A journalist asked me to say something about the use of animal mascots for commercial purposes. In an email, she wrote: “What does a brand owe an animal mascot, especially one at risk? For instance, polar bears face rapid habitat loss, yet Coke has only donated $2 million to the WWF for conservation efforts. There’s also Kellogg’s […]
Archive for the ‘Eco-culture’ Category
The semio-ethics of Coke’s polar bear mascots
Posted in Eco-culture, Media ecology, Visual culture, tagged animals, branding, brands, Coca-cola, environmental communication, mascots, polar bears, WWF on October 16, 2014 | 2 Comments »
Climate movement
Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, Politics, tagged Bill McKibben, ClimateJustice, Naomi Klein, People's Climate March, UN Climate Summit on September 22, 2014 | 7 Comments »
As I write, Bill McKibben is being interviewed left and right, Tom Ashbrook is interviewing Naomi Klein and pushing her to outline a vision that isn’t capitalism-as-we-know-it, Time magazine is saying this could be the largest march of its kind — which raises the question of what kind it is — and the People’s Climate March is […]
Busy being born…
Posted in Eco-culture, Politics, tagged ClimateJustice, ecopolitics on September 17, 2014 | 1 Comment »
When humans look back on our time from the next era, they might see this weekend’s People’s Climate March as a key event in the movement that led to the next era. The alternative is a little scarier: it’s that there will be no next era, or at least no humans looking back from it. […]
Under Western Skies 3
Posted in Academe, Eco-culture, tagged Bruno Latour, conferences, environmental studies, Under Western Skies on August 27, 2014 | 2 Comments »
The preliminary program is up for the third Under Western Skies conference, “Intersections of Environments, Technologies, Communities,” which will be held in a couple of weeks at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. And it looks fantastic. I think the biennial UWS gatherings are becoming one of the leading interdisciplinary forums for environmental thinking, critique, and […]
Art & ecology at AESS
Posted in Eco-culture, tagged AESS, eco-art, two cultures on June 13, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
Two quick observations about art and ecology at Welcome to the Anthropocene: 1) I’m impressed with how well art has been integrated into the program, thanks in part to Jennifer Joy‘s work in weaving her own performances with a troupe of local artists and dancers throughout the events. (And how none of it is the cloying kind […]
NYC: Arts & Humanities on the Anthropocene
Posted in Anthropocene, Eco-culture, tagged AESS, Anthropocene, eco-arts, environmental humanities on June 10, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
This week’s AESS conference “Welcome to the Anthropocene” features a breakfast roundtable called “The Arts and Humanities Respond to the Anthropocene.” See the session description below. Unfortunately the panelists have been dropping like flies: it looks like neither dancer and performance artist Jennifer Monson, eco-artist Jackie Brookner, nor performer and comedian Jennifer Joy can make it. That […]
Anthropocene aesthetics
Posted in Anthropocene, Eco-culture, Visual culture, tagged aesthetics, Anthropocene, coral reefs on April 10, 2014 | 1 Comment »
Cross-posting this piece by Emil from A(s)cene. Taylor’s coral reef art is beautiful. See also the discussion of Donna Haraway’s “String Figures” lecture and Bruno Latour’s 11 theses on capitalism.
SCMS Media & Environment group
Posted in Cinema, Eco-culture, Media ecology, Uncategorized, tagged film, media on March 23, 2014 | 1 Comment »
The Media and Environment Scholarly Interest Group just won the prize for best attended business meeting at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Or so we were informed by the SCMS interest group liaison present at the meeting. This year’s SCMS featured what to my mind was by far the largest assemblage of panels and papers […]
Still warming
Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, tagged weather on February 23, 2014 | 1 Comment »
For all the complaints many of us in the U.S. heard or voiced about the cold, this past January was the fourth warmest on record, and the 38th consecutive January and 347th consecutive month (almost 29 years) that global temperatures have been above the average for the 20th century. More here and here.
Climate denial’s “dark money” smoke machine
Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, Politics, Science & society, tagged climate denialism, global warming on February 3, 2014 | 1 Comment »
Since I was traveling at the time, I failed to note an interesting story that got covered in the science press about the organizational support and funding behind the climate denial movement. As reported in articles in Scientific American, The Guardian, and elsewhere, a recent peer-reviewed study published in Climatic Science by sociologist Robert Brulle […]
Some mean temperatures…
Posted in Climate change, Eco-culture, tagged climate denialism, Donald Trump, global warming, weather on January 29, 2014 | Leave a Comment »
Not that readers of this blog need to be reminded of this, but some of our friends might (if you have friends like Donald Trump)… Generalizing about global climate change from a cold snap is like predicting who will win the world series based on a single ball or strike in pre-season. The two things […]
Ecomedia on YouTube
Posted in Eco-culture, Media ecology, tagged ecomedia, videos, YouTube on January 17, 2014 | 1 Comment »
Reposted from e2mc: evolving ecological media cultures: I’ve begun a YouTube playlist entitled “Ecomedia,” where I’ll be sharing ecologically relevant PSAs, eco-art videos, and other works relevant to the broad and loose category encompassed by its title. Access it here. Feel free to “like” it, subscribe to it, and send suggestions to me about videos that should be […]