alcohol Prohibitions At The Turn Of The 20th Century, Mary F. Evans, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick, Ashwin Patel

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

We examine the quasi-randomization of alcohol consumption created by state-level alcohol prohibition laws passed in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century. Using a large dataset of World War II enlistees, we exploit the differential timing of these laws to examine their effects on adult educational attainment, obesity, and height. We find statistically significant effects for education and obesity that do not appear to be the result of pre-existing trends. Our findings add to the growing body of economic studies that examine the long-run impacts of in utero and childhood environmental conditions.

Digital Refuse: Canadian Garbage, Commercial Content Moderation And The Global Circulation Of Social Media’S Waste, Sarah T. Roberts

Media Studies Publications

The story of a rogue Canadian garbage barge attempting to offload illegal garbage in the Philippines opens this article on techno-trash, in order to underline both the relationships between countries of the Global North with countries of the Global South in matters of waste, as well as to reframe discussions of techno-trash as one fundamentally tied to material things. The definition of techno-trash is then expanded, to cover digital detritus created through an entirely digital set of practices I term “Commercial Content Moderation.” The attempt to offload mounds of e-waste and the similar ways in which a great deal of …

Turning On The Lights: Transcending Energy Poverty Through The Power Of Women Entrepreneurs, Leslie C. Gray, Alaina Boyle, Victoria Yu

Miller Center Fellowship

Solar lanterns offer affordable, high-quality lighting in developing countries. A number of organizations, including social enterprises, make solar lanterns available to rural households as an alternative to candles or kerosene lamps. One of the most successful of these organizations is Solar Sister.

Solar Sister, a social enterprise operating in Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria, is dedicated to eradicating energy poverty through the economic empowerment of women. In addition to economically empowering its women entrepreneurs, the business model of Solar Sister also cultivates sales networks built on trust in last-mile distribution methods.

While Solar Sister has previously conducted research regarding its many …

The Upper Peninsula As It Was: What The Europeans Encountered, Robert Archibald

Upper Country: A Journal of the Lake Superior Region

This essay establishes a baseline for measuring environmental change caused by the influx of Europeans beginning in the seventeenth century. In it the author describes the natural forces including volcanism, sedimentation, geologic metamorphism, and glaciation as natural forces that shaped the landscape of the Upper Peninsula and created deposits of minerals. He uses survey notes, travel accounts and journals to describe flora and fauna prior to large-scale commercial exploitation

Energy And Economy: Recognizing High-Energy Modernity As A Historical Period, Thomas Love, Cindy Isenhour

Faculty Publications

This introduction to Economic Anthropology’s special issue on “Energy and Economy” argues that we might find inspiration for a much more engaged and public anthropology in an unlikely place—19th century evolutionist thought. In addition to studying the particularities of energy transitions, which anthropology does so well, a more engaged anthropology might also broaden its temporal horizons to consider the nature of the future “stage” into which humanity is hurtling in an era of resource depletion and climate change. Net energy (EROEI), or the energy “surplus” on which we build and maintain our complex societal arrangements, is a key tool …